The city of Cuzco is situated at an elevation of 11,062 ft. above the sea level. In its vicinity the most important remains of Inca civilization have been found. The city itself was most interesting. Its handsome Spanish cathedral had a façade of beautifully designed columns and a fine central doorway. The great bell in one of the towers contained a large quantity of gold in the bronze, giving wonderful resonance to its vibrating notes. A solid silver altar of great height was to be admired in the interior of the cathedral, while the chancel was of marvellously carved wood. So was a supplementary altar which had been stored away behind the silver one.
The principal square of Cuzco had recently been paved with cement, on which none of the natives could be induced to walk, as they were afraid of slipping, accustomed as they were to the roughest cobble-stone paving of their streets. Only the gentry of the city could be seen treading with great care on the polished pavement, and were looked upon with much admiration by the lower natives, who stared aghast from the porticoes around the square. In the centre of the square was a cheap terra-cotta statue of the Indian hero Atahualpa surmounting a fountain painted of a ghastly green. The gardens were nicely laid out with pretty lawns. Another beautiful church rose in the plaza, the doorway of which was also handsome, but not comparable in beauty with that of the cathedral. The stone carvings of its façade were nevertheless remarkable. There were arcades on three sides of the plaza, the houses being generally only one storey high above them. The buildings were painted light blue, pink, green, or bright yellow, the columns of beautifully cut stone being also covered with hideous paint to match.
Thanks to the kindness of the President of the Republic, Mr. B. B. Legujia, a telegram had been sent asking the Prefect of Cuzco to give me every possible assistance in visiting the Inca ruins in the neighbourhood. The Prefect, Mr. J. J. V. Cuñer, kindly placed at my disposal three excellent horses and an orderly.
It is seldom one can visit a place where the people have more primitive habits than in the city of Cuzco. The streets, so wonderfully picturesque, were not fit to walk upon. The people threw into them all that can be thrown out of the houses, which possess no sanitary arrangements of any kind. Much of the pleasure of looking at the magnificent Inca walls—constructed of great blocks of stone so well fitted that no cement was necessary to hold them together—was really lost through being absolutely stifled by the suffocating odour which was everywhere prevalent in Cuzco.
The photographs that are reproduced in the illustrations of this book will give an idea of the grandeur of the Inca works better than any description. As I intend to produce at a later date a special work on that country, I am unable here to go fully into the history of the marvellous civilization of that race.
A photograph will be seen in one of the illustrations showing the immensity of the three-walled fortress of Sacsayhuaman. Another photograph will show with what accuracy the Incas could carve stone—which, mind you, in those days must have been much softer than it is now, and not unlike the sandstone that is used in England for building purposes.
Many curious subterranean passages were to be found on the mountains near Cuzco, the entrances to which were among picturesque rocks. The Incas seemed to have a regular mania for carving steps and angular channels in rocks. Not far from the fortress could be found the place of recreation of the Incas—the Rodadeiro—over which the Incas tobogganed, perhaps sitting on hides. Thousands and thousands of people must have gone in for the sport, as the solid rock was deeply grooved by the friction of the persons who have slid on it.
The remains of ancient altars for the worship of the sun and an Inca throne, where the king of the Incas must have sat while battles were taking place, were indeed most interesting to examine.
More interesting than any other to me was the particular spot on the mountain side where a kind of throne existed carved out of a huge block of rock, and where a battle of the Incas against their enemies could be reconstructed. Mounds of ammunition, consisting of round stones as big as a lawn-tennis ball, had been accumulated above and near the throne. Just below that high spot I found scattered upon the mountain side quantities of ammunition which had evidently been thrown by the Incas at the attacking foes.