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The Chinese speak of a “first heaven,” an age of innocence and a state of happiness, when “all was beautiful and good, and all beings were perfect.” Mexican tradition speaks of the golden age of Tezcuco; and Peruvian history commences with two “Children of the Sun,” who established civilization on the borders of Lake Titicaca.
The fact that the lake fishes are fresh-water, rather than marine, forms does not bother him. Señor Posnansky pins his faith to a small dried seahorse once given him by a Titicaca fisherman. He seems to forget that dried specimens of marine life, including starfish, are frequently offered for sale in the Andes by the dealers in primitive medicines who may be found in almost every market-place.
We know from tradition that war was frequently waged between the peoples of the Titicaca Basin and those of the Urubamba and Cuzco valleys. It is possible that this is a relic of one of those wars. On the other hand, it may be much older than the Incas.
On Titicaca Island are the ruins of a great edifice described as “a palace or temple.” Remains of other structures exist, but their ruins are old, much older than the time of the Incas. They were all built of hewn stone, and had doors and windows, with posts, sills, and thresholds of stone, the doorways being narrower above than below. On the island of Coati there are remarkable ruins.
The impression which Bandelier gives, in his "Islands of Titicaca and Koati," of the degradation and surly character of these Indians was not apparent at the time of my short visit in 1915.
Also those who clung to Urco had fled away with him to a town named Huarina on the borders of the great lake called Titicaca, where was an island with marvellous temples full of gold, which town lay at a distance from Cuzco.
So far as one could judge from the published maps Parinacochas, although much smaller than Titicaca, was the largest body of water entirely in Peru. A thorough search of geographical literature failed to reveal anything regarding its depth. The only thing that seemed to be known about it was that it had no outlet.
There is also another scheme afoot which will involve the taking of a complete set of soundings over the length and breadth of Lake Titicaca. Now, all this means a lot of very important and careful survey work which I reckon will take the best part of two years to accomplish.
In the work of Rivero and Von Tschudi, it is stated that a critical examination of the monuments “indicates two very different epochs in Peruvian art, at least so far as concerns architecture; one before and the other after the arrival of the first Inca.” Among the ruins which belong to the older civilization are those at Lake Titicaca, old Huanuco, Tiahuanaco, and Gran-Chimu, and it probably originated the roads and aqueducts.
One branch, the Beni, rises in the neighbourhood of the ancient Cuzco in Peru, near Lake Titicaca, its whole extent from the centre of the province of Bolivia being nearly the length of the Amazon itself. At its mouth it is two miles wide and sixty-six feet deep; and five hundred miles up it is a mile wide.
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