258 



as the ancient inhabitants of Egypt, is erroneous* 

 The Peruvians not only employed a marly mortar 

 in the great edifices of Pacaritambo *, but made 

 use of a cement of asphaltum (betun ) ; a mode 

 of construction, which on the banks of the Eu- 

 phrates and the Tigris may be traced back to 

 the remotest antiquity. 



The porphyry made use of for the buildings of 

 Cannar is cut into parallelopipedons with such 

 perfection, that the joints of the stone would be 

 imperceptible, as M. de la Condamine remarks, 

 if their exterior surface were a plane ; but the 

 outer surface of each stone is slightly convex, 

 and cut slantingly towards the edge ; so that the 

 joints form small flutings, which serve as orna- 

 ments, like the separations of the stones in rustic 

 work. This cut of the stone, which the Italian 

 architects call bugnato, is found in the ruins of 

 Callo, near Mulado, where I have sketched it in 

 detail f : it gives the walls of the Peruvian build- 

 ings a great resemblance to certain Roman 

 structures, for instance, to the muro di Nerva at 

 Rome. 



What chiefly characterizes the monuments of 

 Peruvian architecture is the form of the doors, 

 which are generally nineteen or twenty deci- 

 metres (six or eight feet) high, so that the Inca, 



* Ciesa, Chronica del Peru (Anvers, 1554), 234. 

 j See pi. 24, (9 of the edition in 8vo). 



