350 MURAL ARCHITECTURE 
already defied the hand of time for upwards of 
thirty centuries. 
That they were the productions of different - 
times, if not of different people. 
That they were erected by a people possessed 
of a high degree of mechanical skill, and consi- 
derable command of machinery, and sufficiently 
civilized to build for succeeding generations, who 
existed at a period when we are accustomed to 
consider the whole of Europe as plunged in the 
darkest barbarism. 
APPENDIX. 
Description of the Palace of the Incas, at Lata- 
cunga, in the Province of Quito. From the 
Travels of Don Antonio de Ulloa. Madrid, 
1748. 
‘¢ The materials of this building are stone, as 
hard as flint, and of a black colour. The separate 
stones are go well worked and fitted together, that 
it is not possible to introduce between them the 
