50 ARCH^OLOGICAL AND ETUNOLOGICAL 



were only watching the eight laborers. The digging Avas mostly performed by the 

 hand, the hoe being seldom used. A little way behind the men Avere their wives 

 and children, searching for the potatoes which were left; and this second crop was 

 almost as abundant as that secured by the men. 



From Tablonchico I directed my steps northward with the intention of going 

 as far as the llio Mayo, where, according to the geographers, is the northernmost 

 union of the two Cordilleras de los Andes, and where t^ey separate into three 

 divisions, which never unite again. 



I went to Cayambe, situated in a plain where, it is said, milk in place of water 

 is flowing in its streams. I visited there one of the structures which still preserves 

 its native simplicity, and is called Punte Achil, of which I made a drawing. It is 

 a quadrangular eartliwork erected on the slope of the middle of three hills, situ- 

 ated in the rear of the town. The sides parallel with the base of the hill are 513 

 feet long, and the ends 250 feet. A steep embankment in front is fifty feet high ; 

 one in the rear twelve feet, and those at the two ends vary correspondingly. 



At about 41cS feet lower down the hill are the remains of another rectangular 

 earthwork, of which the part remaining is 256 feet in front and rear, and 105 feet 

 on the end left standing, the other being washed away. The lower front of this 

 earthwork exhibits an embankment forty feet in height ; on the upper side the 

 embankment varies in heiglit from six to nine feet. These two earthworks are 

 united by a graded road, forty-five feet wide, with embankments on the sides. It 

 joins the upper earthwork near the middle of its front. From the front of the 

 lower earthwork the remains of a road are seen on the general level of the ground 

 which appears to be the continuation of the road uniting the two earthworks. 



This entire structure was built of irregular blocks of dried clay about a foot in 

 length. These blocks belong to a formation which is visible further north. Their 

 appearance would lead to the supposition of their having been formed artificially 

 rather than by natural action, Avere it not for the fact that high hills are formed of 

 the same material. It is called by the inhabitants Cangawhua. In the neighbor- 

 hood are many " tumuli" and other artificial elevations of the soil. The symmet- 

 rical shape of the two hills, on each side of the middle one on which the structure 

 is erected, seems to indicate that they are partly if not wholly artificial. 



I was told that, some leagues distant, on the hacienda Guachala, between the 

 town of Cayambe and the village of Cangawhua, were the remains of an ancient 

 fortress, Pucara, a term applied to all the ruins of ancient fortifications of wliich 

 the name has been lost. 



From Ibarra, in the province of Imbabura, I visited Lake Aguarcoche, or "lake 

 of blood," so called for the reason, it is said, that a battle fought near it in ancient 

 times was so desperate as to redden the water of the lake. 



In my further progress on the road to the State of Cauca I was informed in 

 Tuno, where I stayed overnight, of the existence of ruins on the hacienda Pucara. 

 This was the last information I received of any ancient ruins in my travel north. 

 This feet appears to prove that the country and its inhabitants north from Tuno 

 were under ditforent conditions from those living south of it. 



The Columbian Confederation in which I travelled ottered the rare spectacle of 



