with their shepherds over the broad, snow-covered wastes on the crests of
the sierra, which rose beyond the limits of cultivation. An industrious
population settled along the lofty regions of the plateaus, and towns and
hamlets, clustering amidst orchards and widespreading gardens, seemed
suspended in the air far above the ordinary elevation of the clouds. 6
Intercourse was maintained between these numerous settlements by means
of great roads which traversed the mountain passes, and opened an easy
communication between the capital and the remotest extremities of the
empire.

The source of this civilization is traced to the valley of Cuzco, the central
region of Peru, as its name implies.7 The origin of the Peruvian empire,
like the origin of all nations, except the very few which, like our own,
have had the good fortune to date from a civilized period and people, is
lost in the mists of fable, which, in fact, have settled as darkly round its
history as round that of any nation, ancient or modern, in the Old World.
According to the tradition most familiar to the European scholar, the time
was, when the ancient races of the continent were all plunged in
deplorable barbarism; when they worshipped nearly every object in nature
indiscriminately; made war their pastime, and feasted on the flesh of their
slaughtered captives. The Sun, the great luminary and parent of mankind,
taking compassion on their degraded condition, sent two of his children,
Manco Capac and Mama Oello Huaco, to gather the natives into
communities, and teach them the arts of civilized life. The celestial pair,
brother and sister, husband and wife, advanced along the high plains in
the neighborhood of Lake Titicaca, to about the sixteenth degree south.
They bore with them a golden wedge, and were directed to take up their
residence on the spot where the sacred emblem should without effort sink
into the ground. They proceeded accordingly but a short distance, as far
as the valley of Cuzco, the spot indicated by the performance of the