The valley of Cuzco—a pocketlike depression about ten miles long and varying in width from two to three miles, covered with fields of barley and maize, dotted with many attractive-looking gardens and country mansions of the old Spanish colonial type, and hedged in on either side by ranges of mountains towering high above—is at the northwestern extremity of the plateau. The city, which is at the head of the valley, is a little more than a mile and a half in breadth, from the foot of the mountain range on the east to that of the range on the west, and about a mile in length. To the north, the famous hill of Sacsahuaman rises abruptly over it and is separated from the mountains on either side by deep ravines, through one of which flows the little river Huatanay and through the other the Rodadero. The Huatanay tumbles noisily past the moss-grown walls of an old convent, under the houses forming the west side of the great square, thence through the center of a broad street, where it is confined between banks faced with masonry and crossed by numerous bridges, and on beyond until it unites with the Rodadero, which separates the city from the suburb of San Blas. The most important section of the ancient city was built between the two little rivers, with the great square in the center, and this site, said to have been chosen for it by the first Inca and his sister-wife, is declared by many to be the most wildly, majestically beautiful of all the beautiful mountain city sites in South America—even Santiago, La Paz, Arequipa, Cajamarca, Quito, Bogotá, and Caracas. Respecting the ancient city itself, Prescott tells us that the Spaniards were astonished “by the beauty of its edifices, the length and regularity of its streets, and the good order and appearance of comfort, even luxury, visible in its numerous population. It far surpassed all they had seen in the New World.... It” (the great square), he continues, “was surrounded by low piles of buildings, among which were several palaces of the Incas. One of these, erected by Huayana Capac, was surmounted by a tower, while the ground floor was occupied by one or more immense halls, like those described in Cajamarca, where the Peruvian nobles held their _fêtes_ in stormy weather. The population of the city,” he goes on—