fabrics, which have been the works of mighty princes, who have left their prodigious monuments of ostentation to be admired by future ages, for indeed, we ought to consider that these waters had their sources and beginning from vast high mountains, and were carried over craggy rocks and inaccessible passages ; and to make these ways plain, they had no help of instruments forged of steel or iron, such as pickaxes or sledges, but served themselves only of one stone to break another. Nor were they acquainted with the invention of arches, to convey the water on the level from one precipice to another, but traced round the mountain, until they found ways and passages at the same height and level with the head of the springs. The cisterns or conservatories, which they made for these waters at the top of the mountains, were about 12 feet deep the passage was broken through the rocks, and chan- ;

nels made of hewn stone of about two yards long and one high, which were cemented

together and rammed in with earth so hard, that no water could pass between, to weakeu or vent itself by the holes of the channel.

The conduit of water which passes through all the divisions of Cuntisuya, I have seen in the province of Qaiechuas, which is part of that division, and considered it an extraordinary work, indeed surpassing the description and report which had been made of it.

72 PRELIMINARY ESSAY.

But the Spaniards, who were aliens and strangers, little regarded the convenience of these works, either to serve themselves in the use of them, or to keep them in repair, nor yet to take so much notice of them, as to mention them in their histories, but rather out of a scornful and disdaining humor, have suffered them to run into ruins beyond all