from the Inca language. The same is true of the names
of the coast valleys, and yet, from what we have already learned of
them, we feel sure that they were very far from the degraded savages
Garcillasso would have us believe they were. The inhabitants of each
valley formed a distinct community under its own chief. De Leon says:
"The chief of each valley had a great house, with adobe pillars and
door-ways, hung with matting, built on extensive terraces." This might
have been the official house of the tribe.

They were an industrious people, and the evidence is abundant that they
had made considerable advance in cultivation of the ground. They set
apart every square foot of ground that could be reached by water for
cultivation, and built their dwellings on the hillsides overlooking
their fields and gardens. Their system of irrigation was as perfect
as any that modern science has since adopted.<41> It is an altogether
mistaken idea to suppose the Incas were the authors.

We are not without evidence that they were possessed of considerable
artistic skill. This preceding collection of pottery ware is not the
work of savages. Mr. Markham further tells us that they made "silver and
gold ornaments, mantles, embroidered with gold and silver bezants,
robes of feathers, cotton cloth of fine texture, etc." We have already
referred to the tasteful decorations of the walls of Grand Chimu.
"Figures of colored birds and animals are said to have been painted on
the walls of temples and palaces." At Pachacamac the remains of this
color are still seen on a portion of the walls. This cut represents
the head of a silver cylinder found in one of the coast valleys. The
ornamentation is produced by hammering up from below.

Illustration of Silver Cylinder Head.------------

We must now leave the coast regions and investigate some ruins in the
interior. We have already spoken of the Lake Titicaca region. Not
far from the southern border of that lake we notice a place marked
Tiahuanuco. Here occur a very interesting group of ruins. They consist
of "rows of erect stones, some of them rough, or but rudely shaped by
art, others accurately cut and fitted in walls of admirable workmanship;
long sections of foundations, with piers and portions of stairways;
blocks of stone, with mouldings, cornices, and niches cut with
geometrical precision, vast masses of sandstone, trachyte, and basalt,
but partially hewn, and great monolithic doorways, beari