As with the Mexicans, the sacred dance was a striking feature of the Peruvian religion. These choral dances were brought to a very high state of perfection, and in the case of the common people were often wild and full of the fire of abandoned fanaticism. The Incas, however, possessed a dance of their own, which was sufficiently grave and stately. At great festivals two choral dances and hymns were rendered to the sun, each strophe of which ended with the cry of _Hailly_, or 'triumph.' Some of those Peruvian hymns were preserved in the work of a Spanish composer, who in 1555 wrote a mass, into the body of which he introduced these curious waifs of American melody. That choral dances are still in favour with the aborigines of Peru is proved by the evidence of Baron Eland Nordenskjöld, who arrived (August 1907) from an eight months' ethnological expedition to some of the Andes tribes. He states that the 'so-called civilised Indians--the Quichuas and Aymaras--living around Titicaca ... have retained many customs unaltered or but slightly modified since the time of the Incas.... Thus it was found that the Indians often worship Christ and the Virgin Mary by dances, in which the sun is used as the symbol for Christ, and the moon for the Virgin Mary.' With the Peruvians each month had its appropriate festival. The solstices and equinoxes were of course the occasions of the most remarkable of these, and four times a year the feast of Raymi or the dance was celebrated with all the pomp and circumstance of which this strange and bizarre civilisation was capable. The most important of these was held in June, when nine days were given up to the celebration of the Citoc Raymi, or gradually increasing sun. For three days previous to this event all fasted, and no fire might be kindled in any house. On the fourth great day the Inca, accompanied in procession by his court and the people, who followed _en masse_, proceeded to the great square to hail the rising sun. The scene must have been one of intense brilliance. Clad in their most costly robes, and sheltered beneath canopies of cunning feather-work in which the gay plumage of tropical birds was æsthetically arranged, the vast crowd awaited the rising of the sun in eager silence. When he came, shouts of joy and triumph broke from the multitude, and the cries of delight were swelled by the crash of wild melody from a thousand instruments. Louder and louder arose the joyous tumult, until topping the eastern mountains the luminary shone in full splendour on his worshippers. The riot of sound culminated in a mighty pæan of thanksgiving. Libations of maguey, or maize-spirit, were made to the deity, after first having touched the sacred lips of the Inca. Then marshalling itself once more in order of procession, all pressed with one accord to the golden Temple of the Sun, where black llamas were sacrificed, and a new fire kindled by means of a concave mirror.