r. Having got into rather less intricate country, the
captain of our escort told us that from this place forward we must no
longer remain in company, though he had orders from his chief to watch
us till all probability of danger was past.

Accordingly, my father and I, and our new Indian servant, prepared to
proceed alone. We were still several days' journey from Cuzco. We
slept as before at those most wretched of all inns the Indian tambos,
though wherever we stopped we could not help remarking that we were
treated with more than usual kindness and respect, which we suspected
was owing to our being under the special protection of their chief.
That also we were not deserted by our guardians, we had reason to know.
On more than one occasion I had observed one or two figures hovering on
the brow of some hill, or appearing from behind trees, bushes, or rocks.
I perceived once one of them started up close to us. I pointed him out
to our attendant, who had likewise seen him. With a significant look he
answered, "Fear not them--they will not injure us."

We encountered but few travellers, and I do not recollect any other
occurrence worthy of being narrated daring our journey.

CHAPTER FIVE.

CUZCO DESCRIBED--WE ARE MADE PRISONERS--ANXIETY FOR THOSE AT HOME.

"Behold Cuzco!" exclaimed our Indian guide, as, throwing himself from
his horse, he knelt in adoration of the glorious luminary, whose rays
were just then throwing a mantle of gold over the crumbling walls of a
mighty fortress, which protected the holy city of his ancestors, the
capital of the Incas.

We had just reached the brow of an elevated ridge which forms one side
of the fertile and extensive valley in which Cuzco stands, built, like
ancient Rome, on a number of hills or slight rises. To the north of the
city, on the summit of a lofty eminence, appeared the still dark and
frowning fortress of Cyclopean architecture, composed of stones of vast
magnitude. When I afterwards visited it, I was surprised to find the
extraordinary nicety with which, without any cement, they were joined
together; and I cannot tell with what machinery the Peruvians could have
raised blocks so enormous to such heights, or how they could have fitted
them, shaped as they are in so many various forms, with exactness so
remarkable. Had I believed in the existence of giants, I should have
supposed that they alone could have lifted such vast masses into the
positions they hold.