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with unwearied solicitude over its subjects, provided for their of the characters for a written language. They had no physical necessities, was mindful of their morals, and showed symbols to represent sounds with sufficient accuracy, or throughout the affectionate concern of a parent for his children, even in a plenary manner. The quipu was their only it yet regarded them only as children, who were never to means of communicating historical events, except by oral emerge from the state of pupilage, to act or to think for themselves, but whose whole duty was comprehended in the obliga-swered better for statistical than for literary purposes. tradition. The quipu exhibited great ingenuity, and an

tion of implicit obedience.

"Such was the humiliating condition of the people under the Incas, while the numerous families of the blood royal enjoyed the benefit of all the light of education which the civilization of the country could afford; and, long after the Conquest, the spots continued to be pointed out where the seminaries had existed for their instruction. These were placed under the care of the amaulas, or wise men,' who engrossed the scanty stock of science-if science it could be called--possessed by the Peruvians, and who were the sole teachers of youth. It was natural that the monarch should take a lively interest in the instruction of the young nobility his own kindred. Several of the Peruvian princes are said to have built their palaces in the neighbourhood of the schools, in order that they might the more easily visit them, and listen to the lectures of the amantas, which they occasionally re-enforced by a homily of their own. In these schools the royal pupils were instructed in all the different kinds of knowledge in which their teachers were versed, with especial reference to the stations they were to occupy in after life. They studied the laws, and the principles of administering the government, in which many of them were to take part. They were initiated in the peculiar rites of their religion, most necessary to those who were to assume the sacerdotal functions. They learned also to emulate the achievements of their royal ancestors, by listening to the chronicles compiled by the amantas. They were taught to speak their own dialect with purity and elegance, and they became acquainted with the mysterious science of the quipus, which supplied the Peruvians with the means of communicating their ideas to one another, and of transmitting them to future generations."

It is thus described:

"The quipu was a cord about two feet long, composed of different coloured threads tightly twisted together, from which a quantity of smaller threads were suspended in the manner of a fringe. The threads were of different colours, and were tied into knots the word quipn, indeed, signifies a knot. The colours denoted sensible objects, as, for instance, white represented silver, and yellow, gold. They sometimes also stood for abstract ideas; thus, white signified peace, and red, war. But the quipus were chiefly used for arithmetical purposes. knots served instead of ciphers, and could be combined in such a manner as to represent numbers to any amount they required. By means of these they went through their calculations with great rapidity and the Spaniards who first visited the country bear testimony to their accuracy."

The

The statistics of Peru were kept by these skeins of thread with great nicety. Returning officers were appointed in each district. There were registrars of births, marriages, and deaths, which our civilization has only recently attempted to supply, and still supplies imperfectly; and there were officers appointed to obtain, record, and preserve agricultural statistics and the amount of produce-a degree of accuracy which we have not yet attained :

"Annalists were appointed in each of the principal com munities, whose business it was to record the most important events which occurred in them. Other functionaries, of a higher character, usually the amantas, were entrusted with the history of the empire, and were selected to chronicle the great deeds of the reigning Inca, and of his ancestors. The narrative, thus concocted, could be commmunicated only by oral tradition; but the quipns served the chronicler to arrange the

once treasured up in the mind, was indelibly impressed there by frequent repetition. It was repeated by the amauta to his pupils; and, in this way, history, conveyed partly by oral tradition, and partly by arbitrary signs, was handed down from generation to generation, with sufficient discrepancy of details, but with a general conformity of outline to the truth."

