of the mighty mountains that appeared to pierce the bright blue sky,
appearing to bear out the fabulous belief of the eastern lands, for
their icy summits glowed, and flushed, and sparkled in the rays of the
sun, which gilded every pinnacle and turned each glacier into a river of
gold, seeming to flow slowly downwards towards the vales and plains of
the Andes, as yet flooded with the darkness of the night.

But soon the purple flood of darkness began to give place to golden
light, as, still streaming down, as it were, from the mountain tops, the
sunshine leaped in bright cataracts from point to point, rushing up this
dark gully, that vast fissure, turning gloom into glowing landscape, and
at last filling the vast vales with gladness and life, as the glowing
picture burst into full beauty.

Here, at the foot of the mountains, flowed the mighty rivers of South
America, bordered by the vast, eternal tropic forest, with its dank,
steaming moisture--the home of the fierce beast, the loathsome reptile,
and insect plagues innumerable. Far up the mountains was the land of
ice and snow, fierce biting wind, and sleety tempest, with here and
there patches of verdure, the pastoral land of the vicuna and llama
flocks; but in the intermediate space, balanced, as it were, between the
tropical heat and the wintry frosts, on the table-lands half-way up the
mountains, was the stronghold of the Peruvian civilisation. So near to
the equator that intolerable heat might have been expected, an
expectation, though, not fulfilled, for the elevation gave to the
Peruvians a glorious climate, with all the brightness but none of the
enervation of equatorial land.

Cottage, house, and palace, of no mean construction, were scattered here
and there, the homes of peasant and Peruvian noble. But it was upon the
temple crowning a near elevation that the eye would rest, in rapt
astonishment at its magnificence and grandeur. The description may
sound like a scrap from some eastern fable, but none the less it is a
fact culled from the pages of history.

For as that bright morning sun peered at length above the shoulder of an
eastern hill, it was to shine full upon the Temple of the Sun and its
glorious gardens.

Gold--gold everywhere--gold and precious stones. Fronting the great
entrance, and ready to receive its first beams, was a golden
representation of the sun itself--a vast golden face surrounded by rays
stretching out in every direction--vas