THE ANCIENT PERUVIANS. 97 



periods derived its subsistence from that country. For example, we are told by 

 an intelligent voyager, that having landed at Vermejo, in Peru, in the year 1687, 

 he found the vicinity of that tow^n so strewed with desiccated bodies, that, in his 

 own language, a man might have walked a mile and a half, and trod on them at 

 every step.* These circumstances long since made me desirous to obtain a series 

 of crania from the Peruvian sepulchres, in order to ascertain, if possible, whether 

 they present indications of more than one great family; or, in other words, to 

 inquire whether among them I could trace such departures from the well known 

 type of the American race, as would lead to the supposition that this continent 

 was formerly inhabited by a plurality of races. In pursuing this inquiry I have 

 been so fortunate as to have the examination, in my own and other collections, of 

 nearly one hundred Peruvian crania: and the result is, that Peru appears to have 

 been at different times peopled by two nations of differently formed crania, one 

 of which is perhaps extinct, or at least exists only as blended by adventitious 

 circumstances, in various remote and scattered tribes of the present Indian race. 

 Of these two families, that which was antecedent to the appearance of the Incas 

 is designated as the Ancient Peruvian^ of which the remains have hitherto been 

 found only in Peru, and especially in that division of it now called Bolivia. 

 Their tombs, according to Mr. Pentland, abound on the shores and islands of the 

 great Lake Titicaca, in the inter-alpine valley of the Desaguadera, and in the 

 elevated valleys of the Peruvian Andes, between the latitudes of 14° and Uf 30' 

 south. The country around this inland sea was called Collao, and the site of 

 what appears to have been their chief city, bears the name of Tiaguanaco. 



Let us now glean from the few sources that are open to us, what can be 

 discovered of the physical and intellectual character of these people, their history 

 and tradition. 



Our knowledge of their physical appearance is derived solely from their tombs. 

 In stature they appear not to have been in any respect remarkable, nor to have 

 differed from the cognate nations except in the conformation of the head, which is 

 small, greatly elongated, narrow its whole length, with a very retreating forehead, 

 and possessing more symmetry than is usual in skulls of the American race. The 

 face projects, the upper jaw is thrust forward, and the teeth are inclined outward. 

 The orbits of the eyes are large and rounded, the nasal bones salient, the zygomatic 

 arches expanded; and there is a remarkable simplicity in the sutures that connect 

 the bones of the cranium. 



"" Wafer, Voy. p. 165. 

 25 



