popular, the legend of Manco Capac, it requires but little reflection to
show its improbability, even when divested of supernatural
accompaniments. On the shores of Lake Titicaca extensive ruins exist at
the present day, which the Peruvians themselves acknowledge to be of
older date than the pretended advent of the Incas, and to have furnished
them with the models of their architecture.13 The date of their
appearance, indeed, is manifestly irreconcilable with their subsequent
history. No account assigns to the Inca dynasty more than thirteen princes
before the Conquest. But this number is altogether too small to have
spread over four hundred years, and would not carry back the foundations
of the monarchy, on any probable computation, beyond two centuries and
a half,-an antiquity not incredible in itself, and which, it may be remarked,
does not precede by more than half a century the alleged foundation of the
capital of Mexico. The fiction of Manco Capac and his sister-wife was
devised, no doubt, at a later period, to gratify the vanity of the Peruvian
monarchs, and to give additional sanction to their authority by deriving it
from a celestial origin.

We may reasonably conclude that there existed in the country a race
advanced in civilization before the time of the Incas; and, in conformity
with nearly every tradition, we may derive this race from the
neighborhood of Lake Titicaca; 14 a conclusion strongly confirmed by the
imposing architectural remains which still endure, after the lapse of so
many years, on its borders. Who this race were, and whence they came,
may afford a tempting theme for inquiry to the speculative antiquarian.
But it is a land of darkness that lies far beyond the domain of history.15

The same mists that hang round the origin of the Incas continue to settle
on their subsequent annals; and, so imperfect were the records employed
by the Peruvians, and so confused and contradictory their traditions, that