As the Spaniards directed their course towards the city of Tumbez, the residence of the Indian captives, they encountered many natives, in the balsas which served them. for boats. These strange craft were made of logs of light wood, secured together, and fitted with masts and sails. The crews of these rafts, in the midst of their amazement at the prodigy before their eyes, recognized the Indians on board, and learning from them that the strangers were bound merely upon exploration, returned to satisfy the curiosity of the eager crowds gathered upon the shore.

A peaceful communication was soon established, and the sea-wearied Spaniards were refreshed by bountiful supplies of the tropical luxuries furnished by the kindly natives. Llamas, or Peruvian camels, as they were called, were now for the first time exhibited and offered to the visitors. A great noble, of the royal race of the Incas, came on board, and was courteously entertained by Pizarro, who pointed. out and explained the mysteries of the vessel and its

accoutrements.

The officers of the Spanish company were, in turn, feasted at the house of the curaca, or governor of the province, and were shown the royal temple and fortresses. Some of the apartments were adorned with such a rich profusion of massive golden ornaments and plating, that the dazzled Spaniards now trusted in the speedy realization of their long-deferred hopes.

From Tumbez, Pizarro coasted southward as far as the island and port of Santa, some distance beyond the site of the present Truxillo, stopping at various towns and settlements on his route. The strangers were every where received with hospitality, kindness, and the most lively curiosity, and enough was seen fully to convince them of the richness, civilization, and prosperity of the thickly populated empire.

Returning to Panama, they again stopped at Tumbez and

other important ports, and thence brought away specimens of the productions of the country; among other things, a number of llamas. At their own request, several of the Spaniards were left at Tumbez, to enjoy the luxury and ease which seemed to be offered by a life among the kindly natives. A young Peruvian, named Felipillo, with one or two companions, was taken on board the vessel, that he might be instructed in the Spanish language, and that his appearance might satisfy the incredulous, at home, as to the character of the inhabitants of Peru.

The troubles of the enterprising trio to whom these discoveries were owing were not yet at an end. The derision and contumely which had tended so long to damp their spirits, was, indeed, changed to congratulations and eager astonishment at the return and reports of Pizarro; but the governor frowned upon the prosecution of the enterprise. "He did not wish," says Herrera, "to depopulate his own district in order to people new countries"-the gold, silver, and sheep which had been exhibited, seemed to him but a paltry return for the expenditure of such an amount of lives and money, and the endurance of such hardships and suffering as were the fruits of the first expeditions.

Before continuing the account of the steps by which the great work of conquest was finally achieved, it will be well to take a brief view of the condition of the devoted country at the period of its discovery.

The two great monarchies of Mexico and Peru, both of them in a state of semi-civilization at the period of Spanish discoveries and conquests, are closely associated in our minds. The thoughts of one naturally suggest that of the other. We shall, however, find, upon an examination of history, that these nations were widely dissimilar: neither, in all human probability, had any knowledge of the other's existence, and no intercourse could have been maintained between them from a period of the most remote antiquity.

Without going into a direct comparison between these countries, their respective governments, religion, and national customs, we shall enter sufficiently into particulars in treating the present subject, to give the reader such a general idea of its details that he can himself perceive the contrasts and dissimilarities above mentioned.

CHAPTER II.

MYTHOLOGICAL TRADITIONS. TOPA INCA YUPANQUI, AND HIS SON HUAYNA CAPAC.-THE PERUVIAN CAPITAL. RELIGIOUS SYSTEM. — GOVERNMENT. -AGRARIAN LAW. - LLAMAS. — PUBLIC RECORDS: THE "QUIPU."- AGRICULTURE. MARRIAGES.-WARLIKE POLICY

OF THE INCAS.-THE GREAT ROADS.-CONTENTMENT OF THE NATIVES. -DIVISION OF THE EMPIRE.- HUASCAR AND ATAHUALLPA. -CONTEST FOR SUPREMACY.

ACCORDING to Peruvian mythology, the whole country was, in early times, as savage and barbarous as the neighboring nations of the East. Manco Capac, and his sister and wife, Mama Oello Huaco, two children of the Sun, settling in the valley of Cuzco, began the work of regeneration. They taught the arts of civilized life, and from them sprang the long line of the Incas whose glorious kingdom was at the height of its prosperity when discovered by the Spaniards. Other traditions, more worthy of study and reflection, speak of " bearded white men," to whose immigration the commencement of improvement was due.

We gather little of connected or reliable tradition earlier than the reign of Topa Inca Yupanqui. This monarch's victories widely extended the domains bequeathed him by his ancestors. By his warlike achievements, and those of his son, Huayna Capac, the Peruvian empire was extended from the southern portion of Chili to the boundaries of the

present republic of New Grenada. The centre of government, and site of the royal palace, the great temple of the sun, and the most celebrated fortification, were at Cuzco, in the interior. The town was situated in a valley of the table-land, at an immense height above the level of the sea, an altitude which secured to it a delightful climate in those tropical regions.

The principal buildings of the capital were of hewn stone, wrought entirely by instruments of copper, hardened by an alloy of tin; for, like the Mexicans, the people of Peru were entirely ignorant of the use of iron. A certain perfection of workmanship, seldom attempted in more advanced nations, and only elsewhere observable in the casings of the great Egyptian pyramids, is described as peculiar to the laying of the courses of stone in these ancient buildings. For the most part no cement was used, but the blocks were so accurately fitted that "it was impossible to introduce even the blade of a knife between them." Mr. Prescott, giving, as his authority, the measurements and descriptions of Acosta and Garcilasso, says:

Many of these stones were of vast size; some of them being full thirty-eight feet long, by eighteen broad, and six feet thick. * * These enormous masses were hewn from their native bed, and fashioned into shape by a people ignorant of the use of iron; they were brought from quarries, from four to fifteen leagues distant, without the aid of beasts of burden; were transported across rivers and ravines, raised to their elevated position on the sierra, and finally adjusted there with the nicest accuracy, without the knowledge of tools and machinery familiar to the European."

At Cuzco stood the great temple of the sun, by far the most resplendent with gold and ornament of all the public edifices of Peru. The description of this central point of the religious system of the country vies with those of

fairy palaces in Arabian tales. It was built of stone, but, by a strange contrast of magnificence with rudeness, was thatched with straw. The most striking object in the interior was a huge golden sun, represented by the figure of a human face, surrounded with rays. This was so placed as to receive the first beams of the rising sun. The whole building sparkled with golden ornament; even upon the outside a heavy belt of gold is said to have been let into the stone wall around the whole extent of the edifice. Great vases of the precious metals stood in the open space of the interior, filled with offerings of maize, and no less valuable material was used for the various tools and implements connected with the establishment.

This profusion of gold and silver, which, although in inferior degree, was noticeable in the royal palaces and temples throughout the empire, resulted from the circumstance that the mines were a government monopoly. No money was used, and consequently the whole product of the country, in this line, was collected in the coffers of the Inca, or displayed in the gorgeous ornaments which adorned the temples. The mines were worked by bodies of laborers systematically drafted from the common people, to serve for specified periods.

The Peruvians had some idea of an invisible deity, whose supremacy they acknowledged, and to whom homage was rendered, but the sun was their chief object of worship. The moon and stars took the place of subordi nate divinities. By virtue of his office, the Inca was the head of the visible church, and high-priest of the sun; all the other religious functionaries were of the nobility, viz. descendants in the male line of the royal family. One lawful wife gave birth to the successor to the throne, but from the innumerable concubines kept by the emperor sprang the race of Inca nobility, distinguished by dress and occupation from the body of the people.