e well know that what is now a sheet of water was once
the site of a flourishing city.

At another time he visited Tiahuanaco, where may yet be seen the colossal
ruins of some ancient city, and massive figures in stone of men and women.
In his time this was a populous mart, its people rich and proud, given to
revelry, to drunkenness and dances. Little they cared for the words of the
preacher, and they treated him with disdain. Then he turned upon them his
anger, and in an instant the dancers were changed into stone, just as they
stood, and there they remain to this day, as any one can see, perpetual
warnings not to scorn the words of the wise.

On another occasion he was seized by the people who dwelt by the great
lake of Carapaco, and tied hands and feet with stout cords, it being their
intention to put him to a cruel death the next day. But very early in the
morning, just at the time of the dawn, a beautiful youth entered and said,
"Fear not, I have come to call you in the name of the lady who is awaiting
you, that you may go with her to the place of joys." With that he touched
the fetters on Tunapa's limbs, and the ropes snapped asunder, and they
went forth untouched by the guards, who stood around. They descended to
the lake shore, and just as the dawn appeared, Tunapa spread his mantle on
the waves, and he and his companion stepping upon it, as upon a raft, were
wafted rapidly away into the rays of the morning light.

The cautious Pachacuti does not let us into the secret of this mysterious
assignation, either because he did not know or because he would not
disclose the mysteries of his ancestral faith. But I am not so discreet,
and I vehemently suspect that the lady who was awaiting the virtuous
Tunapa, was Chasca, the Dawn Maiden, she of the beautiful hair which
distills the dew, and that the place of joys whither she invited him was
the Mansion of the Sky, into which, daily, the Light-God, at the hour of
the morning twilight, is ushered by the chaste maiden Aurora.

As the anger of Tunapa was dreadful, so his favors were more than regal.
At the close of a day he once reached the town of the chief Apotampo,
otherwise Pacari tampu, which means the House or Lodgings of the Dawn,
where the festivities of a wedding were in progress. The guests, intent
upon the pleasures of the hour, listened with small patience to the words
of the old man, but the chief himself heard them with profound attention
and delight. Theref