Beyond the temple there was a cloister with four sides, one of which was the wall of the temple. All round the upper part of this cloister there was a cornice, consisting of a plate of gold more than a yard wide, forming a crown to the cloister. In place of this gold the Spaniards caused a cornice of white plaster to be put up, of the same width, in memory of the former one, and I left it there in the walls, which were still standing, and had not been pulled down. Hound the cloister there were five rooms or great halls, square, each one standing by itself, not joined to others, covered in the form of a pyramid, and these formed the other three sides of the cloister.

One of these halls was dedicated to the Moon, the wife of the Sun, and this was nearest to the principal chapel of the temple. The whole of it, with the doorways, was covered with plates of silver, which, from their white colour, denoted that it was the hall of the moon. The image, like that of the Sun, represented a woman's face on a plate of silver. They entered this hall to visit the Moon and to commend themselves to her, for they held her to be the sister and wife of the Sun, and mother of the Yncas, and all their generation. Thus they called her Mama-quilla, which means “Mother Moon;” but they offered up no sacrifices to her as they did to the Sun. On either side of the image of the Moon were the bodies of the dead queens, placed in their order, according to seniority.