This statement does not, however, agree precisely with another at page 73, where we are informed, that to secure the allegiance of some of their vassals, the Incas adopted "Another expedient of a bolder and more original charac-incidents with method, and to refresh his memory. The story, acter. This was nothing less than to revolutionise the language of the country. South America, like North, was broken up into a great variety of dialects, or rather languages, having little affinity with one another. This circumstance occasioned great embarassment to the Government in the administration of the different provinces, with whose idioms they were unacquainted. It was determined, therefore, to substitute one universal language, the Quichua---the language of the court, the capital, and the surrounding country-the richest and most comprehensive of the South American dialects. Teachers were provided in the towns and villages throughout the land, who were to give instruction to all-even the humblest classes; and it was intimated at the same time, that no one should be raised to any office of dignity or profit, who was unacquainted with this tongue. The Curacas and other chiefs who attended at the capital, became familiar with this dialect in their intercourse with the court; and, on their return home, set the example of conversing in it among themselves. This example was imitated by their followers, and the Quichua gradually became the language of elegance and fashion, in the same manner as the Norman French was affected by all those who aspired to any consideration in England after the Conquest."

Again, page 108, the reader is informed that the policy of the Ineas confined education to their own race. While they "watched with unwearied solicitude over their subjects, provided for their physical necessities, were mindfui of their morals, and showed throughout the affectionate concern of a parent for his children, they yet regarded them only as children, who were never to emerge from the state of pupilage, to act or think for themselves, but whose whole duty was comprehended in the obligation of implicit obedience."

Even these traditions are, however, mainly lost, unless some future inquirer unlock the Indian mind, if anything There is a similarity beyet remains there undiscovered. tween the Mexicans and Peruvians, in the absence of written characters:

"The Peruvian quipus were, doubtless, a wretched substitute for that beautiful contrivance, the alphabet, which, employing a few simple characters as the representatives of sounds, instead of ideas, is able to convey the most delicate shades of thought that ever passed through the mind of man. The Peruvian invention, indeed, was far below that of the hieroglyphies, even below the rude picture-writing of the Aztecs, for the latter art, however incompetent to convey abstract ideas, could depict sensible objects with tolerable accuracy. It is evidence of the total ignorance in which the two nations remained of cach other, that the Peruvians should have borrowed nothing of the hieroglyphical system of the Mexicans; and, this, notwithstanding that the existence of the maguey plant (agare) in South America might have furnished them with the very material used by the Aztecs for the construction of their maps.”

It is remarkable that these two powerful nations remained in ignorance of the existence of their neighbours; and appears to establish the supposition that they were descended from different divisions of the human race, emi. grating at different times, and from different points, to

The great deficiency of the Peruvians was their ignorance America. Pursuing thisline jug

the Peruvians were the earliest settlers; that they came from the west, because it is unlikely that they would have traversed the wide continent of Southern America, and, climbed the Cordilleras to settle on a narrow strip by the shores of the Pacific. They had also, probably, left the parent race prior to the invention and use of written characters to express the sounds of speech; and the quipu was most likely their own invention. This theory rests on better grounds than mere conjecture; for it is scarcely possible that the knowledge of written characters, once obtained, would be entirely obliterated.

The Mexicans had made greater advances. They were acquainted with a rude description of hieroglyphics, and may have originally left the African coast while that mode of conveying ideas was in its imperfect state. We infer that they came from the East, as the Peruvians from the West,

and that the races never met.

We revert again to the peculiar institution of the Incas, the most perfect aristocracy, and the most patriarchal, on a large scale, that the world has probably ever witnessed :

"It was the Inca nobility, indeed, who constituted the rea strength of the Peruvian monarchy. Attached to their prince by ties of consanguinity, they had common sympathies, and, to a considerable extent, common interests with him. Distinguished by a peculiar dress and insignia, as well as by language! and blood, from the rest of the community, they were never confounded with the other tribes and nations who were incorporated into the great Peruvian monarchy. After the lapse of centuries, they still retained their individuality as a peculiar people. They were to the conquered races of the country what the Romans were to the barbarous hordes of the empire, or the Normans to the ancient inhabitants of the British Isles. Clustering around the throne, they formed an invincible phalanx, to shield it alike from secret conspiracy and open insurrection. Though living chiefly in the capital, they were also distributed throughout the country in all its high stations and strong military posts, thus establishing lines of communi- | cation with the court, which enabled the sovereign to act si- | multaneously and with effect on the most distant quarters of his empire. They possessed, moreover, an intellectual preeminence, which, no less than their station, gave them authority with the people; indeed, it may be said to have been the principal foundation of their authority. The crania of the Inca race show a decided superiority over the other races of the land in intellectual power; and it cannot be denied that it was the fountain of that peculiar civilisation and social polity, which raised the Peruvian monarchy above every other state in South America. Whence this remarkable race came, and what was its early history, are among those mysteries that meet us so frequently in the annals of the New World, and which time and the antiquary have, as yet, done little to explain."

