er; but they do not
appear to suffer from the want of it, for they are always in good
healthy condition on leaving the Lomas.

In some parts of northern Peru, where the garuas are scanty, the
fertility of the soil depends wholly on the mountain rains, for in
summer most of the rivers are dried up. When there is a deficiency of
rain, the cattle on the coast suffer greatly. A few years ago a
haciendado, or cultivator, in the vale of Piura, lost 42,000 sheep;
the usual flood, without which the necessary fodder could not be
raised, did not come on at the proper time. At Piura there is such a
total absence of dew, that a sheet of paper left for a whole night
in the open air does not, in the morning, exhibit the smallest trace
of humidity. In central and south Peru the moisture scarcely
penetrates half an inch into the earth.

In the oases the garuas are much heavier than in the adjacent wastes.
Along the whole of the coast there is no rain, and no vegetation
throughout a large circuit. The rain commences first in the north at
Tumbez, and there extensive woods are seen. Towards the east it begins
first in the valleys of the Cordilleras, which abound in vegetation.
These very extraordinary phenomena remain as yet unexplained; they,
however, merit the closest investigation of meteorologists.

I may conclude this chapter by a brief view of the Fauna of the higher
vertebral animals. In the region of the coast I have found twenty-six
species of mammalia, only eight of which belong exclusively to the
coast. Sixteen of the other species are to be found in the mountains or
in the forests. The relation of this number to the whole of the mammalia
of Peru is 1:4, 3. Distributed by single orders, they are in the
following proportions:--Bats, four species, of which only one
(_Vespertilio innoxius_, Gerv.) belongs to this region alone. Beasts of
prey, ten kinds; among them one of the mephitic class, known to the
natives by the name of _zorillo_, or _anash_; an otter (_Lutra
chilensis_, Ben.); a fox (_Canis azarae_, Pr. Max.), which abounds in the
cotton plantations in the neighborhood of Lima and throughout all the
Lomas, where he preys on the lambs; several of the feline race, among
which are the two great American species--the puma and the ounce, which
are seldom seen on the coast, but are considerably larger than those in
the mountains. The American lion is timid, and shuns man. When caught
young he is easily tamed. The Indians of th