243 
a house, containing only two rooms, which are 
near seven metres in height. This house and 
the enclosure, represented in the sixteenth plate, 
form part of a system of walls and fortifications^ 
of which we shall hereafter speak, and which are 
more than one hundred and fifty metres in length. 
The cut of the stones, the disposition of the 
doors and niches, the perfect analogy between 
this edifice and those of Cuzco, leave no doubt 
respecting the origin of this military monument, 
which served as a lodging to the Incas, when 
those princes journeyed occasionally from Peru to 
the kingdom of Quito. The foundations of a 
I 
great number of edifices, which surround the 
enclosure, indicate, that there was room enough 
at Cannar to lodge the small army, which gene- 
rally attended the Incas in their journeys. I 
found among these foundations a stone cut with 
great nicety, as represented in the fore-ground 
of the drawing on the left : but I cannot guess 
the purpose, for which it was shaped in this par- 
ticular manner. 
What is most curious in this small edifice, 
surrounded by a few trunks of schinm molle, is 
the form of its roof, which gives it a perfect re- 
semblance to European houses. One of the first 
historians of America, Pedro de Cieca de Leon, 
who began to describe his travels iri 1541, gives 
the detail of several houses of the Inca in the 
province of Los Canares. He expressly 
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