of water carriers, of Spanish descent, and from their province of Gallicia, taking the name of Gallegos, effect the distribution of the bountiful outpouring of this noble aqueduct, and are to be seen at all hours of the day, toiling up the stone stairways of the loftiest houses, bearing on their head or shoulders, an earthen vase, containing almost a barrel of water. With this grandest of modern European aqueducts, we terminate our notice of such constructions in the Old World, and turn to America, where, earlier than is recorded, aqueducts have existed.

AMERICAN AQUEDUCTS. In the southern portion of our continent, a race more civilized than any of the

aboriginal inhabitants of that portion of America, now constituting the United States, * Murphy's Travels in Portugal, 4to ed., p. 183.

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 71

had constructed extensive conduits or aqueducts, for the irrigation of their arid soil, and in some cities, for culinary and other domestic use.

Humboldt and Garcilasso de la Vega, speak with admiration of the aqueducts of Peru. Garcilasso, who was a Peruvian by the mother's side, and who wrote his Commentaries in 1560, records of Viracocha, the seventh Inca, that he constructed "an aqueduct, 12 feet in depth, and 120 leagues in length. The source of it was in springs on the top of a high mountain between Parca and Picuy, which were so plentiful, that at the very head of the conduit they seemed to be rivers. The current of water had its course through all the country of the Rucanac, and served to water the pasturage of those uninhabited lands, which are about 18 leagues in breadth, watering- almost the whole country