their chief god. Somewhat later, when this wild race had been subdued by the Incas, these consecrated the temple in honour of the Sun, flung out the idols of the Yuncas, and designed a number of royal virgins for its service. Pizarro, however, completed the work of destruction, when, with his fanatical followers, he penetrated, in 1534, into the valley of Lurin, hitherto the most populous and peacefully prosperous of the entire Peruvian coast. The villages were laid waste, the temple overthrown, and its virgin priestesses delivered over to the brutal soldiery, and afterwards put to death.
Quite close to the ruins, as they lie scattered along the coast, the island of Pachacamác, or Morosolar, rises from the bottom of the ocean, scarcely accessible owing to its steep, precipitous sides, and on which there is not a single architectural memorial of any sort to be found, as erroneously stated, or copied, by several authors.
From the summit of the hill the visitor finds a surprising landscape, stretching over the beautiful and fertile valley of Lurin; it is difficult to imagine a more vivid and delightful contrast than is presented by the greyish-brown, sandy, far-extending ruins, and the soft verdure of the surrounding plain, variegated with the hues of every description of tropical plant. The attention is further arrested by the singularity of the abounding vegetation beginning close to the sea, where sugar-cane and grass flourish in the most luxuriant superabundance, while scarcely a half-mile distant the landscape resumes the barren, sandy features, which extend for
miles inland. Not till the Lurin valley is reached does the magnificence of tropical vegetation again enliven the scene.
After a cursory examination of the locality, we passed the night at an adjoining Hacienda, a large sugar plantation and refinery, which employs 180 Chinese coolies. Each Chinese labourer receives rations of rice and vegetables, besides four dollars a month, and binds himself to stay eight years with his employer, to repay the latter's outlay for his voyage, &c. The speculator, however, who imports the coolies from the northern provinces of China receives a premium of 300 dollars for every coolie imported. The Chinese whom we saw at Lurin, as indeed all those we encountered throughout Peru, were very filthy and depressed-looking, but seemed in good health, and, on the whole, better off than in Brazil or the West Indies. We were told that two Chinese will not get through so much work as one negro. There are at present about 10,000 Chinese in Peru, who have been imported by speculators during the last ten years, to some of whom their deportation has been a vast benefit, since, after their eight years' service, they are free, and may and do begin to work zealously on their own account. In Peru, as in the Indies, Java, and indeed wherever they are employed, the Chinese cling close to each other, and mutually assist each other, should any of their number fall into poverty.
The following morning early we paid a second visit to the ruins of Pachacamác, and took with us from the Hacienda a number of negroes, with working implements, for the purpose
of digging up and examining the graves. At various points, especially close to the hill on which stands what probably was once a fort, we found a great number of skulls lying about. Most of those we picked up had been artificially compressed, though they did not all seem to have had the pressure applied at the same place, thus affording unmistakeable proof that artificial pressure had been resorted to here. Many of the skulls, though they had been interred for centuries, were still thickly covered with hair. There cannot be a doubt that most of those buried here belonged to the race which occupied this part of the country when the Spaniards first visited it, for after the occupation and the subsequent wholesale baptisms which the proselytizing monks performed upon the ignorant brown natives in droves, it is improbable that any of the Christianized Indians would thereafter be interred in unconsecrated earth.
The Peruvian Indians, as is well known, were accustomed to envelope their dead in coarse cloths, after which they were buried in basket or sack-shaped straw-plait work, certain objects and utensils being placed by their side, preference being given to those the deceased had most used in life. Thus, fish-nets, baskets, &c., were placed in the grave, and in the case of a chief, weapons, staffs with golden knobs, pots of wood or burnt earth, and so forth. The head usually reposes on a sort of pillow of grass or cotton. I brought away with me from Pachacamác about half a dozen of the most remarkably shaped of these skulls, as also some portions of mummified
corpses, which the negroes had disinterred in my presence. All these objects were in excellent preservation, about three or four feet under the surface, some in simple graves, others in longish sepulchres of hewn stone, such as we might imagine were occupied by the wealthier class of the community. It is usual to find several skeletons (probably members of the same family) in each separate grave. I also found layers of woven stuffs, some of very superior design and finish, interposed between various corpses.
While the negroes were engaged in further excavations, I once more ascended the hill on which the Temple of the Sun must once have stood, and which to this day is called by the neighbouring inhabitants "Castillo del Sol." On the side next the sea, there are still visible a number of buttresses, which seem as though they had formed part of an older line of fortifications. There was nothing resembling a sacrificial altar, or to tell of the religious ceremonies that must once have been performed here. Here and there the material of the wall was still covered with a reddish tint, just as if it had been but recently painted. In several portions of the wall still standing, there were pieces of wood alternating with layers of mortar, now quite decayed, and affording unmistakeable evidence of the antiquity of the buildings. We also remarked in the walls of several of the Indian huts niche-shaped depressions, about 1 1⁄2 feet deep by 1 1⁄2 feet in length and width, the use of which has never been even plausibly conjectured. While the whole of the buildings of Cajamarquilla consisted of sun-dried tiles