245 



I regret very much not having read the Me- 

 moirs of M. de la Condamine before my voyage 

 to America ; I am very far from throwing any 

 doubt on the observations of this celebrated 

 traveller, whose labours obliged him to remain 

 a long time in the environs of Cannar, and who 

 had much more leisure than myself to inspect 

 this monument. I am nevertheless surprised, 

 that while examining on the spot itself the ques- 

 tion, whether the roof of this building was added 

 in the time of the Spaniards, neither M. Bon- 

 pland nor myself was struck with the difference of 

 construction, which is said to exist between the 

 wall and the gable above it, I found no bricks 

 ( ticas or adobes) ; they seemed to me to be 

 merely freestones, covered with a kind of yellow 

 stucco, easy to detach, and mixed with ichu, or 

 chopped straw. The owner of a neighbouring 

 farm, who accompanied us in our excursion to 

 the ruins of Cannar, boasted, that his ancestors 

 had greatly contributed to the destruction of this 

 edifice ; he related to us, that the sloping roof 

 had been covered, not in the European manner, 

 that is, with tiles, but with stones slit very thin 

 and highly polished. It was this circumstance 

 particularly, which made me lean then to the 

 opinion, probably erroneous, that, excepting the 

 four windows^ the rest of the edifice was such as 

 it had been built in the time of the Incas. How- 

 ever this may be, we must allow, that the use of 



