Chulpa or Stone Tomb of the Peruvians.
In Peruvian architecture, we find "Cyclopean walls," with polygonal stones of five or six feet diameter, so well polished and adjusted that no mortar was necessary; sometimes with a projecting part of the stone fitting exactly into a corresponding cavity of the stone immediately above or below it. Such huge stones are of hard granite or basalt, etc. The walls are often very massive and substantial, sometimes from thirty to forty feet in thickness. The only approach to the modern "arch" in the Peruvian structures is a device similar to that which was described under the Mayan architecture.
Some important buildings were surrounded with large upright stones, similar to the famous "Druidic" temple at Stonehenge. All of the chief structures were accurately placed with reference to the cardinal points, and the main entrance always faced the east. The Peruvian tombs were very elaborate, one kind being made by cutting caverns in the steep precipices of the cordillera and then carefully walling in the entrance. Another variety (the chulpa) was really a stone tower erected above ground, twelve to thirty feet high. The chulpas were sometimes built in groups.
CHAPTER V
MEXICO BEFORE THE SPANISH INVASION
The Aztecs and the Tescucans were the chief races occupying the great table-land of Anahuac, including, as we have seen, the famous Mexican Valley. In the preceding chapter we have set forth some of the leading points in the extinct civilization of those races, and also that of the Mayas, who in several respects were perhaps superior to the Anahuac kingdoms.
Several features of the early Mexican civilization will come before us as we accompany the European conquerors, in their march over the table-land. Meantime, we glance first at the geography of this magnificent region, and secondly at the manners and institutions of the people, their industrial arts, etc., and their terrible religion. The last-mentioned topic has already been partly discussed in Chapter III.
The Tropic of Cancer passes through the middle of Mexico, and therefore its southern half, which is the most important, is all under the burning sun of the "torrid zone." This heat, however, is greatly modified by the height of the surface above sea-level, since the country, taken as a whole, is simply an extensive table-land. The height of the plain in the two central states, Mexico and Puebla, is 8,000 feet, or about double the average height of the highest summits in the British Isles. On the west of the republic is a continuous chain of mountains, and on the east of the table-land run a series of mountainous groups parallel to the seacoast, with a summit in Vera Cruz of over 13,400 feet. To the south of the capital an irregular range running east and west contains these remarkable volcanoes—Colima, 14,400 feet; Jorulla, Popocatepetl, 17,800; Orizaba (extinct), 18,300, the highest summit in Mexico, and, with the exception of some of the mountains of Alaska, in North America. The great plateau-basin formed around the capital and its lakes is completely enclosed by mountains.
This high table-land has its own climate as compared with the broad tract lying along the Atlantic. Hence the latter is known as the hot region (caliente), and the former the cold region (fria). Between the two climates, as the traveler mounts from the sea-level to the great plateau, is the temperate region (templada), an intermediate belt of perpetual humidity, a welcome escape from the heat and deadly malaria of the hot region with its "bilious fevers." Sometimes as he passes along the bases of the volcanic mountains, casting his eye "down some steep slope or almost unfathomable ravine on the margin of the road, he sees their depths glowing with the rich blooms and enameled vegetation of the tropics." This contrast arises from the height he has now gained above the hot coast region.