Our Sport Was Very Poor;
But I Had An Opportunity Of Seeing The Ruins Of One Of The
Ancient Indian Villages, With Its Mound Like A Natural Hill In
The Centre.
The remains of houses, enclosures, irrigating
streams, and burial mounds, scattered over this plain, cannot
fail to give one a high idea of the condition and number of
the ancient population.
When their earthenware, woollen
clothes, utensils of elegant forms cut out of the hardest rocks,
tools of copper, ornaments of precious stones, palaces, and
hydraulic works, are considered, it is impossible not to respect
the considerable advance made by them in the arts of
civilization. The burial mounds, called Huacas, are really
stupendous; although in some places they appear to be natural
hills incased and modelled.
There is also another and very different class of ruins,
which possesses some interest, namely, those of old Callao,
overwhelmed by the great earthquake of 1746, and its
accompanying wave. The destruction must have been more
complete even than at Talcahuano. Quantities of shingle
almost conceal the foundations of the walls, and vast masses
of brickwork appear to have been whirled about like pebbles
by the retiring waves. It has been stated that the land subsided
during this memorable shock: I could not discover any
proof of this; yet it seems far from improbable, for the
form of the coast must certainly have undergone some change
since the foundation of the old town; as no people in their
senses would willingly have chosen for their building place,
the narrow spit of shingle on which the ruins now stand.
Since our voyage, M. Tschudi has come to the conclusion,
by the comparison of old and modern maps, that the coast
both north and south of Lima has certainly subsided.
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