the Sun," as they were styled, were the common reservoir into which
flowed all the streams of public and private benefaction throughout the
empire. Some of the statements, through credulity, and others, in the
desire of exciting admiration, may be greatly exaggerated; but, in the
coincidence of contemporary testimony, it is not easy to determine the
exact line which should mark the measure of our skepticism. Certain it
is, that the glowing picture I have given is warranted by those who saw
these buildings in their pride, or shortly after they had been despoiled by
the cupidity of their countrymen. Many of the costly articles were buried
by the natives, or thrown into the waters of the rivers and the lakes; but
enough remained to attest the unprecedented opulence of these religious
establishments. Such things as were in their nature portable were
speedily removed, to gratify the craving of the Conquerors, who even
tore away the solid cornices and frieze of gold from the great temple,
filling the vacant places with the cheaper, but--since it affords no
temptation to avarice--more durable, material of plaster. Yet even thus
shorn of their splendor, the venerable edifices still presented an
attraction to the spoiler, who found in their dilapidated walls an
inexhaustable quarry for the erection of other buildings. On the very
ground once crowned by the gorgeous Coricancha rose the stately church
of St. Dominic, one of the most magnificent structures of the New
World. Fields of maize and lucerne now bloom on the spot which
glowed with the golden gardens of the temple; and the friar chants his
orisons within the consecrated precincts once occupied by the Children
of the Sun.22

Besides the great temple of the Sun, there was a large number of inferior
temples and religious houses in the Peruvian capital and its environs,
amounting, as is stated, to three or four hundred.23 For Cuzco was a
sanctified spot, venerated not only as the abode of the Incas, but of all