[492] The editor also remained a whole day at Pucara in 1860, looking at everything, but more than three centuries had elapsed since the visit of Cieza de Leon, and there is no longer a vestige of the ruins mentioned in the text. Pucara is a little town at the foot of an almost perpendicular mountain, which closely resembles the northern end of the rock of Gibraltar. The precipice is composed of a reddish sandstone, and is upwards of twelve hundred feet above the plain, the crevices and summit being clothed with long grass and shrubby queñuas (Polylepis tomentella Wedd.) Here Francisco Hernandez Giron, the rebel who led an insurrection to oppose the abolition of personal service amongst the Indians, was finally defeated in 1554. In 1860 the aged cura, Dr. José Faustino Dasa, was one of the best Quichua scholars in Peru.
[493] Hatun-colla is now a wretched little village, not far from the towers of Sillustani, already alluded to.
[494] See my chapter on the province of Caravaya, in Travels in Peru and India, chap. xii, p. 199.
[495] A thorough survey of the great lake of Titicaca is still a desideratum in geography. The lake is about 80 miles long by 40 broad, being by far the largest in South America. It is divided into two parts by the peninsula of Copacabana. The southern division, called the lake of Huaqui, is 8 leagues long by 7, and is united to the greater lake by the strait of Tiquina. A number of rivers, which are of considerable volume during the rainy season, flow into the lake. The largest of these is the Ramiz, which is formed by the junction of the two rivers of Pucara and Azangaro, and enters the lake at its north-west corner. The Suchiz, formed by the rivers of Cavanilla and Lampa, also flows into the lake on its west side, as well as the Yllpa and Ylave; while on the eastern side are the rivers Huarina, Escoma, and Achacache. Much of the water thus flowing in is drained off by the great river Desaguadero, which flows out of the south-west corner, and disappears in the swampy lake of Aullagas, in the south of Bolivia. Perhaps a great quantity is taken up by evaporation. On the eastern side lake Titicaca is very deep, but on parts of the west shore it is so shoal that there is only just water enough to force a balsa through the forests of rushes. The winds blow from the eastward all the year round, sometimes in strong gales, so as to raise a heavy sea. Along the western shore there are acres of tall rushes. The principal islands are those of Titicaca and Coati, near the peninsula of Copacabana, Campanario, Escoma, Soto, and Esteves.
[496] The temple, on the island of Titicaca, was one of the most sacred in Peru, and the ruins are still in a good state of preservation. The buildings are of hewn stone, with doorways wider below than above. But they are inferior to those on the adjacent island of Coati. See Rivero, Antiguedades Peruanas, chap. x.
[497] We first meet with Hernando Bachicao as a captain of pikemen in the army of Vaca de Castro. When Gonzalo Pizarro rose against the viceroy Blasco Nuñez de Vela, he entrusted Bachicao with the formation of a navy. That officer took command of a brigantine at Callao, which had just arrived from Quilca, and sailed up the coast. At Tumbez he found the viceroy, who fled inland on his approach; and Bachicao seized two vessels. Sailing northward he captured several others, and with the fleet thus formed, he got possession of the city of Panama in March 1545. Soon afterwards Gonzalo Pizarro appointed Hinojosa to command the fleet, and superseded Bachicao; who then joined his chief with reinforcements from Panama, and took part in the final defeat of the viceroy at Añaquito, where he commanded the pikemen. At the battle of Huarina, where he also commanded the pikemen, believing that the forces of Centeno were about to gain the victory, he turned traitor and deserted his colours; but he was mistaken, for his old commander Gonzalo Pizarro won that bloody fight. Bachicao, therefore, returned to his own side, and would have been glad if his conduct had escaped observation. But the eagle eye of the fiery old master of the camp, Carbajal, was not to be deceived, and the captain Hernando Bachicao was hung by his order, a few days afterwards, in the little village of Juli, on the western shore of lake Titicaca.
[498] These ruins are in lat. 16° 42´ S. long. 68° 42´ W., 12,930 feet above the level of the sea, and twelve miles from the south shore of lake Titicaca. (See Mr. Bollaert’s paper, in the Intellectual Observer for May 1863.)
[499] It is 918 feet long, 400 broad, and 100 to 120 in height.
[500] The head of one of these statues is 3 feet 6 inches long, from the point of the beard to the upper part of the ornamental head dress; and from the nose to the back of the head it measures 2 feet 7 inches. It is adorned with a species of round cap, 1 foot 7 inches high, and 2 feet 5 inches in width. In the upper part are certain wide vertical bands, and in the lower are symbolical figures with human faces. From the eyes, which are large and round, two wide bands, each with three double circles, project to the chin. From the outer part of each eye a band descends, adorned with two squares terminating in a serpent. The nose is slightly prominent, surrounded on the lower side by a wide semicircular band, and terminating towards the inner side of the eyes in two corners. The mouth forms a transverse oval, garnished with sixteen teeth. From the under lip projects, in the form of a beard, six bands, towards the edge of the chin. The ear is represented by a semi-lunar figure in a square, and in the fore-part of it is a vertical band with three squares, terminating in the head of a wild beast. On the neck there are many human figures. The sculpture of this head is very remarkable. Antiguedades Peruanas, p. 295.
[501] Of these huge monolithic doorways there is one block of hard trachytic rock measuring 10 feet in height by 13 wide, and another 7 feet in height. In the former block a doorway is cut, which is 6 feet 4 inches high, and 3 feet 2 inches wide. On its eastern side there is a cornice, in the centre of which a human figure is carved. The head is almost square, and there proceed from it several rays, amongst which four snakes can be discerned. The arms are extended, and each hand holds a snake with a crowned head. The body is covered with an embroidered garment, and the short feet rest upon a pedestal, also ornamented with symbolical figures. On each side of this figure there are a number of small squares on the cornice, in three rows, each containing a human figure in profile with a walking-stick in the hand. Each row has sixteen figures, the central row with birds’ heads. Antiguedades Peruanas, p. 296.