We have a notion that, if the thigh-bones of the Incas, like their crania, could be compared with those of the vassals, they would also evince physical superiority, and that the difference in both cases is traceable, not to a distinction of race, but of the manner of living.

Criminal punishment amongst the Peruvians was patriarchal, paternal, and therefore severe. Removing land marks, turning the water away from a neighbour's land into one's own, burning a house, were all severely punished. To burn a bridge was death. A rebellious city or province was laid waste, and its inhabitants exterminated. Rebellion against the Children of the Sun was the greatest of all crimes:

"The simplicity and severity of the Peruvian code may be thought to infer a state of society but little advanced, which had few of those complex interests and relations that grow up in a civilized community, and which had not proceeded far enough in the science of legislation to economize human suffering by proportioning penalties to crimes. But the Peruvian institutions must be regarded from a different point of view from that in which we study those of other nations. The

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divine commission, and was possessed of a divine nature. To laws emanated from the sovereign, and that sovereign hell throne, but it was sacrilege. The slightest offence, viewed in violate the law, was not only to insult the majesty of the this light, merited death; and the gravest could incur no heavier penalty. Yet, in the infliction of their punishments, they showed no unnecessary cruelty, and the sufferings of the victim were not prolonged by the ingenuous torments so frebuent among barbarous nations."

All property centred originally in the Incas-but espe cially in the lucas-exhibiting a close resemblance to the

laws and customs of Oriental nations.

"All the mines in the kingdom belonged to the Inca They were wrought exclusively for his benefit by persoas the mines were situated. Every Peruvian of the lower class familiar with this service, and selected from the districts where was a husbandman, and, with the exception of those already specified, was expected to provide for his own support by the cultivation of his land. A small portion of the community, however, was instructed in mechanical arts; some of them of the more elegant kind, subservient to the purposes of luxury and ornament. The demand for these was chiefly limited to

the sovereign and his court; but the labour of a larger num ber of hands was exacted for the execution of the great pubic works which covered the land. The nature and amount of the services required were all determined at Cuzeo by contaissioners well instructed in the resources of the country, and in the character of the inhabitants of the different provinces."

Not only, however, the products of the mines, but a portion also of those of the soil, reverted to the Inca, for the use of his household, and for public purposes:—

"A part of the agricultural produce and manufactures was transported to Cuzco, to minister to the immediate demands of the Inca and his court. But far the greater part was stored in magazines scattered over the different provinces. Thes spacious buildings, constructed of stone, were divided between the Sun and the Inca, though the greater share seems to have been appropriated by the monarch. By a wise regulation, aay deficiency in the contributions of the Inca might be supplied from the granaries of the Sun. But such a necessity could rarely have happened; and the providence of the government usually left a large surplus in the royal depositories, whirl. was removed to a third class of magazines, whose design was to supply the people in seasons of scarcity, and occasionally te furnish relief to individuals whom sickness or misfortune had reduced to poverty; thus in a manner justifying the assertica of a Castilian document, that a large portion of the revenues of the Inca found its way back again, through one channel o another, into the hands of the people. These magazines were found by the Spaniards, on their arrival, stored with all the various products and manufactures of the country-with maize, coca, qrinna, woollen and cotton stuffs of the finest quality, with vases and utensils of gold, silver, and copper; ia short, with every article of luxury or use within the compass f Peruvian skill. The magazines of grain, in particular, would frequently have supplied for the consumption of the adjoining districts for several years."

