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Anciata Directory 01
Page 03
It is seldom one can visit a place where the people have more primitive habits than in the city of Cuzco. The streets, so wonderfully picturesque, were not fit to walk upon. The people threw into them all that can be thrown out of the houses, which possess no sanitary arrangements of any kind. Much of the pleasure of looking at the magnificent Inca walls--constructed of great blocks of stone so well fitted that no cement was necessary to hold them together--was really lost through being absolutely stifled by the suffocating odour which was everywhere prevalent in Cuzco.
In any Northern State as many as four hundred different kinds of the six-footed or true insects, in the winged or adult stage, may be taken in winter by any one who is so disposed, and knows where to search for them. Among the _Orthoptera_, the "grouse grasshoppers" live during the cold season beneath the loose bark of logs, or beneath the bottom rails of the old Virginia worm fences. From these retreats every warm, sunny day tempts them forth in numbers. On such occasions the earth seems to swarm with them, as they leap before the intruder, their hard bodies striking the dead leaves with a sound similar to that produced by falling hail. The common field cricket belongs also to the _Orthoptera_, and the young of various sizes winter under rails and logs, bidding defiance to Jack Frost from within a little burrow or pit beneath the protecting shelter.
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