The natives in the valleys of the Orinoco and Amazon are forced to cultivate a little ground on the flood-plains, as the forests are thick and impenetrable. They live principally on the fruit of the palm (of which there are five hundred varieties), cocoa and bananas, fish and turtles. There are no roads or paths through the forests except the numerous channels of the rivers, called igarapes or furos. The tribes on the pampas live principally on game and wild cattle. Humboldt tells us that the navigator on the Orinoco sees with surprise at night the palm trees illuminated by large fires. From {8} the trunks of these trees are suspended the habitations of a tribe of Indians, who make their fires on mats hung in the air and filled with moist clay. The same palm tree furnishes also food and wine and clothing, and thus supplies every want and even the luxuries of life. The Indian race as a whole is believed to be superior to both the negro and the Malay, as neither of those races has ever attained to the civilization of the Incas of Peru or of the Indians of Mexico and the Aztecs of Central America. Many of their myths and folk tales are common, not only to the Indians of one part of the country, but also to other tribes in distant parts of the continent, and even to the negroes of Africa, and the Arabs of upper Egypt. All the tribes on the continent have substantially the same habits of life, the same methods of warfare, the same general characteristics, and a language built substantially on the same plan. From these observations it might seem that the Indian tribes of South America were allied to those of Africa or to the Malays, but on further consideration the similarity seems due rather to a like stage of civilization than to identity of race. THE INCAS OF PERU. In crossing from Arequipa in Peru to La Paz in Bolivia, the road ascends the Andes, makes a slight descent into the barren, desolate valley between the Andes and Cordilleras, crosses Lake Titicaca, and then descends to La Paz. Lake Titicaca, the largest lake of South America, is on a plateau between twelve and thirteen thousand feet in height, the most elevated table land on the globe, excepting Thibet. This lake is surrounded by lofty, snow-clad mountains, the highest of which is Illampa, 22,300 feet in height.