238 THE PANECILI-O OF CALLO. 



after uselessly expending upwards of forty thousand 

 pounds sterling, to build a stone bridge, near Santa, over 

 a torrent, which rushed from the Cordillera of the Andes. 



But we must not forget the various monuments of the 

 ancient Peruvians, visited by the travellers during their 

 nine months' residence in Quito, especially the Panecillo 

 of Callo, and the House of the Inca Huayna-Capac. They 

 came upon these singular remains in April, on their 

 way to the volcano of Cotopaxi, and Humboldt made a 

 sketch of them as the}^ then appeared. He found them 

 in an immense plain covered wdth pumice stone. The 

 Panecillo was a conic hillock, about two hundred and fifty 

 feet high, covered with small bushes of molina, spermacoce, 

 and cactus. The natives believed that this hillock, which 

 resembled a bell, and was perfectly regular in its figure, 

 was a tumulus, or one of those numerous hills, which the 

 ancient inhabitants of this country raised for the interment 

 of the sovereign, or some other distinguished personage. 

 It w^as alleged, in favour of this oj^inion, that the Pane- 

 cillo was wholly composed of volcanic rubbish, and that 

 the same pumice stone, which surrounded its basis, was 

 found also on its summit. 



This reason might appear little conclusive in the eyes 

 of a geologist, for the back of the neighbouring mountain 

 of Tiopullo, which was much higher than the Panecillo, 

 was also covered with great heaps of pumice stone, 

 probably owing to ancient eruptions of Cotopaxi and 

 Illinissa. We cannot doubt, but that in both Americas, 

 as well as in the north of Asia, and on the banks of the 

 Boristhenes, mounds raised by men, and real tumuli of 

 an extraordinary height, are to be seen. Those which 

 are found amid the ruins of the ancient town of Mansiche, 



