The Lama, the Paco or Alpaca, and the Guanaco, are three originally distinct species of animals. (Tschudi, S. 228 and 237.) The Guanaco (Huanacu in the Quichua language) is the largest of the three; and the Alpaca, measured from the ground to the crown of the head, the smallest. The lama is next to the guanaco in stature. Herds of lamas, when they are as numerous as I have seen them in the high plateau between Quito and Riobamba, are a great ornament to the landscape. The Moromoro of Chili appears to be a mere variety of the lama. Vicuñas, Guanacoes, and Alpacas, still live wild at elevations of from 13000 to 16000 feet above the level of the sea. The two latter species are sometimes met with tamed, but the guanaco only rarely. The alpaca does not bear the warmer climate of the lower elevations so well as the lama. Since the introduction of the more useful horses, mules, and asses, (the latter acquire great spirit and beauty within the tropics), the custom of rearing and using the lama and the alpaca as beasts of burden, in the mountains and among the mines, has much decreased. But the wool, of such different qualities in respect to fineness, is still an important article in the industry of the inhabitants of the mountains. In Chili the wild and the tamed guanaco are distinguished by separate names; the wild being called Luan, and the tame Chilihueque. The wide dissemination of the wild guanaco, from the Peruvian Cordilleras to Tierra del Fuego, sometimes in herds of 500, has been favoured by the circumstance that these animals can swim with great ease from island to island, so that the Patagonian fiords offer no obstacle to their wanderings. (See the pleasing descriptions by Darwin in his Journal, 1845, p. 66.) South of the Gila River, which, together with the Rio Colorado, enters the Californian Gulf or Mar de Cortes, stand, in the solitude of the Steppe, the enigmatical ruins of the Aztec Palace, called by the Spaniards las Casas grandes. When the Aztecs, about the year 1160, came from the unknown land of Aztlan to Anahuac, they settled themselves for a time on the banks of the Gila. The Franciscan monks, Garces and Font, are the latest travellers who have visited the Casas grandes, and they did so in 1773. They stated the ruins to extend over above a square German mile (16 English square miles). The whole plain is strewed with fragments of painted pottery. The principal palace, (if a house built of unburnt clay can be so designated), is 447 English feet long and 277 English feet broad. (See a rare work printed in Mexico, and entitled Cronica seráfica y apostólica del Colegio de Propaganda Fide de la Santa Cruz de Querétaro por Fr. Juan Domingo Arricivita).