PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA. 433 



price of his promised restoration to the throne in Cuzco and Caxa- 

 marca." Wherever the Peruvian Quichua language has extended, 

 some traces of such expectations of the return of the Inca's sove- 

 reignty continue ( 17 ) to exist in the minds of many among those of 

 the natives who are possessed of some knowledge of the history of 

 their country. 



We remained for five days in the town of the Inca Atalmallpa, 

 which at that time scarcely reckoned seven or eight thousand inhabi- 

 tants. Our departure was delayed by the number of mules which 

 were required for the conveyance of our collections, and by the 

 necessity of making a careful choice of the guides who were to con- 

 duct us across the chain of the Andes to the entrance of the long 

 but narrow Peruvian sandy desert (Desiertode Sechura). The pass- 

 age over the Cordillera is from north-cast to south-west. Immedi- 

 ately after quitting the plain of Caxamarca, on ascending a height 

 of scarcely 9600 (10,23,0 English) feet, the 'traveller is struck with 

 the sight of two grotesquely shaped porphyritic summits, Aroma 

 and Cunturcaga (a favorite haunt of the powerful vulture which we 

 commonly call Condor; kqcca, in the Quichua language, signifies 

 "the rock"). These summits consisted of five, 'six, or seven-sided 

 columns, 37 to 42 English feet high, and some of them jointed. 

 The Cerro Aroma is particularly picturesque. By the distribution 

 of its often converging series of columns placed one above another, 

 it resembles a two-storied building, which, moreover, is surmounted 

 by a dome or cupola of non-columnar rock. Such outbursts of por- 

 phyry and trachyte are, as I have before remarked, characteristic of 

 the high crests of the Cordilleras, to which they impart a physiog- 

 nomy quite distinct from that presented by the Swiss Alps, the 

 Pyrenees, and the Siberian Altai. 



From Cunturcaga and Aroma we descended by a ^ig-zag course a 

 steep rocky declivity of 6400 English feet into the deep-cleft valley 

 of the Magdalena, the bottom o which is still 4260 English feet 

 above the level of the sea. A few wretched huts, surrounded by 

 the same wool or cotton-trees (Bombax discolor) which we had first 

 seen on the banks of the Amazons, were called an Indian village. 

 The scanty vegetation of the valley bears some resemblance to that 

 of the province of Jacn dc Bracanioros, but we missed the red groves 

 37 



