Identifier: adventuresoftrop00fostrich (find matches)
Title: The adventures of a tropical tramp
Year: 1922 (1920s)
Authors: Foster, Harry L. (Harry La Tourette), 1895-1932
Subjects: Peru -- Description and travel
Publisher: London : J. Lane, The Bodley Head
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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pent an enjoyable day rambling about amongits ruins, under the guidance of the kindly rectorof a local university, who secretly pitied mebecause I did not seem sufficiently enthusiasticwhen told who carved the altar in the cathedral. Had the city been designed personally byThomas Cook or Burton Holmes for the enter-tainment of tourists, it could not better suit itspurpose. Every second structure in town is anancient Spanish church, with something ofdecrepit historical interest about it. The oldSpanish device of building a beautiful cathedralfor the Lord, in the hope that it might catch Hiseye and keep Him from noting the other thingswhich the Spaniards were doing, was never moreoverworked than at Cuzco. Practically the entire city is built upon themassive stone foundations of the Inca capital,stones so ponderous and so perfectly put togetherthat even the conquistadores in all their zeal forthe destruction of all things heathen, could notdestroy them, and were forced to utilize them as
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EVERYWHERE IX CUZCO OXE STTMBLES UPOX HIGHSMOOTH WALLS AXD BATTLEMEXTS OF HUGE ROCKS In the Capital of the Incas 151 the foundations of their own puny ginger-breadstructures. The work of the Incas still survives,as perfect as when first constructed,while that ofthe much later Spaniards is already crumblingand falling to pieces. The Incas built not beautifully or ornamentallybut solidly. They were a nation of masons andstone-cutters surpassing the pyramid builders ofEgypt. With what instruments they cut thestone, where they cut it, or how they ever carriedit and fitted it together, is still unknown. Yeteverjwhere in Cuzco, one stumbles upon highsmooth walls and battlements of huge rocks, eachpiece weighing many tons, all of them cutsmoothly and neatly, and fitted together withouta bit of mortar, but fitted so tightly that nowhere,among all these walls that abound everywhere inthe city, is there a spot where a thin knife-bladecan be inserted between the rocks. These stones are not alway

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