The practice still reminds us of patriarchal times; the custom of storing grain on public account, illustrated often in profane history, and nowhere more beautifully than in the scriptural history of Joseph. We have mentioned already the existence of correct statistical returns, whea that every province, and in reality every family, had to farenabled the Inca and his subordinates to assign the work nish on public account.

"A register was kept of all the births and deaths throughout the country, and exact returns of the actual population were made to the government every year, by means of the quipus, a curious invention, which will be explained hereafter. At certain intervals, also, a general, survey of the country was made, exhibiting a complete view of the character of the sisi, its fertility, the nature of its products, both agricultural and mineral; in short, of all that constituted the physical resources of the empire. Furnished with these statistical details, it was easy for the government, after determining the amount of requisitions, to distri ute the work among the respective pro

vinces best qualified to execute it. The task of apportioning | management of his affairs. No mendicant was tolerated in the labour was assigned to the local authorities, and great care was taken that it should be done in such a manner that, while the most competent hands were selected, it should not fall disproportionately heavy on any."

Peru. When a man was reduced by poverty or misfortune-it could not be by fault-the arm of the law was stretched out to minister relief; not the stinted relief of private charity, nor that which is doled out, drop by drop, as it were, from the frozen reservoirs of the parish,' but in generous measure,

The Inca and the priesthood had also a portion of the bringing no humiliation to the object of it, and placing him Iand specially devoted to their support.

“The lands assigned to the Sun furnished a revenue to support the temples and maintain the costly ceremony of the Peruvian worship and the multitudinous priesthood. Those reserved for the Inca went to support the royal state, as well as the numerous members of his household and his kindred, and supplied the various exigencies of government. The remainder of the lands was divided, per capita, in equal shares among the people. It was provided by law, as we shall see hereafter, that every Peruvian should marry at a certain age. When this event took place, the community or district in which he lived furnished him with a dwelling, which, as it was constructed of humble materials, was done at little cost. A lot of land was then assigned to him, sufficient for his own maintenance and that of his wife. An additional portion was granted for every child-the amount allowed for a son being the double of that for a daughter. The division of the soil was renewed every year, and the possessions of the tenant were increased or diminished according to the numbers in his family. The same arrangement was observed with reference to the Curacas, ex

cept only that a domain was assigned to them corresponding with the superior dignity of their stations.

"A more thorough and effectual agrarian law than this cannot be imagined. In other countries where such a law has been introduced, its operation, after a time, has given way to the natural order of events, and under the superior intelligence and thrift of some, and the prodigality of others, the usual

vicissitudes of fortune have been allowed to take their course, and restore things to their natural inequality. Even the iron law of Lycurgus ceased to operate after a time, and melted away before the spirit of luxury and avarice. The nearest approach to the Peruvian constitution was probably in Judea, where, on the recurrence of the great national jubilee, at the close of every half century, estates reverted to their original proprietors. There was this important difference in Peru, that not only did the lease, if we may so call it, terminate with the year, but during that period the tenant had no power to alienate or to add to his possessions. The end of the brief term found him in precisely the same condition as he was in at the beginning. Such a state of things might be supposed to be fatal to anything like attachment to the soil, or to that desire of improving it which is natural to the permanent proprietor, and hardly less so to the holder of a long lease. But the practical operation of the law seems to have been otherwise; and it is probable that, under the influence of that love of order and aversion to change which marked the Peruvian institutions, each new partition of the soil usually confirmed the occupant in his possession, and the tenant for a year was converted into proprietor for life.

The territory was cultivated wholly by the people. The lands belonging to the Sun were first attended to. They next tilled the land, of the old, of the sick, of the widows and the orplan, and of soldiers engaged in actual service-in short, of all that part of the community who, from bodily infirmity, or any other cause, were unable to attend to their own concerns."

The Peruvian nation formed, in fact, one great family, having all things in common to the point necessary for the support of existence; and if now, we, as a nation, rejoice in our greater attainments, let us not scorn to look back to their care of the widow and the orphan; and to follow their example in preventing poverty, so far as it can be imitated in our circumstances.

Peru was a densely peopled land, without the evils of extreme pauperism.

