The railroad and electric lights and the telegraph and telephone have come to Cuzco now, but in other respects the city is not much modernized. It is still distinctly reminiscent of the royal Inca régime, and even more of the régime of the Spanish viceroys. For many years after the conquest it was superior in importance to Lima. Notaries were required under severe penalties, Mozans says, “to write at the head of all public documents, ‘_En la gran ciudad del Cuzco, cabeza de estos reinos y provincias del Perú en las Indias_’—In the great city of Cuzco, head of these kingdoms and provinces of Peru in the Indies. Even so late as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,” he continues, “it was, next to Lima, the city of the greatest social importance in the viceroyalty.” And so now, although there are the same long vistas of low, massive buildings through the narrow streets, the view from the hill presents a panorama of red-tiled roofs instead of thatches, of many tall church towers, and of a great square divided into three. On the first stories of the old Indian homes Spanish superstructures have been built; on the foundation walls of the ancient temple of Voricancha, the largest and richest of the sanctuaries devoted to the worship of the Sun, has been erected the convent of Santo Domingo; the devotees in the convent of Santa Catalina occupy cells that were once used by the Virgins of the Sun; walls that were retained in the building of the Church of San Lazaro are ornamented with bodies of birds having women’s heads that were carved by the bronze chisels of the artisans of the Incas. The grand old renaissance cathedral, which, with its massive stone walls and pillars and vaulted roof, cost so much to build that one of the viceroys said it would have been cheaper to build it of silver, is one of the most imposing specimens of church architecture in America; the pulpit in San Blas is famed as one of the most beautiful in the world, and many of the interiors and cloisters, particularly of La Merced, where the remains of Almagro and two of Pizarro’s brothers lie, and the patio of the university, are perfectly superb. [Illustration: CHURCH OF LA MERCED, LIMA—TYPE OF RELIGIOUS ARCHITECTURE OF SPANISH COLONIAL PERIOD.] Of course, like La Paz, Quito, Bogotá and many of the other old mountain cities, which until very recently were isolated so far as the outside world was concerned because of their inaccessible locations, Cuzco is still behind the times in sanitary arrangements. Since there is surface drainage, there are odors, but one need have little fear of any ill effects in such a climate as theirs. Thanks to it, the cities are as healthful as most; and to the archæologist and the lover of art and the beauties of nature in her sublimest aspect, there is no more fascinating city in South America than Cuzco. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ IX