1 



Ch.XI. south AMERICA. 461 



These Indians raifed works both for the conve- 

 nience and veneration of pofterity. With thefe the 

 plains, eminences, or leffer mountains, are covered; 

 like the Egyptians, they had an extreme paffion for 

 rendering their burial places remarkable. If the lat- 

 ter eredted aftonilhing pyramids, in the centre of 

 which their embalmed bodies were depofited the 

 Indians having laid a body without burial in the place 

 it was to reft in, environed it with ftones and bricks as 

 a tomb 5 and the dependents, relations, and intimate 

 acquaintance of the deceafed, threw fo much earth on 

 it as to form a tumulus or eminence which they cal- 

 led guaca. The figure of thefe is not precifely 

 pyramidical ; the Indians feeming rather to have af- 

 fected the imitation of nature in mountains and emi- 

 nences. Their ufual height is about eight or ten 

 toifes, and their length betwixt twenty and twenty- 

 five, and the breadth fomething lefs j though there 

 are others much larger. I have already obferved, that 

 thefe monuments are very common all over this 

 country ; but they are mod numerous within the ju- 

 rifdidion of the town of Cayambe, its plains being 

 as it were covered with them. The reafon of this 

 is, that formerly here was one of their principal tem- 

 ples, which they imagined muft communicate a fa- 

 cred quality to all the circumjacent country, and 

 thence it was chofen for the burial-place of the kings 

 and caciques of Quito ; and in imitation of them the 

 caciques of all thefe villages were alfo interred 

 there. 



The remarkable difference in the magnitude of 

 thefe monuments feems to indicate that the guacas 

 were always fuitable to the chara6i;er, dignity, or 

 riches of the perfon interred as indeed the great 

 number of vafTais under fome of the moll potent 

 ^aciques, concurring to raife a guaca over his body. 

 It muft certainly be confiderably larger than that of 



a pri- 



