THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



131 



ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD* 



Modern Cuzco is an example of the passing of the old 

 and the growth of things that are new. Only in 1909 the 

 railroad reached this city, and now there are street cars, 

 and soon this ancient capital of the sun worshipers will 

 be lighted by electricity. In the old days, before the 

 Spanish conquerors came, 

 the Incas had an immense 

 park in the center of the 

 city, but the viceroy of 

 Spain had this park cut 

 into three plazas and 

 houses built around them. 

 While more compact than 



Plaza and Cathedral, Cuzco, Peru. 



in ancient times, the city is very picturesque and unusual 

 in appearance. The private residences, offices, agencies and 

 banks all open onto beautiful patios, or courtyards, which 

 are full of blooming flowers and often contain fountains of 

 splashing water. Only shops, or stores as we call them, 

 open onto the streets. You see how different things are 

 in Cuzco from towns in the United States. 



Everywhere in this region one sees Indians, in the 

 streets and on the country roads, doing all sorts of com- 

 mon labor. They work very cheap, receiving usually about 

 thirty cents a day. They are the descendants of the 

 Incas, and look a great deal like our North American 

 Indians. There is a big market place ' in Cuzco 

 called the Plaza San Sebastian. One sees lots 

 of Indians there, especially Indian women, who 

 sit under little canvas tents with their wares in 

 front of them, arranged in small piles. They 

 liring their goods to market on the backs of 

 llamas or burros. That is a feature of life in the 

 Andean country that always interests the traveler, 

 the trains of long-necked llamas and little burros 

 carrying goods through the streets of the towns 

 and along the roads that wind among the moun- 

 tains. One sees lots of them in and about La-Paz, 

 the capital of Bolivia, for it is the highest capital 

 city in the world, and people almost never use 

 horses. In fact, in La Paz the altitude is so great, 

 i:J.."ii>o feet above sea-level, and the streets often 

 so very steep, sometimes only human beings are 

 practicable in delivering goods. The Indians, 

 therefore, do much of the freight-carrying in the 

 town. Cuzco is 10,500 feet above the sea, and even 

 there the white people walk about only as it is 

 necessary, though, of course in time they become 

 accustomed, in a degree, to the high altitude. 



The prefect of Cuzco invited me to review 

 the military force stationed in the city, and though 

 there were but 550 soldiers, they made a fine ap- 

 pearance in their bright uniforms, with their splen- 

 did band discoursing music as they marched by. 

 They had an odd battery of artillery rapid-fire 

 Maxim guns mounted on mules. In times of war 

 these mule batteries are very efficient, as they can 



*By W. D. Boyce, Chicago. 



cross the rough country and climb about the mountains 

 rapidly. 



On Sunday in Cuzco the air is thrilled at times by 

 sound from the great bell in the steeple of the massive 

 cathedral on the Plaza Des Armes. This huge, deep-toned 

 bell is called the Maria Angela, and is famous throughout 

 Peru, its composition being largely of gold. There are 

 many churches and convents in Cuzco, built by the Span- 

 iards after their conquest of the Incas, some of them be- 

 ing erected on the foundations of the Inca temples, while 

 several of the old convents are used as stores by the mod- 

 ern merchants. The church of La Merced is built on the 

 foundation of an Inca temple once dedicated to the wor- 

 ship of the sun, and the convent of Santo Domingo is 

 built on the foundation of one of the richest of the Inca 

 temples, a Christian altar, it is said, occupying the very 

 place where the Incas' sacred emblems to .the sun god 

 were guarded by their high priests. They also told me 

 that the cells for the nuns in the con- 

 vent of Santa Catalina are the ones 

 occupied long ago by the virgins of 

 the sun. It is all very strange, isn't it? 

 Ancient Cuzco was the treasure city 

 of the Incas. The tribes, in paying trib- 

 ute, brought great stores of gold and 

 silver and precious stones into the tem- 

 ples. It held at that time probably the 

 greatest store of treasure of any city 

 in the world. When the Spaniards con- 

 quered the Incas they carried away over 

 $100.000,000 of gold alone, besides the 

 other priceless treasures of the Inca 

 temples of Cuzco. It makes one fairly 

 gasp to think of such a stupendous 

 robbery. 



The prefect of Cuzco arranged that 

 I should have a horse belonging to the 



cavalry, and accompanied by a guard of soldiers, with Ind- 

 ians carrying my cameras, I climbed the mountain where, 

 high above the city, are the ruins of the Inca fortress of 

 Sacsahuaman. The ascent is so steep in places that steps 

 have been cut in the rocks to insure a safe footing. On 

 the way to the summit we passed the ancient palace of the 

 monarch Pachacutees, and a little beyond the High Priests' 

 Temple of the Sun. There is no explanation of how the 

 massive stones were brought to construct these buildings, but 

 it would be interesting to know, for one stone I measured 

 on the fortress was thirty-two feet long, twelve feet wide, 

 and very thick. Its weight must have been enormous. Near 



Indian Merchants in Plaza Arcades, Cuzco. 



