Or again, night has overtaken us on the edge of the Montaña, and, below, we overlook the tree-filled valleys, part of the forest which stretches unbroken for thousands of miles across the Amazon plains of Brazil. The valley may be filled with mist, and the effect is remarkable, as a weird transformation scene. The sun sets; it still tinges the western sky with its beauteous and indescribable tints. The palest saffron fades into the pearly-green of the zenith, and the last, orange rays, calm and cold, flash faintly and expiringly upwards. In the deep cañons the fleecy masses of pearly vapour slowly pour--"slow, lingering up the hills like living things." So soft and pure are they that they might be the couch spread for some invisible god-traveller! No eye but mine beholds them. The Indians are busy at the camp-fire. Then the mist masses arise as if to engulf the lonely headland on which we stand, like awful billows. But the light fades, except that of a single jewelled planet, which gleams softly and protectingly down from its gathering height. The Indians sustain themselves at times on their journeys by chewing the leaves of the _coca_ shrub, which are a valued possession among them. This shrub, peculiar to Peru and Bolivia--although it has now been transplanted to Ceylon--is that which gives us the cocaine of the pharmacopoeia. For the invaluable quinine, we may also be grateful to Peru and to the memory of that viceroy's lady, the Countess of Chinchon, who, sick of a fever--it was _tercianas_ or tertial malaria--was cured by an Indian woman with doses of the steeped bark of the quinine shrub, which bears her name to this day. The most ancient and remarkable town of the Cordillera is Cuzco, the one-time Inca capital. It lies in a valley, overlooked by lofty mountains; and on its northern side stands the famous fortress of Sacsaihuaman, the cyclopean fortress of the early Peruvians--the Incas and their predecessors. Here we may stand upon the great walls of what is one of the most remarkable of prehistoric structures, forming terraces along the hillside of great stone blocks, built in the form of revetments and salients, some of the stones being nearly twenty feet high. Many of the walls of the Cuzco streets still retain their Inca stone construction, a monument to the clever masonry of these people, which has excited the interest and admiration of many archæologists and travellers. Here was the Temple of the Sun, and indeed part of its beautifully moulded walls still remains.