256 
tecture 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, were 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 
