Page:Bolivia (1893; Bureau of the American Republics).djvu/67

Rh less constitute the great sheep-grazing districts of the Republic. Here may be seen the Aymara Indians attending, with silent and assiduous care, their numerous flocks, and, with stones cast from their slings with marvelous precision, guarding them from danger or directing their course as they feed upon the short dry grass of the pampa.

While there is no official census of the domestic and useful animals in the country, the number of sheep pastured on this elevated table-land have been estimated at 7,000,000 or 8,000,000.

Along the borders of Lake Titicaca and in the mountains, are extensive herds of cattle, while in every part of this range of production, are numerous Indian ponies, mules, burros, and llamas, and a very poor grade of hogs. The Indians of western Bolivia are not only a pastoral people, but they are the farmers of Bolivia as well.

Here, their principal crops are potatoes, barley, quinua, cañaqua, and oca. Being masters of the art of irrigation, and understanding equally well the advantages of properly preparing the soil and drilling the seed in order to obtain the best possible results from this system of farming, they secure a yield of field crops upon these inhospitable uplands that would seem incredible to the farmers of our own country.

As a rule, however, it is too cold at this elevation to grow wheat or to mature barley, and therefore the latter, which is grown in great abundance, is fed to stock, both in its green and dry state, as fodder, and is sold in the La Paz and other markets in the same way. As stated by Prof. Alexander Agassiz in his hydrographic sketch of Lake Titicaca, the myriophilum (totora) here grows very luxuriantly, and forms an important article of food for the cattle of the lake shore, where they may be seen half way under water as they feed upon this nutritious and highly useful product of Lake Titicaca. The same authority says:

The fields of totora are also the feeding places of the myriads of aquatic birds which abound along the lake shore, and which are the most characteristic feature of the fauna of the lake.