with successive layers of stones and earth, until the wall
attains the height of about four feet: at the point most sheltered
from the wind, an opening of a foot and a half or two feet high serves
as a door. On this low circular wall rests the roof, which is formed
in the following manner. Six or eight magay[69] poles are fastened
together, so as to form a point at the top. Over these poles thin
laths are laid horizontally, and fastened with straw-bands, and the
whole conical-formed frame-work is overlaid with a covering of Puna
straw. As a security against the wind, two thick straw-bands are
crossed over the point of the roof, and at their ends, which hang down
to the ground, heavy stones are fastened. The whole fabric is then
completed. The hut at its central point is about eight feet high; but
at the sides, no more than three and a half or four feet. The entrance
is so low, that one is obliged to creep in almost bent double; and
before the aperture hangs a cow-hide, by way of a door.

Internally these huts present miserable pictures of poverty and
uncleanliness. Two stones serve as a stove, containing a scanty fire fed
by dry dung (_bunegas_), and turf (_champo_). An earthen pot for cooking
soup, another for roasting maize, two or three gourd-shells for plates,
and a porongo for containing water, make up the catalogue of the goods
and chattels in a Puna hut. On dirty sheep-skins spread on the ground,
sit the Indian and his wife, listlessly munching their coca; whilst the
naked children roll about paddling in pools of water formed by continual
drippings from the roof. The other inhabitants of the hut are usually
three or four hungry dogs, some lambs, and swarms of guinea-pigs.

From all this it will readily be imagined that a Puna hut is no very
agreeable or inviting retreat. Yet, when worn out by the dangers and
fatigues of a long day's journey, and exposed to the fury of a
mountain storm, the weary traveller, heedless of suffocating clouds of
smoke and mephitic odors, gladly creeps into the rude dwelling. Taking
up his resting-place on the damp floor, with his saddle-cloth for a
pillow, he is thankful to find himself once again in a human
habitation, even though its occupants be not many degrees elevated
above the brute creation.

In the Puna there are many remains of the great high road of the Incas,
which led from Cuzco to Quito, stretching through the whole extent of
Peru. It was the grandest work that America