276 PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA. 



chas), and the Peruvians, are connected. Quetzalcoatl, 

 bearded, clothed in black, a high priest of Tula, subse- 

 quently a penance-performing anchorite on a mountain near 

 Tlaxapuchicalco, comes to the highlands of Mexico from the 

 coast of Panuco ; therefore from the eastern coast of Ana- 

 huac. Botschica, or rather Nemterequeteba ( 8 ) (a Buddha 

 of the Muyscas), a messenger sent by the Deity, bearded and 

 wearing long garments, arrives in the high plains of Bogota 

 from the grassy steppes east of the chain of the Andes. 

 Before Manco Capac a degree of civilisation already pre- 

 vailed on the picturesque shores of the Lake of Titicaca. 

 The strong fort of Cuzco, on the hill of Sacsahuaman, was 

 formed on the pattern of the older constructions of Tiahua- 

 naco. In the same manner the Aztecs imitated the pyra- 

 midal structures of the Toltecs, and these, those of the 

 Olmecs (Hulmecs) ; and gradually ascending, we arrive, still 

 on historic ground in Mexico, as far back as the sixth cen- 

 tury of our Era. According to Siguenza, the Toltec step- 

 pyramid (or Teocalli) of Cholula is a repetition of the form 

 of the Hulmec step-pyramid of Teotihuacan. Thus as we 

 penetrate through each successive stratum of civilisation we 

 arrive at an earlier one ; and national self-consciousness not 

 having awoke simultaneously in the two continents, we find 

 in each nation the imaginative mythical domain always im- 

 mediately preceding the period of historic knowledge. 



Notwithstanding the tribute of admiration which the first 

 Conquistadores paid to the roads and aqueducts of the Peru- 

 vians, not only did they neglect the repair and preservation of 

 both these classes of useful works, but they even wantonly 



