AMERICAN AQUEDUCTS. In the southern portion of our continent, a race more civilized than any of the aboriginal inhabitants of that portion of America, now constituting the United States, * Murphy's Travels in Portugal, 4to ed., p. 183. PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 71 had constructed extensive conduits or aqueducts, for the irrigation of their arid soil, and in some cities, for culinary and other domestic use. Humboldt and Garcilasso de la Vega, speak with admiration of the aqueducts of Peru. Garcilasso, who was a Peruvian by the mother's side, and who wrote his Com- mentaries in 1560, records of Viracocha, the seventh Inca, that he constructed "an aque- duct, 12 feet in depth, and 120 leagues in length. The source of it was in springs on the top of a high mountain between Parca and Picuy, which were so plentiful, that at the very head of the conduit they seemed to be rivers. The current of water had its course through all the country of the Rucanac, and served to water the pasturage of those unin- habited lands, which are about 18 leagues in breadth, watering- almost the whole country of Peru:' " There is," says the same author, " another aqueduct, which traverses the whole country of Cuntisuya, running above 150 leagues from south to north. Its head is from the top of high mountains, and the water falling into the plains of Quechuas, greatly refresh their pasturage, when the heats of the summer and autumn have dried up the moisture of the earth. There are many streams of like nature which run through divers parts of the empire, which, being conveyed by aqueducts, at the charge and expense of the Incas, are works of grandeur and ostentation, and recommend the magnificence of the Incas to all posterity ; for these aqueducts may well be compared to the miraculous fabrics, which have been the works of mighty princes, who have left their prodigious monuments of ostentation to be admired by future ages, for indeed, we ought to consider that these waters had their sources and beginning from vast high mountains, and were carried over craggy rocks and inaccessible passages ; and to make these ways plain, they had no help of instruments forged of steel or iron, such as pickaxes or sledges, but served themselves only of one stone to break another. Nor were they acquainted with the invention of arches, to convey the water on the level from one precipice to another, but traced round the mountain, until they found ways and passages at the same height and level with the head of the springs. The cisterns or conservatories, which they made for these waters at the top of the mountains, were about 12 feet deep ; the passage was broken through the rocks, and chan- nels made of hewn stone of about two yards long and one high, which were cemented together and rammed in with earth so hard, that no water could pass between, to weakeu or vent itself by the holes of the channel. The conduit of water which passes through all the divisions of Cuntisuya, I have seen in the province of Qaiechuas, which is part of that division, and considered it an extraordinary work, indeed surpassing the description and report which had been made of it. 72 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. But the Spaniards, who were aliens and strangers, little regarded the convenience of these works, either to serve themselves in the use of them, or to keep them in repair, nor yet to take so much notice of them, as to mention them in their histories, but rather out of a scornful and disdaining humor, have suffered them to run into ruins beyond all recovery. The same fate hath befallen the aqueducts which the Indians made for water- ing their corn lands, of which two thirds at least, are wholly destroyed, and none kept in repair, except some few that are so useful, that without them they cannot sustain them- selves with bread, nor with the necessary provisions of life." One might suspect Garcilasso, himself descended from the Incas, of some exaggera- tion of these great works, but Humboldt, whose impartiality and exactness are alike well established, confirms his testimony. In a note to page 31, of the New York edition of Black's Translation of the Essay on New Spain, this passage occurs : " The largest and finest construction of the Indians in this way, is the aqueduct of the city of Tezcuco. We still perceive the traces of a great mound, constructed to heighten the level of the water. How must we admire the industry and activity displayed by the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians, in the irrigation of arid lands. In the maritime parts of Peru, I have seen the remains of walls, along