Between me and the sand-hills rolling up to the Andes lay the silent courts, the great, roofless houses of the city of the dead caving in over its streets of sand. The desert-river separated this sepulchral spot from the valley of Lurin, where cotton-fields and yellowish expanses of sugar-cane were divided by willow hedgerows, with glimpses of water beneath tall mud gateways. The breeze was as sweet as heliotrope hedges could make it and filled with tinkling bird notes. On the other side was the whole reach of the sparkling Pacific, with its far-off sound of breakers. There is a tradition that the two rocky islands are a goddess, Cavillaca, who cast herself and her child into the sea a thousand years ago. But scientists assure us that the islands were torn away by an earthquake since Spanish occupation. The Incas, they say, had a temple on the islands, then a promontory. * * * * * He has not beheld the quintessence of all human suffering who has not seen the face of a hunchback child-mummy. Upon such bodies, doubled up and tied securely into the smallest possible space, whose varnished skin is stretched over their unbending bones, even the tattoo marks still show in designs of their owners’ choosing. They are clothed in finely-woven garments, with sandals, pouches, shell and bead ornaments, embroidered bands, and hair not yet unbraided. Sometimes brilliant eyes stare from empty sockets in the withered mummy-faces, eyes of prehistoric cuttlefish, a symbol of fish worship. In some of the skulls are dents made by blunted points of stone weapons. One mummy sits in the attitude of a toper about to drink, with a monkey on his shoulder--for pets of the dead man accompanied him on his journey, his dog or parrot sometimes mummified at his feet. The men have their slings and fish nets, the women their spindles, needles of cactus thorns, and every implement of household use, the children their earthenware dolls. All have their little gods and talismans. There are pots of provisions, too, with lids to keep out the thin finger of time, jugs of _chicha_ (a beverage distilled from maize), and ears of corn in nets from which they have never been removed since they were put in by hands turned to dust a thousand years ago. From the grave of an apparently great official with his treasure-jars, was taken only the mummy of a puma, yellow feathers on its head, a gold plate in its mouth, gold and silver bangles on its legs. It had a necklace of emeralds from the north, and its tail was full of golden feathers from the mystic jungle beyond the mountains. Recently X-rays have been applied to mummy-bundles, which show other skeletons within as well as the one who had died, skeletons of those who, when those winding-sheets were adjusted, were still alive. Gruesome sacrifice! Pachacamac has furnished museums all over the world and is still one of the most inexhaustible of mummy supplies. * * * * *