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on a level with the rest of his countrymen.

all might enjoy, and did enjoy a competence. Ambition, ava"No man could be rich, no man could be poor in Peru; but rice, the love of change, the morbid spirit of discontent, those passions which most agitate the minds of men, found no place in the bosom of the Peruvian. The very condition of his being seemed to be at war with change. He moved on in the same unbroken circle in which his fathers had moved before him, and in which his children were to follow. It was the object of the Incas to infuse into their subjects a spirit of passive obedience and tranquillity, a perfect acquiescence in the established order of things. In this they fully succeeded. The Spaniards who first visited the country are emphatic in their testimony, that no government could have been better suited to the genius of the people; and no people could have appeared more contented with their lot, or more devoted to their government."

The

If we deplore the ignorance and the serfship of the Peruvian races, we must also remember that their lives were pleasant and their yoke was light. Obedience provided support; and the tyranny of the Incas embraced effective relief without degradation. nation insured its individual members against the consequences of calamity, and even the anxieties, of excessive care. Under these circumstances, so favourable to inactivity, the Peruvians did not degenerate into indolent habits. They were even characterised by great industry. They opened roads in regions of most difficult access. They perched their villages on the mountain's brow. They built reservoirs for irrigation, and terraced the hillsides for their crops. They spanned the deepest ravines with their suspension bridges.

"Over some of the boldest streams it was necessary to construct suspension bridges, as they are termed, made of the tough fibres of the magney, or of the osier of the country, which has an extraordinary degree of tenacity and strength. These osiers were woven into cables of the thickness of a man's body. The huge ropes, then stretched across the water, were conducted through rings or holes cut in immense buttresses of stone raised on the opposite banks of the river, and there seSeveral of these enormous cured to heavy pieces of timber. cables, bound together, formed a bridge, which, covered with planks, well secured and defended by a railing of the same osier materials on the sides, afforded a safe passage for the traveller. The length of this aerial bridge, sometimes exceeding two hundred feet, caused it, confined as it was only at the extremities, to dip with an alarming inclination towards the centre, while the motion given to it by the passenger caused an oscillation still more frightful as the eye wandered over the dark abyss of waters that foamed and tumbled many a fathom beneath. Yet these light and fragile fabrics were crossed without fear by the Peruvians, and are still retained by the Spaniards over those streams which, from the depth or impetuosity of the current, would seem impracticable for the usual modes of conveyance. The wider and more tranquil waters were crossed on balsas, a kind of raft still much used by the natives, to which sails were attached, furnishing the only instance of this higher kind of navigation among the American Indians.”

Their zealous and careful cultivation of the land was apparent everywhere.

"The Peruvians showed a similar spirit of enterprise in their schemes for introducing cultivation into the mountainous parts of their domain. Many of the hills, though covered with

strong soil, were too precipitous to be tilled. These they cut into terraces, faced with rough stone, diminishing in regular gradation towards the summit; so that, while the lower strip, or anden, as it was called by the Spaniards, that belted round

the base of the mountain, might comprehend hundreds of acres the uppermost was only large enough to accommodate a few rows of Indian corn. Some of the eminences presented such a mass of solid rock that, after being hewn into terraces, they were obliged to be covered deep with earth before they could serve the purpose of the husbandman. With such patient toil did the Peruvians combat the formidable obstacles presented by the face of their country! Without the use of the tools or the machinery familiar to the European, each individual could have done little; but, acting in large masses, and under a comnon direction, they were enabled, by indefatigable perseverance, to achieve results, to have attempted which might have filled even the European with dismay."

They made considerable progress in agricultural science; and the guano now highly prized by our farmers was considered not less valuable by the Peruvians.

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The Peruvian farmers were well acquainted with the different kinds of manures, and made large use of them--a circumstance rare in the rich lands of the tropics, and probably not elsewhere practised by the rude tribes of America. They made great use of guano, the valuable deposit of sea-fowl that has attracted so much attention of late from the agriculturists both of Europe and of our own country, and the stimulating and nutritious properties of which the Indians perfectly appreciated. This was found in such immense quantities on many of the little islands along the coast, as to have the appearance of lofty hills, which, covered with a white saline incrustation, led the conquerors to give them the name of the sierra nerada, or snowy mountains."

