Page:The Incas of Peru.djvu/52

distant past. The advances made by the Andean people in agriculture and in the domestication of animals must have been proceeding from a very remote period. Maize had been brought to a high state of cultivation, and this must have been the result of careful and systematic labour during many centuries. The cultivation must have been commenced at so remote a time that it is not even certainly known from what wild plant the original maize was derived. The wild potato, however, is known. It is a small tuber, about the size of a filbert, which has scarcely increased in size after a century of careful cultivation. Yet the Andean people, after many centuries of such cultivation, produced excellent potatoes of several kinds, for each of which they had a name. The same may be said of the oca and quinua crops. The agricultural achievements of Andean man are evidence of the vast antiquity of his race in the same region. The domestication of the llama and alpaca furnish additional evidence of this antiquity. There is no wild llama. The huanacu and vicuña are different animals. It must have been centuries before the llama was completely domesticated, carrying burdens, yielding its wool for clothing and its flesh for food. Individuals are of various colours, as is usual with domesticated animals, while the wild huanacus have fleeces of the same colour. The domestication of the alpaca must have taken an equally long period, and called for even greater skill and care. There is no wild