Some writers, arguing from the existence of a civilisation anterior to the Incas, concluded, with some show of reason, that there existed a pre-Toltec civilisation also; but a moment’s reflection will show that no parallel exists between the two; for the former, in a climate eminently favourable to the preservation of monuments, has hardly left any trace, whilst the latter, in a climate peculiarly destructive, has left whole cities and monuments in almost perfect preservation. In Peru, the people who followed the earlier races used extant remains for the foundations of their monuments, as, for instance, at Cuzco; whereas in Mexico and Central America monuments were repaired and restored on the same plan as that on which they had been erected. It follows that in Peru edifices are totally different in character from the foundations and cyclopean walls which support them, unless the ruins of Las Casas Grandes be considered pre-Toltec; but even so they would be the remains of edifices constructed by the first Nahua tribes in their progress towards the south.
Our digression has sharpened our appetites, and we hasten to the “fonda” by a short cut across imposing structures and the remains of houses built by the Spaniards who first settled here after the Conquest. Although they tried to build on the same principles as the Indians, they succeeded indifferently, for their constructions are but a ruinous mass, in the courtyards and open walls of which the poor Indians have established their cabins. These cabins measure barely six feet square; yet within them whole families lie huddled up together on the beaten ground, nearly suffocated in summer, almost frozen in winter, nursing their misery. A few beans, a tortilla, is all the food they have, and often not even that. Their children are numerous, but more than half die in the first years for want of proper care. The men earn one shilling a day—one shilling to feed, clothe, and house eight or nine people. What wonder if they are in tatters which leave them half uncovered, exposed to the mercy of the elements? Outside these huts—for the inside does not own so much as a wooden peg—stands the metate, before which women are kneeling nearly the whole day grinding Indian corn for tortillas.
ROAD TO S. MARTIN.
“Why don’t you put a roof over these standing walls? You would get, at very small cost, a comfortable dwelling for your families.”
“But, señor, we have no wood.”
“What, with all those trees about?”
“Ah, señor, we should have to pay for them, and where is the money to come from?”