"The Incas took their usual precautions for securing the benefits of this important article to the husbandman. They assigned the small islands on the coast to the use of the respective districts which lay adjacent to them. When the island was large, it was distributed among several districts, and the boundaries for each were clearly defined. All encroachment on the rights of another was severely punished. And they secured

the preservation of the fowl by penalties as stern as those by which the Norman tyrants of England protected their own game. No one was allowed to set foot on the island during the season for breeding under pain of death, and to kill the birds at any time was punished in the like manner.

With this advancement in agricultural science, the Peruvians might be supposed to have had some knowledge of the plough, in such general use among the primitive nations of the eastern continent. But they had neither the iron ploughshare of the Old World, nor had they animals for draught, which indeed were nowhere found in the New. The instrument which they used was a strong, sharp-pointed stake, traversed by a horizontal piece, ten or twelve inches from the point, on which the ploughman might set his foot, and force it into the ground. Six or eight strong men were attached by ropes to the stake, and dragged it forcibly along, pulling together, and keeping time as they moved by chanting their national songs, in which they were accompanied by the women, who followed in their train to break up the sods with their rakes. The mellow soil offered slight resistance; and the labourer, by long practice, acquired a dexterity which enabled him to turn up the ground to the requisite depth with astonishing facility."

There is a wide difference between our children of the Normans, and these children of the Sun. For choice, the Incas were greatly preferable to the Dukes. Our aristocracy preserve pheasants, useful birds when not overdone, but generally over-protected, and then they are mischievous. The Peruvian aristocracy preserved sea-fowl. The gamelaws of the modern preservers injure agriculture. The laws of their barbarian predecessors were devised to increase guano; and the Lothians or Lincolnshire may be at this hour indebted to their care.

Our manufacturers have only recently introduced the wool of the llama. It was in use amongst the Peruvians many hundred years since :

"They had peculiar advantages for domestic manufacture in a material incomparably superior to anything possessed by the other races of the western continent. They found a good substitute for linen in a fabric, which, like the Aztecs, they knew how to

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weave from the tough thread of the maguey. Cotton grew luxuriantly on the low sultry level of the coast, and furnished them with a clothing suitable to the milder latitudes of the country. But, from the llama, and the kindred species of Peruvian sheep, they obtained a fleece adapted to the colder climate of the table land, more estimable,' to quote the language of a well-informed writer, than the down of the Canadian beaver, the fleece of the brebis des calmoucks, or of the Syrian goat,

"Of the four varieties of the Peruvian sheep, the llama, the one most familiarly known, is the least valuable on account of its wool. It is chiefly employed as a beast of burden, for which, although it is somewhat larger than any of the other varieties, its diminutive size and strength would seem to disqualify it. It carries a load of little more than a hundred pounds, and cannot travel above three or four leagues in a day. But all this is compensated by the little care and cost required for its manage ment and its maintenance. It picks up an easy subsistence from the moss and stunted herbage that grow scantily along the withered sides and the steeps of the Cordilleras. The structure of its stomach, like that of the camel, is such as to enable it to dispense with any supply of water for weeks, may, months together. Its spongy hoof, armed with a claw or pointed talon, to enable it to take secure hold on the ice, never requires to be shod, and the load on its back sits securely on its bed of wool, without the aid of girth or saddle. The llam move in troops of five hundred, or even a thousand, and thus, though each individual carries but little, the aggregate is considerable. The whole caravan travels on at its regular pace, passing the night in the open air, without suffering from the coldest temperature, and marching in perfect order, and in obedience to the voice of the driver. It is only when overloaded that the spirited little animal refuses to stir, and neither blows nor caresses can induce him to rise from the ground. He is as sturdy in asserting his rights on this occasion as he is usually docile and unresisting."

took of the plans pursued by them in conducting all busiTheir mode of managing flocks and manufactures par

ness.

