wing maize, beans, and pumpkins; with these
products and those of the chase they supported a considerable
population.

Among other antiquarian remains in America are the cliff-houses and
"pueblos." The former peculiarity is explained by the deep canyons of
the dry table-land of Colorado. Imagine a narrow deep cutting or narrow
trench worn by water-courses out of solid rock, deep enough to afford a
channel to the stream from 500 to 1,500 feet below the plateau above.
Next imagine one of the caves which the water many ages ago had worn out
of the perpendicular sides of the canyon; and in that cave a substantial,
well-built structure of cut stones bedded in firm mortar. Such are the
"cliff--houses," sometimes of two stories. Occasionally there is a
watch-tower perched on a conspicuous point of rock near a
cliff-dwelling, with small windows looking to the east and north. These
curious buildings, though now prehistoric, in a sense, are believed by
archeologists to be later than the Spanish conquest. Peru is very
important archeologically, but some interesting points will properly
fall under our general account of that country and its conquest by
Spain.

[Illustration: Chulpa or Stone Tomb of the Peruvians.]

In Peruvian architecture, we find "Cyclopean walls," with polygonal
stones of five or six feet diameter, so well polished and adjusted that
no mortar was necessary; sometimes with a projecting part of the stone
fitting exactly into a corresponding cavity of the stone immediately
above or below it. Such huge stones are of hard granite or basalt, etc.
The walls are often very massive and substantial, sometimes from thirty
to forty feet in thickness. The only approach to the modern "arch" in
the Peruvian structures is a device similar to that which was described
under the Mayan architecture.

Some important buildings were surrounded with large upright stones,
similar to the famous "Druidic" temple at Stonehenge. All of the chief
structures were accurately placed with reference to the cardinal points,
and the main entrance always faced the east. The Peruvian tombs were
very elaborate, one kind being made by cutting caverns in the steep
precipices of the cordillera and then carefully walling in the entrance.
Another variety (the _chulpa_) was really a stone tower erected above
ground, twelve to thirty feet high. The chulpas were sometimes built in
groups.

CHAPTER V

MEXICO BEFORE THE SPANISH INVASION

The A