Gh.XÍ. south AMERICA. 461 



These Indians raised works both for the conve- 

 nience and veneration of posterity. With these the 

 plains, eminences, or lesser mountains, are covered; 

 like the Egyptians, they had an extreme passion for 

 rendering their burial-places remarkable. If the lat- 

 ter erected astonishing pyramids, in the centre of 

 which their embalmed bodies were deposited; the 

 ludianSjháving laid a body without burial in the place 

 it was to rest in, environed it with stones and bricks as 

 a tomb; and the dependents, relations, and intimate 

 acquaintance of the deceased, threw so much earth 

 on it as to form a tumulus or eminence which they 

 called guaca. The figure of these is not piecisely 

 pyramidical ; the Indians seeming rather to have af* 

 fected the imitation of nature in mountains and emi- 

 nences. Their usual height is about eight or ten 

 toises, and their length betwixt twenty and twenty- 

 five, and the breadth something less ; though there 

 are others much larger. I have already observed, that 

 these monuments are very common all over this 

 country ; but they are most numerous within the ju- 

 risdiction of the town of Cayambe, its plains being 

 as it were covered with them. The reason of this 

 is, that formerly here was one of their principal tem- 

 ples, which they imagined must communicate a sa- 

 cred quality to all the circumjacent country, and 

 thence it was chosen for the burial-place of the kings 

 and caciques of Quito ; and in imitation of them the 

 caciques of all these villages were also interred 

 there. 



The remarkable difference in the magnitude of 

 these monuments seems to indicate that tlie guacas 

 were always suitable to the character, dignity, or 

 riches of the person interred ; as indeed the great 

 number of vassals under some of the most potent 

 caciques, concurring to raise a guaca over his body, 

 it must certainly be considerably larger than that of 



a pri- 