Cuzco was the main-spring of the state. Centralization was reduced to a perfect system. The Government directed everything. Not a shuttle moved in Peru but by the Inca's orders. The people were reduced to machines

very happy, well-fed, and contented machines. We find of the world's history, and none more successful. :— no more complete despotism in any 'country, at any stage

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The regulations for the care and breeding of these flocks were prescribed with the greatest minuteness, and with a sagacity which excited the admiration of the Spaniards, who were familiar with the management of the great migratory flocks of Merinos in their own country.

"At the appointed season they were all sheared, and the wool was deposited in the public magazines. It was then dealt out to each family in such quantities as sufficed for its wants, and was consigned to the female part of the household who were well instructed in the business of spinning and weaving. When this labour was accomplished, and the fami was provided with a coarse but warm covering, suited to the cold climate of the mountains--for in the lower country, cotton, furnished in like manner by the crown,, took the place, to a certain extent, of wool-the people were required to labour for the Inca. The quantity of the cloth needed, as well as the peculiar kind and quality of the fabric, was first determined at Cuzco. The work was then apportioned among the different provinces. Officers appointed for the purpose superntended the distribution of the wool, so that the manufacture of the different articles should be entrusted to the most competent hands."

The success of the Incas' despotism is apparent in the respect and veneration in which they were held by the people. When, upon the order and regularity of their empire the strange warriors broke at last, carrying dismay and terror in their path, the fidelity of the people to their monarchs was peculiarly marked. It was part, indeed, of their religious system. They worshipped the Surf, and, regarding the Incas as his lineal descendants, they came

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"The most effectual means taken by the Incas for communicating with their people, were their progresses through the empire. These were conducted, at intervals of several years, with great state and magnificence. The sedan, or litter, in which they travelled, richly emblazoned with gold and emeralds, was guarded by a numerous escort. The men who bore it on their shoulders were provided by two cities, specially appointed for the purpose. It was a post to be coveted by no one, if, as is asserted, a fall was punished with death. They travelled with ease and expedition, halting at the fambos, or inus, erected by government along the route, and occasionally at the royal palaces, which, in the great towns, afforded ample accommodations for the whole of the monarch's retinue. The noble roads which traversed the table land were lined with people, who swept away the stones and stubble from their surface, strewing them with sweet-scented flowers, and vying with each other in carrying forward the baggage from one village to another. The monarch haited from time to time to listen to the grievances of his subjects, or to settle some points which had been referred to his decision by the regular tribunals. As the princely train wound its way along the mountain passes, every place was thronged with spectators eager to catch a glimpse of their sovereign; and when he raised the curtains of his litter, and showed himself to their eyes, the air was rent with acclamations, as they invoked blessings on his head. Tradition long commemorated the spots at which he halted, and the simple people of the country held them in reverence, as places consecrated, by the presence of an Inca."

These expressions of attachment to the Incas, in the plentitude of their power, are not nearly so affecting as the zeal with which their persons and their property was defended to the last, in their days of adversity, when they were hunted by a powerful enemy, whose skill and science defeated the numbers and devotedness of their people.

The Incas collected great wealth, and exhibited it in the number and magnificence of their palaces. Cuzco was the London of Peru, and Yucay its Windsor. The beauty of this country residence is described in glowing terms by

Mr. Prescott :

