Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/41

Rh Plate I. contains the delineation of the costumes of the Ynca, and of his Queen, as represented by the modern Indians in their processions.

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF PERU. first object which presents itself to the contemplation of the philosopher, in the history of the monuments of ancient Peru, is the delineation of the various dispositions and organization of its vast territory. In tracing with his pen, amid the spoils and ravages of time and of war, the degree of cultivation this famous nation had attained, when, without the help either of the Egyptians, the Phœnicians or the Greeks, it established wise laws, and made, in certain points of view, great advances in the arts and sciences, he finds it indispensably necessary to examine the soil on which the ruins that are to guide and direct him in his researches are placed. The grandeur of the works erected by the hand of man, is not to be estimated solely by the sad remnants to which they are reduced: it is essential that the proportions of the land which served them as a support, should also enter into the calculation. The canal which waters the most fertile valley, does not display the same magnificence in itself, nor manifest an equal effort and skill on the part of the artificer, as that which, running between formidable precipices, rises to the summit of the mountain, and pierces the deep cleft, which in magnitude equals its arm, or falls into the valley from between the brink and the declivity of lofty hills. On the other hand, as the qualities and circumstances of regions influence the genius and character of those by whom they are peopled, without the physical Rh