Page:The Incas of Peru.djvu/40

22 lake is 12,508 feet above the sea, that of the plateau being, on an average, several hundred feet higher.

The surrounding mountains form a region of frost and snow. The hardy llamas and alpacas live and breed amidst the tufts of coarse grass called ychu, and the graceful vicuñas can endure the rigorous climate at still higher elevations. Besides the grass, there is a lowly shrub called tola, which can be used as firewood. Quinua, belonging to the spinach family, can alone be raised at the higher elevations, yielding a small grain which, by itself, is insufficient to maintain human life.

The plateau itself, called the Collao, is by no means level. It is intersected by ranges of hills of no great height, and in the northern part the lofty rock of Pucara is a marked feature. Very hardy trees of three kinds, though stunted, are a relief to the landscape, and in some sheltered ravines they even form picturesque groves overshadowed by rocky heights. The tree at the highest elevations is called queñua; the two others, with gnarled rough trunks and branches, called ccolli and quisuar (Oliva sylvestre by the Spaniards, from a fancied resemblance of