"But the favourite residence of the Incas was at Yucay, about

four leagues distance from the capital. In this delicious valley, locked up within the friendly arms of the Sierra, which sheltered it from the rude breezes of the east, and refreshed by gushing fountains and streams of running water, they built the most beautiful of their palaces. Here, when wearied with the dust and toil of the city, they loved to retreat and solace themselves with the society of their favourite concubines, wandering amidst groves and airy gardens, that shed around their soft intoxicating odours, and lulled the senses to voluptuous repose. Here, too, they loved to indulge in the luxury of their baths, replenished by streams of crystal water, which were conducted through subterraneous silver channels into basins of gold. The spacious gardens were stocked with numerous varieties of plants and flowers, that grew without effort in this temperate region of the tropics; while parterres, of a more extraordinary kind, were planted by their side, glowing with the various forms of vegetable life skillfully imitated in gold and silver. Among them, the Indian corn, the most beautiful of American grains, is particularly commemorated, and the curious workmanship is noticed with which the golden ear was half disclosed amidst the broad leaves of silver, and the light tassel of the same material that floated gracefully from its top. If this dazzling picture staggers the faith of the reader, he may reflect that the Peruvian mountains teemed with gold; that the natives understood the art of working the mines to a considerable extent; that none of the ore, as we shall see hereafter, was converted into coin, and that the whole of it passed into the hands of the sovereign for his own exclusive benefit, whether for purposes of utility or ornament. Certain it is that no fact is better attested by the conquerors themselves, who had ample means of information, and no motive for misstatement.

"The Italian poets, in their gorgeous pictures of the gardens of Alcina and Morgana, came nearer the truth than they imagined.

consider that the wealth displayed by the Peruvian princes was

Our surprise, however, may reasonably be excited, when we

only that which each had amassed individually for himself. He owed nothing to inheritance from his predecessors. On the decease of an Inca his palaces were abandoned; all his treasures-except what were employed in his obsequies--his furniture and apparel, were suffered to remain as he left them, and his numerous mansions were closed up for ever. The new sovereign was to provide himself with everything new for his royal state. The reason of this was the popular belief that the soul of the departed monarch would return after a time to reanimate his body on earth, and they wished that he should find everything to which he had been used in life prepared for his reception."

Our theory that the ancestors of the Peruvian race separated from the other families of mankind at a very early period, is supported strongly by their religious observances. They believed in the resurrection of the body, and the existence of the soul after death. They worshipped the sun-the first step in idolatry; but, until a comparatively recent period, they added no other creatures to their mythology. Subsequently, and shortly before the arrival of the Spaniards, they had fallen into the secondary worship of minor idols. They preserved very clear and distinct the tradition of the deluge; and probably no race presented a smaller departure from the truth delivered to the patriarchal fathers, through a long period of time, than the Peruvians:

Mr. Prescott's history of their conquest is full of interest, with all the value of facts carefully sifted, and all the attractiveness of a romance skilfully written. He thus parts with Peru.

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The testimony of the Spanish conquerors is not uniform in respect to the favourable influence excited by the Peruvian institutions on the character of the people. Drinking and dancing are said to have been the pleasures to which they were immoderately addicted. Like the slaves and serfs in other lands, whose position excluded them from more serious and ennobling occupations, they found a substitute in frivolous or sensual indulgence. Lazy, luxurious, and licentious, are

the epithets bestowed on them by one of those who saw them at the Conquest, but whose pen was not too friendly to the Indian. Yet the spirit of independence could hardly be strong in a people who had no interest in the soil, no personal rights to defend; and the facility with which they yielded to the Spanish invader --after every allowance for their comparative inferiority argues a deplorable destitution of that patriotic feeling which holds life as little in comparison with freedom.

But we must not julge too hardly of the unfortunate native, because he quailed before the civilization of the European. We must not be insensible to the really great results that were achieved by the government of the Incas. We must not forget that, under their rule, the meanest of the people enjoyed a far greater degree of personal comfort, at least, a greater exemption from physical suffering, than was possessed by similar classes in other nations of the American continent-greater, probably, than was possessed by these classes in most of the countries of feudal Europe. Under their sceptre the higher orders of the state had made advances in many of the arts that belong to a cultivated community. The foundations of a regular government were laid, which, in an age of rapine, secured to its subjects the inestimable blessings of tranquillity and safety. By the well-sustained policy of the Incas, the rude tribes of the forest were gradually drawn from their fastnesses, and gathered within the folds of civilization; and of these materials was constructed a flourishing and populous empire, such as was to be found in no other quarter of the American continent. The defects of this government were those of over-refinement in legislation-the last defects to have been looked for, certainly, in the American aborigines."

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