lics, and make up the great bulk of the agricultural and pastoral population of the Lake Titicaca region, the most elevated tableland on the American continent or on the globe, with the single exception of that of Thibet.
The Chuncho race, though limited in numbers, occupies a greater area than either the Quichuas or the Aymaras. These Indians are located chiefly in the interior of the eastern departments of Bolivia, viz, Chuquisaca, Santa Cruz, and Beni. They are also met with in the remote provinces of the departments of La Paz and Cochabamba, but under various local names. The Chunchos for the most part are semicivilized, and, like the Aymaras and Quichuas, are industrious and, except when their savage natures are aroused with alcohol, which they in common with the other two tribes drink to great excess, are gentle and peaceable, though rarely hospitable to strangers.
The origin of these three races has long been an interesting study. Orbigny, the French naturalist, maintains that this portion of South America was peopled by a single race, which he calls by the comprehensive name of Antiperuvian; while Tschudi, on the contrary, maintains that the empire of the Incas was inhabited by three distinct peoples, viz, the Quichuas, Aymaras, and Chunchos. This classification is now generally accepted.
LANGUAGES.
There are numerous languages and local dialects spoken in Bolivia. The language of the white people, is Spanish. There are few, however, who do not speak with almost equal fluency Quichua or Aymara, or both, having acquired these tongues as children from the Quichua and Aymara servants, who are as common to the domestic circles of the Bolivian home as were the colored people of the South to the homes of their masters in the days of slavery. The Indians of the Department of La Paz speak Aymara; those of Chuquisaca, Potosi, Cochabamba, and
