A wooden llama filled with fire-crackers is exploded on Good Friday. By the roadside, an Indian in a grotesque mask, with a feather crown and bells on his arms and legs, leaps in fantastic bounds to celebrate the day of the Holy Cross. A picture of the Virgin is carried about on her Ascension Day. The Indians, dressed in the masks of wild animals and multi-colored feathers with bits of savage embroidery on their loose garments, dance about her to fifes and drum-beats and rattles of beans and snail-shells. Wild dances, horn-blowing, ugly voices screaming, and rattling tin--these heathen orgies swarm at the feet of effigies of Christ. The Indian has to be content with the scanty earnings he can get from the transport of heavy burdens and from the wool of his llamas. By chewing coca he is able to run all day before the rider. His world is the valley where he lives. His occupation does not lead him to the mountain-top above, nor does his thought soar as far. His gloom sulks in his dress and manner of life, even in his songs and dances. When he reaches his little smoky hut, he eats his frozen and pressed potato, plays a wee tune on his _quena_ and goes to sleep. Self-sufficient because in need of nothing, the llama is the interpretation of the Indian. Both are products of the soil, like the _yareta_ moss and the birds which swim in the icy water. The dark-eyed llamas, with red-woolen tassels in their ears, move slowly across the icy plateau. Could anything equal the dignity of a llama, his serenity, his hauteur? Why not? He knows he is indispensable. There is no one to take his place. His wool furnishes clothing, his skin leather, his flesh food, his dung fuel, and he is a beast of burden where no other can live on the bare, breathless heights. In return, he asks no shelter, warm beneath his shaggy coat. He asks no food, for he grazes on the stiff _ychu_ grass as he journeys along. He needs no shoes, no harness, and even provides, himself, the wool for the homespun bags lying upon his back. When there is no water, he carries in bags made of his own skin what is necessary for man. Nor do his benefactions end here. The llama furnished the mystery-loving Spaniards with that strange bezoar stone which, on account of its miraculous endowments, they placed in the list with emeralds, pearls, turquoises, and other precious stones from Peru.