Page:The Boy Travellers in South America.djvu/236

Terra-cotta figures, Cuzco.

“A curious circumstance connected with the antiquities of Peru is the extreme rarity of statues of stone or other material. Some have been found, but not many; in Cuzco there are a few figures in terra cotta and also in stone, but probably not twenty in all. The few that exist are quite rude in character, and not at all comparable to the admirable works of art which abounded in ancient Egypt. Two stone figures representing animals in a sitting posture were taken from the ruins of the Garden of the Sun; they are each about twenty-four inches high, and the shape of the pedestals seems to indicate that they were originally placed on the coping of a wall. If the sculptor made a true representation of his model, it is easy to believe that the animal could walk down his own throat without difficulty.

Ancient stone sculpture, Cuzco.

“Cuzco was defended by a fortress on a high hill just in the rear of the city. The fortress was a remarkable piece of work, and is said to have been built in the twelfth century; it held the same relation to Cuzco that ‘The Rock’ does to Gibraltar, or the Acropolis did to Athens. It consists of terraces near the summit of the hill, seven hundred and sixty-four feet above the grand square of the city, and of zigzag roads leading from below. All the roads are made so that they can be easily defended; the terraces are three in number, and have a total height of sixty feet.

“Military men who have examined the fortress say that the walls were constructed quite in accordance with the best engineering science of modern times; on its only assailable side the walls are provided with salients, so that every point could be covered by a parallel fire from the weapons of the defenders. The walls are composed of immense blocks of blue limestone, and each salient has one of these at its end. In some