428 PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA. 



allpa is surrounded on this side by fruit gardens and by irrigated 

 fields of lucerne (Medicago sativa, " campos de alfalfa"). Columns 

 of smoke are seen at a distance rising from the warm baths of Pul- 

 tamarca, which are still called Banos del Inca. I found the tempe- 

 rature of these sulphur-springs 55 2 Reaumur (156. 2 Fahrenheit). 

 Atahuallpa spent a part of the year at these baths, where some slight 

 remains of his palace still survive the devastating rage of the Con- 

 quistadores. The large and deep basin or reservoir in which, ac- 

 cording to tradition, one of the golden chairs in which the Inca was 

 carried had been sunk and has ever since been sought in vain, 

 appeared to nie, from the regularity of its circular shape, to have 

 been artificially excavated in the sandstone rock above one of the 

 fissures through which the springs issue. 



Of the fort and palace of Atahuallpa there are also only very 

 slight remains in the town, which is now adorned with some fine 

 churches. The destruction of the ancient buildings has been accele- 

 rated by the devouring thirst of gold which led men, before the 

 close of the sixteenth century, in digging for supposed hidden trea- 

 sures, to overturn walla and carelessly to undermine or weaken the 

 foundations of all the houses. The palace of the Inca was situated 

 on a hill of porphyry which had originally been hollowed at the 

 surface, so that it surrounds the principal dwelling almost like a 

 wall or rampart. A state prison and a municipal building (la Casa 

 del Cabildo) have been erected on a part of the ruins. The most 

 considerable ruins still visible, but which are only from 13 to 16 

 feet high, are opposite the convent of San Francisco; they consist, 

 as may be observed in the house of the Cacique, of fine cut blocks 

 of stone two or three feet long, and placed upon each other without 

 cement, as in the Inca-Pilca or strong fortress of Cailar, in the 

 high land of Quito. . 



There is a shaft sunk in the porphyritic rock which once led into 

 subterranean chambers, and a gallery, said to extend to the other 

 porphyritic dome before spoken of, that of Santa Polonia. .Such 

 arrangements show an apprehension of the uncertainties of war, and 

 the desire to secure the means of escape. The burying of treasures 

 was an old and very generally prevailing Peruvian custom. There 



