256 



lecture was limited to the wants of a nation of 

 mountaineers ; it had neither columns, nor pilas- 

 ters, nor circular arches : these natives of a 

 rocky country, of elevated plains almost desti- 

 tute of trees, were not led, like the Greeks and 

 Romans, to imitate in their architecture the as- 

 semblage of a construction in wood ; simplicity, 

 symmetry, and solidity, ^ere the three charac- 

 ters, by which all Peruvian edifices were distin- 

 guished. 



The citadel of Cannar, and the square build- 

 ings surrounding it, are not constructed with the 

 same quartzose sandstone, which covers the pri- 

 mitive slate and the porphyries of Assuay, and 

 which appears at the surface in the garden of the 

 Inca, as we descend toward the valley of Gulan. 

 Neither are the stones used for the edifices of 

 Cannar granite, as M. de la Condamine thought, 

 but a trappean porphyry of great hardness, en- 

 closing vitreous feldspar and hornblende. This 

 porphyry was perhaps dug in the great quarries, 

 which are found at four thousand metres of 

 height near the lake of Culebrilla, more than 

 three leagues distant from Cannar. It is certain 

 at least, that these quarries furnished the fine 

 stone employed in the house of the Inca, situate 

 in the plain of Pullal, at an elevation almost 

 equal to that of the Puy de Dome if placed on 

 the summit of Canigou. 



We do not find in the ruins of Cannar those 



