t the labor of countless
thousands of quarrymen. Even in modern times, with steam drills,
explosives, steel tools, and light railways, these hills would
be noteworthy, but when one pauses to consider that none of these
mechanical devices were known to the ancient stonemasons and that
these mountains of stone chips were made with stone tools and were all
carried from the quarries by hand, it fairly staggers the imagination.

The ruins of Sacsahuaman represent not only an incredible amount of
human labor, but also a very remarkable governmental organization. That
thousands of people could have been spared from agricultural
pursuits for so long a time as was necessary to extract the blocks
from the quarries, hew them to the required shapes, transport them
several miles over rough country, and bond them together in such an
intricate manner, means that the leaders had the brains and ability
to organize and arrange the affairs of a very large population. Such
a folk could hardly have spent much time in drilling or preparing for
warfare. Their building operations required infinite pains, endless
time, and devoted skill. Such qualities could hardly have been called
forth, even by powerful monarchs, had not the results been pleasing
to the great majority of their people, people who were primarily
agriculturists. They had learned to avert hunger and famine by relying
on carefully built, stone-faced terraces, which would prevent their
fields being carried off and spread over the plains of the Amazon. It
seems to me possible that Sacsahuaman was built in accordance with
their desires to please their gods. Is it not reasonable to suppose
that a people to whom stone-faced terraces meant so much in the way
of life-giving food should have sometimes built massive terraces of
Cyclopean character, like Sacsahuaman, as an offering to the deity
who first taught them terrace construction? This seems to me a more
likely object for the gigantic labor involved in the construction
of Sacsahuaman than its possible usefulness as a fortress. Equally
strong defenses against an enemy attempting to attack the hilltop
back of Cuzco might have been constructed of smaller stones in an
infinitely shorter time, with far less labor and pains.

Such a display of the power to control the labor of thousands of
individuals and force them to superhuman efforts on an unproductive
undertaking, which in its agricultural or strategic results was out
of all proport