[369] The city of Lima is about two miles long and a mile and a half broad. Its circumference is about ten miles, but many gardens, orchards, and fields of alfalfa are included within the walls. The best and fullest account of Lima is contained in a work called Estadistica de Lima, by Don Manuel A. Fuentes.
[370] Each side of the grand square of Lima is five hundred and ten feet long. It contains the cathedral and palace.
[371] This is the hill of San Cristobal, a rocky height rising abruptly from the plain, on the opposite side of the river Rimac, near the bull-ring. There is still a cross planted on its summit.
[372] One does not always hear such praise from those who have visited the City of the Kings; but at least the feelings of the editor of this work agree with those of the author. Some of the happiest days in the editor’s life were passed on the banks of the Rimac; and he, therefore, will not criticize the enthusiastic and, as some will think, exaggerated praise of Cieza de Leon.
[373] The city of Lima was founded by Pizarro on the 6th of January, 1535. As it was the day of Epiphany, Lima received the title of Ciudad de los Reyes (City of the Kings).
[374] Great numbers of bodies have been dug up at the foot of the temple of Pachacamac, the extreme dryness of the climate having preserved the long hair on the skulls, and even the skin. There are as many as one hundred and four Pachacamac skulls in European museums, which have been carefully examined. “They exhibit a vertically flattened occiput, a narrow and receding forehead, the glabella being slightly prominent. The acrocephalic or sugar-loaf form predominates. The range of skulls from Pachacamac varies from the globular or oval type, with a slightly depressed coronal suture, which Tschudi terms the ‘Chincha’ skulls, to the pyramidal brachycephalic cranium, with a high and vertical occiput, ordinarily termed the ‘Inca cranium.’ ” C. C. Blake, Esq., On the Cranial Characters of the Peruvian Races. Transactions of the Ethnological Society. Vol. ii. New Series, p. 227. Cieza de Leon states, in the text, that only chiefs and pilgrims were allowed to be buried near the temple of Pachacamac; and, if this was really the case, it would be natural to expect that the fact would be corroborated, to some extent, by an examination of the skulls. Accordingly I am informed by Mr. Carter Blake, that Mr. Clift and others have spoken of Pachacamac as being the depository of more than one type of skull, which may be the remains of pilgrims from various localities. Mr. Clift mentions bodies at Pachacamac with heads depressed like those of the people near lake Titicaca, and others with heads properly formed.
[375] The ruins of Pachacamac are about twenty miles south of Lima, on the sea-coast. The temple was on the summit of a hill about four hundred feet above the sea, and half a mile from the beach. The view from the platform, where the temple once stood, is exceedingly striking. Half the horizon is occupied by the ocean, and the other half is divided into two widely different scenes. One is an arid desert, with no object on which the eye can rest save the ruined city; the other is a lovely valley, covered with fields of maize and sugar cane, and dotted with houses half hidden by the encircling fruit gardens. The little town of Lurin stands in its centre. A narrow stream separates this enchanting valley from the dreary expanse of sand, while the glorious Andes bound the inland view.
The upper part of the temple hill is artificially formed of huge adobes or bricks baked in the sun, rising in three broad terraces, the walls of which are thirty-two feet high. Towards the sea the terraces are supported by buttresses of ordinary sized sun-dried bricks, and the red paint, with which the walls were originally coated, may still be seen in several places. The temple stood on a level platform on the top, facing the sea. The door is said to have been of gold plates, richly inlaid with coral and precious stones, but the interior was rendered filthy by the sacrifices. Garcilasso says that the Yunca Indians had idols in the form of fish and other animals, and that they sacrificed animals, and even the blood of men and women; but that these idols were destroyed by the Yncas.
At the foot of the temple hill are the remains of houses for pilgrims; and it is here that the numerous skulls are found, with long flowing hair, which are to be met with in European museums. Further on are the ruins of an extensive city. The streets are very narrow, and the principal houses or palaces generally consist of halls of grand proportions, with a number of small apartments at each end: all now choked with sand. The foundations are frequently of stone.
It is said by some old writers that this temple was erected for the worship of Pachacamac—the Supreme Being, the “Creator of the world”—by an ancient race, long before the time of the Yncas, and of whom the Yunca Indians were degenerate descendants. Its great antiquity is proved by the fact that, when Hernando Pizarro first arrived at it, a considerable portion of the city was already in ruins.