n huts or on bleak _punas_ in the open air,
in hot valleys or among eternal snows, gathering with eager zeal all
classes of facts relating to the country, its people, its present and its
past." It must not be inferred from this description that he claims the
honors of a pioneer or discoverer. Many previous travellers had pursued
the same quest, encountered the same hardships and described the same
objects. Few of them, however, had enjoyed the same advantages or
possessed equal fitness for the task. His previous studies and
investigations had familiarized him with the aboriginal history of America
and with many of its existing relics; his appointment as commissioner of
the United States to Peru for the settlement of some disputed claims gave
him facilities which, as a foreigner, he might otherwise have lacked; and
his equipments both for personal comfort and for scientific and artistic
purposes seem to have been as complete as a single traveller could be
expected to provide. The result is a work which, if not actually the
ablest, is the most thorough and satisfactory, which the subject has yet
called forth. It contrasts in all respects with the latest of its
predecessors, Hutchinson's _Two Years in Peru_, a book of still greater
size, but deficient in all the elements of critical and literary power,
while replete with pretentiousness and dogmatism. In the narration of his
journeys and adventures Mr. Squier is always entertaining; his account of
the present condition of the country and the people is instructive, though
somewhat meagre; his descriptions of ancient remains, if not always as
vivid or even as clear as one might desire, are generally more careful and
minute than any that have before been given of them, and are supplemented
by admirable views and plans that add greatly to the value and
attractiveness of the volume. Finally, while his knowledge and training
have well qualified him to form independent judgments, he neither seeks to
discredit all previous research nor to support any of the fantastic
theories of which American antiquarianism has been so prolific. He was not
open to the temptation that leads those who are first in the field to
magnify its marvels, and he is equally free from that tendency to belittle
them which betrays the desire of later explorers to display their own
superior acumen. He makes no attempt to reconstruct the past by piecing
together accumulated details and calling to his aid the imagin