7 
the mouth of the volcano of Cotopaxi, for it is 
the same with the enorijious blocks, which I 
found in great numbers on the plains of Callo 
and Mulalo. As this monument appears to have 
been constructed in the beginning of the Kith 
century, the materials employed in it prove, that 
it is a mistake to consider as the first eruption of 
the Cotopaxi that which took place in 1533, 
when Sebastien de Belalcazar made the conquest 
of the kingdom of Quito. The stones of Callo 
are cut in parallelopipedons, not all of the same 
size, but forming courses as regular as those of 
Roman workmanship. If the illustrious author 
of the History of America=^ could have seen a sin- 
gle Peruvian edifice, he certainly would not have 
asserted, that the Indians took the stones just 
as they were raised out of the quarries ; that 
some were triangular, some square, some con- 
vex, some concave and that the too highly 
vaunted art of this people consisted only in the 
arrangement of these shapeless materials. 
During our long abode in the Cordilleras of 
the Andes, we never found any structure re- 
sembling that which is termed Cyclopean. In 
every edifice that dates from the time of the 
Incas, the front of the stones is very skilfully cut, 
while the back part is rugged, and often angu- 
lar. An excellent observer, Don Juan Larea, has 
* Robertson, Hist, of A merica, vol. 3, p. 432. 
