Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/604

588 588 PERUVIAN ARCHITECTURE. Part III. It is not a little singular that this perfection should have been reached by a rude people in Southern America while it escaped the Greeks and Romans, as well as the Mediaeval engineers. The true method of its attainment was never discovered in Europe until it was forced on the attention of military men by the discovery of gun- powdei*. Here it is used by a people who never had, so far as we know, an external war, but who, nevertheless, have designed the most perfectly-planned fortress we know. Between these various specimens are many more, some less perfect than the walls of Cuzco, showing greater irregularity in the form, and a greater admixture of large and small stones than are there found; others, in which all the blocks are nearly of the same size, and the angles approach nearly to a right angle. Examples occur of every intermediate gradation between the house of Manco Capac (Woodcut No. 1010) and the Tambos (Woodcut No. 1013), precisely corresponding with the gradual progress of art in Latium, or any European country where the Cyclopean or Pelasgic style of building has been found. So much is this the case that a series of examples collected by Mr. Pentland from the Peruvian remains might be engraved for a description of Italy, and Dodwell's illustrations of those of Italy would serve equally to illustrate the buildings of South America. From what has been said above, it seems by no means improbable that at some future time we may be able to trace a connection between the styles of architecture existing in Central America and those on the eastern shores of the Old World ; but for the present, at least, that of Peru must be considered as one of the isolated styles of the world. At the same time it must be confessed that no style offers more tempting baits to those who are inclined to speculate on such a subject. The sloping jambs, the window cornices, the polygonal masonry, and other forms, so closely resemble what is found in the old Pelasgic cities of Greece and Italy that it is difficult to resist the conclusion that there may be some relation between them. Either, it may be argued, men in certain circumstances do the same things in the same manner, as instinctively as bees or beavers, or by some means or other the arts of the Old World have been transferred to the New. In the present instance, at all events, the latter view can hardly be sustained. The distance of 2000 years in time that elapsed l)etween the erection of the European and American examples is too great to be easily bridged over, and the distance in space is a still more insuperable objection. Even, however, if it were attempted to explain these away, the introduction of the Aymara style is in itself sufficient to settle the question. If that style preceded that of the Incas, as there is every reason to believe it did, it cuts across any