142 Appendix. 



rounded a little by the winds and moving sand, but under the 

 circumstances almost as imperishable as granite. In some cases 

 these seem to have been walls for defense, in others they are 

 great pyramids, while in others they are remains of temples and 

 dwellings. Little or no stone ruins are found in this coast 

 country, though there is plenty of granite near, and the reason 

 seems to be that these sun-dried bricks were found to serve as 

 good a purpose, while they were so much easier made. The ease 

 with which these buildings were made, and also the ease with 

 which they could be destroyed by an attacking force, led to their 

 being made very thick and massive ; and there are great mounds 

 of them in the valley between Caliao and Lima, that are generally 

 supposed by travelers to be natural hills, and artillery is said to 

 have been posted upon some of them in. certain of the revolutions 

 the country has passed through. 



There seems to be but little doubt that this whole district 

 was once under cultivation, as bits of pottery and signs of occu- 

 pation are found all over it, while the steep valleys of the streams 

 farther back in the mountains have been terraced up with great 

 labor, to save a few acres of ground for cultivation ; but under 

 the present system nine-tenths or more of the level lands along 

 the coast are desert. Even much of the great .level valley about 

 Lima is waste, and this is said to be from lack of water. Whether 

 this lack of water arises from a real change in the rain-fall in the 

 mountains behind, and a lessening of the rivers in this way, or 

 whether the trouble is in the present careless method of distribu- 

 tion of the water, is a matter of doubt, though there is some 

 reason for thinking that at some time there was a much greater 

 amount of rain in the mountains, and that the rainy belt 

 approached much nearer the coast. In many places there are 

 torrent beds in the mountains, where no water now flows at any 

 season. Much of the water is certainly now wasted, from the 

 irregular way in which the farms are laid out and the carelessness 

 shown in the use of the water. 



The Incas or Quichuas are generally credited with all of 

 these ruins along the coast ; but it seems probable that several 

 powerful races have occupied the coast country in different places 



