i879-] 
Peruvian Antiquities. 
93 
to Tumbez, or over nearly the northern half of the coast of 
modern Peru. The road from the port to the city crosses 
these ruins, entering by a causeway about 4 feet from the 
ground, and leading from one great mass of ruins to another ; 
beneath this is a tunnel. Be they forts, castles, palaces, or 
burial mounds called “ huacas,” all bear the name “ huaca.” 
Hours of wandering on horseback among these ruins give 
only a confused idea of them, nor can old explorers there 
point out what were palaces and what were not. 
To the right is the “ Huaca of Toledo,” to the left 
“ Bishop’s Huaca.” The large square enclosures, shut in 
by wedge-shaped walls of adobe, 20 to 25 feet high, have 
nothing of an entrance into them that would be defined as 
a palace-gate. A half-a-dozen of these, at least, are among 
the ruins. Within some of them are large square mounds 
or burying chambers, many of which have been opened and 
rifled of their contents. These are plastered at the ceilings. 
Beside the so-called “ huacas ” already mentioned, there is 
another on the left side of the road called by the Spaniards 
“the Mass.” On many of the walls is some excellent 
stucco-work. Excellent as regards the material of which it 
is made, more than with reference to its style of art. There 
is not a single grain of disintegration in the parts that sur- 
round the walls of the chamber, although it is half an inch 
high above the ordinary plaster in which it is done, nor the 
slightest impairment in its integrity during the many centu- 
ries it has stood exposed to the elements. The highest 
enclosures — those of adobe brick, up to 30 feet, with a base 
of 15 feet, on the right hand of the city as you advance 
toward Truxillo, between that town and the “ Toledo 
huaca ” — must have cost an immense amount of labour, and 
needed a large number of hands for their erection. Inside 
some of them, besides the square mounds, are narrow pas- 
sages, not more than a yard in width. In others are 
squares, wherein are visible, though now filled with clay, 
the outlines of water-tracks. On this side are the principal 
burial mounds, some having stairs of adobe. 
In the city of Truxillo there exists, in the records of the 
municipality, a copy of the accounts that are found in the 
book of Fifths of the Treasury, in the years 1577 and 1578, 
referring to the “ Huaca of Toledo.” The following is a 
condensed inventory : — 
First . — In Truxillo, Peru, on the 22nd of July, 1577, Don 
Garcia Gutierrez de Toledo presented himself at the royal 
treasury, to give into the royal chest a fifth. He brought a 
bar of gold 19 carats ley and weighing 2400 Spanish dollars, 
