"We went from Chorillos," said Fred, "and had a ride that was not particularly pleasant, over the dusty road leading to the seaport of Pisco, farther down the coast. Between Chorillos and the valley of the Lurin is a stretch of desert, and the sun beat pitilessly on our heads as we toiled along. Reaching the valley, we turned up the banks of the stream, and a short ride near its welcome waters brought us to the place we sought. [Illustration: RUINS OF PACHACAMAC.] "Pachacamac is a famous spot in Peru, or, rather, it was so in ancient times. Its ruins cover a considerable space along a line of hills on the edge of the desert. The sand has drifted over some of the buildings and completely buried them, and we were forcibly reminded of the ruins at Thebes, and other places in Egypt, not forgetting the grand temples that stood near the pyramids of Gizeh. [Illustration: HEAD OF PERUVIAN STATUE.] "Pachacamac was the sacred city of the inhabitants of this part of the coast before they were conquered by the Incas; their chief divinity, whose name is preserved in the city, had his shrine here, and when the Incas conquered the place they built a Temple of the Sun, and a House of the Virgins of the Sun, quite near the shrine of Pachacamac. It was their object to destroy the worship of the old divinity by building a grander temple to the new, but they were not altogether successful. There was an enormous amount of gold and silver used in the construction and adornment of the temples; the Spaniards took away twenty-seven _cargas_ of gold (a carga weighs sixty-two and a half pounds), and sixteen thousand ounces of silver, but they were unable to discover the place where four hundred cargas of these metals had been concealed just previous to their arrival. "We had quite a scramble among the ruins, as the walls are considerably broken, and the footing is often very insecure. We visited the shrine of Pachacamac, or, rather, the temple which contained it, and then went to the temple near it, erected by the Incas. The first is called 'El Castillo,' or The Temple, and the other is known as Mamacuna. The temple is on a hill, or headland, five hundred feet above the ocean, and the front of it extends down to the shore. It has been considerably shaken by the earthquakes, of which there must have been many since the time of its erection, and the wonder is that it is so well preserved. [Illustration: TERRACED SPACE ON A HILL-TOP.]