Of the houses of the Gentiles, as the natives usually call the antiquated buildings we would wish to describe, (and in the hiding-nooks of which treasure is sometimes found,) the roof is rounded or finished off by stones and clay or earth, so as to throw over the heavy rains that at certain seasons of the year fall in these places. This species of building, as it needed no timber, was naturally recommended in frigid woodless plains and almost inaccessible hill-tops, such as abound in the Sierra or mountain-land of Peru; but in situations like Andaguaylla, where wood surrounds the old Indian houses, they could only adhere to this form of building, on account of their higher perfection in masonry than carpentry, which required the use of tools and art that they evidently did not possess.
In the temperate climate of Tarma, situated in the centre of the Andes in an east-north-east direction from Lima, where the houses are generally tiled, and the better sorts of them neatly floored with gypsum or stucco-plaster, the older houses are still seen covered in with mud or red brick-clay, underlaid and supported with strong timbers and a coat of cane or wattling. The most antiquated of these roofs are made with a very slight declivity, with outlets like a ship’s scuttle-holes at the most pending angles, so as to give free exit to the rain when it falls heavily. The wall of this description of house they raise a foot or two higher than the roof, so as to give the latter the appearance of a little inclined plane and enclosure; and they leave triangular holes, like those of a dove-house, in this little parapet; within which, when the rains have passed away, and the crops are housed, the peasants stow peas, beans, and maize, until, by direct exposure to a bright sun, these articles are so dried up as to be unhusked without trouble or loss.[23] Tarma is the favourite place of resort of sickly persons from different parts, especially Lima, and the rigorous climate at the mineral works of Yauli, whence the rheumatic miners, after their own hot springs fail to cure them, flock to the Estrada, or to the ball and tertulia of the blooming Tarmenians. All its peaceful inhabitants are agriculturists; and mostly all the resident families emigrate during harvest-time to little farms in the vicinity of this pretty Cerrano town, which is considered one of the most agreeable and civilized in all the Sierra, and wherein the better classes, even as in the provincial towns on the coast, desire to adopt the manners of the capital as their standard. Near Tarma is a beautiful cascade, and many peach and apple orchards, with lanes lined with poplars, and perfumed with wild mint and many sweet and fragrant flowers in the wet season, when its hills are verdant, its air pure, and its people joyful. The population of the town and suburbs is estimated at eight thousand; yet with all the sickness to which, notwithstanding the general salubrity of its climate, so large a population as that of Tarma must be subjected, this retreat of convalescents from the coast and mineral districts is without a medical adviser of any consideration, except when chance throws among them one of the faculty of Lima, himself a confirmed invalid, or only in a state of recovery from consumption or spitting of blood.