TOPOGRAPHY OF PERU. 819 



HuancLaco, and the Cliicama plains, which last have since 18G0 again been 

 brought under cultivation by reopening the old Indian irrigating canals. On 

 these slopes the irrigation works take the collective name of manpuederia, and 

 amongst them was the vast reservoir, built of concrete by the Chimu Indians, with 

 a capacity of about 1,760 million cubic feet. 



TrujiUo, founded by Francesco Pizarro in 1535, and named from his native 

 place, has preserved a certain urban aspect, thanks to the remains of its old 

 ramparts ; but it probably contains less than a tenth part of the inhabitants of its 

 predecessor, Chimu, or Grand Chimu, capital of an empire anterior to that of the 

 Incas. The ruins of the ancient city and of its dependent villages cover a vast 

 space, stretching north and south of the Rio Moche, a distance of over 12 miles, 

 with a breadth of from 5 to 5| miles. It appears to have been the largest centre 

 of population of the New World in pre-Columbian times. Everywhere are seen 

 crumbling walls and heaps of adobe, in some places distinct enough to trace the 

 plan of the old buildings. The city proper, standing on three terraces which rose 

 above the .shore between TrujiUo and Huanchaco, contained temples, palaces, 

 reservoirs, granaries, labyrinths, tombs and. aqueducts, which have been clearly 

 determined by archooologists. 



Certain sepulchral pyramids, with innumerable niches in which the bodies 

 were deposited in a sitting attitude, are comparable in dimensions to the secondary 

 pyramids of Egypt. One of these hiiacas, the •' Pyramid of the Sau," near the 

 village of the s ime name on the south side of the Rio Moche, is 200 feet high, with 

 a base-line of 800 feet in one direction. According to the local belief it contains 

 vast treasures, and communicates by underground galleries with other structures 

 of a similar character. Another pyramid is 150 feet high, while a third is said 

 to have yielded the treasure-seekers as much as £3,200,000 of gold between the 

 years 1560 and 1592. Since that time fictile vases, textile fabrics and jewellery 

 of all kinds have been found amid the rubbish and iu the graves. No other 

 Peruvian necropolis has yielded to collectors such an abundance of statuettes, 

 earthenware, skulls and mummies. 



ViRU — YuNGAY — Cabana — Cajatambo. 



According to some etymologists the Rio Yiru, which waters a narrow strip of 

 cultivable land south of the Rio Moche, is the famous " river of Biru " or " Piru," 

 which for so many years dazzled the dreams of Pizarro, Almagro and their associates, 

 and the name of which under the modified form of Peru has since been applied to 

 one of the large South American States. But, however this be, the present 

 village of Vim has little to show except the graves of the surrounding district 

 rifled by treasure-hunters and archaeologists. Facing it, however, is the little 

 cluster of the Guaiuipe Islands, which till recently possessed rich guano-beds, 

 though of inferior quality to those of the Chincha Islands, being deprived of some 

 of their salts by more frequent rains. When first opened the deposits were 

 estimated at 1,500,000 tons, but in a few years the bare rock had been reached ; 



