See Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap.
48.]
The fortress, the walls, and the galleries were all built of
stone, the heavy blocks of which were not laid in regular
courses, but so disposed that the small ones might fill up the
interstices between the great. They formed a sort of rustic
work, being rough-hewn except towards the edges, which were
finely wrought; and, though no cement was used, the several
blocks were adjusted with so much exactness and united so
closely, that it was impossible to introduce even the blade of
knife between them. *22 Many of these stones were of vast size;
some of them being full thirty-eight feet long, by eighteen
broad, and six feet thick. *23
[Footnote 22: Ibid., ubi supra. - Inscripciones, Medallas,
Templos, Edificios, Antiguedades, y Monumentos del Peru, Ms.
This manuscript, which formerly belonged to Dr. Robertson, and
which is now in the British Museum, is the work of some unknown
author, somewhere probably about the time of Charles III.; a
period when, as the sagacious scholar to whom I am indebted for a
copy of it remarks, a spirit of sounder criticism was visible in
the Castilian historians.]
[Footnote 23: Acosta, Naturall and Morall Historie of the East
and West Indies, Eng. trans., (London, 1604,) lib. 6, cap. 14. -
He measured the stones himself. - See also Garcilasso, Com.
Real., loc. cit.]
We are filled with astonishment, when we consider, that these
enormous masses were hewn from their native bed and fashioned
into shape, by a people ignorant of the use of iron; that they
were brought from quarries, from four to fifteen leagues distant,
*24 without the aid of beasts of burden; were transported across
rivers and ravines, raised to their elevated position on the
sierra, and finally adjusted there with the nicest accuracy,
without the knowledge of tools and machinery familiar to the
European.
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