though
an old Indian, who, years ago, had often visited it, pointed out to me
what he supposed to be its precise situation. The walls of
perpendicular rock in the neighborhood of Huichay are often 60 to 80
feet high, and the clefts or fissures in them are filled up with small
stones. It would be incomprehensible how the Indians ascended to
perform this labor, were it not perceived that they have hollowed
passages in the mountain. It would appear they must have had
dwellings, or stores for provisions, on the higher part of the hill,
for small windows are often perceptible in walls of masonry.

The old Indian villages of the Sierra are for the most part situated on
heights, or sharp ridges, which are now completely barren, as they no
longer receive the artificial watering with which they were formerly
supplied. All lie open to the east, so that the inhabitants could behold
their Deity the moment he appeared on the horizon. All large towns had a
square in their centre, where the religious dances were performed. From
the square a certain number of regular roads or streets always ran in
the direction of the four quarters of the firmament. There are great
varieties in the construction of the houses. Small insignificant huts
often stand close to a palace having twenty or twenty-five windows in
one front. Private dwellings in the mountainous parts are built of
unhewn stone, cemented with a very strong calcareous mortar. On the
coast the walls are of brick. In the departments of Junin and Ayacucho,
I met with the ruins of great villages, consisting of dwellings of a
peculiar construction, in the form of a tower. Each house is
quadrangular, with a diameter of about six feet, and seventeen or
eighteen feet high. The walls are from one to one and a half feet thick.
The doors, which open to the east or south, are only a foot and a half
high, and two feet wide. After creeping in (which is a work of some
difficulty) the explorer finds himself in an apartment about five and a
half feet in height, and of equal breadth, without any windows. In the
walls there are closets or cupboards, which served to contain domestic
utensils, food, &c. Earthen pots with maize, coca, and other things, are
still often found in these closets. The ceiling of the room is
overlaid with flat plates of stone, and in the centre an aperture, two
feet wide, is left, forming a communication with the second floor,
which is precisely like the first, but has two smal