that he and his wife were children of the Sun, and were sent liy the glorious Inti (the Sun) to instruct the sim- ple tribes. He is said to have carried with him a golden wedge, or, as it is sometimes called, a wand. Wherever this wedge, on being struck upon the ground, should sink into the earth, and disappear forever, there it was decreed Manco should build his capital. Jlarch- ing northward, he came to the plain of Cuzco, where the wedge disappeared. Here he founded the city of Cuzco, became the first Inca (a name said to be derived from the Peruvian word for the Sun), and founded the Peruvian race, properly so- called. Manco, or Manco Capac (i. e. Manco tha Ruler), instructed the men in agriculture and the arts, gave them a comparatively pure religion, and a social and national organization ; while his wife. Mama Oello, who is also represented as being his sister, taught the women to sew, to spin, and to weave. Thus the Inca was not only ruler of his people, but also the father and the high-priest. The territory held by Manco Capac was small, extending about ninetj' miles from east to west, and about eighty miles from north to south. After introducing laws among his people, and bringing them into regularly organized communities, '• he ascended to his father, the Sun." The j'ear generally assigned as that of his death, after a reign of fort}' j'ears, is 1062. The prog- ress of the Peruvians was at first so slow as to be al- most imperceptible. Gradually, however, by their wise and temperate policj', they won over the neighboring tribes, who readil}' appreciated the benefits of a power- ful and fostering government. Little is clearly ascer- tained regarding the earh' history of the Peruvian king- dom, and the lists given of its early sovereigns are by no means to be trusted. They invented no al|)habet, and therefore could keep no written record of their af- fairs, po that almost all we know of their earlj' history is derived from the traditions of the people, collected by the early Spaniards. Memoranda were indeed kept by the Pei'uvians, and, it is said, even full histor- ical records, bj' means of the quipu, a twisted woollen cord, upon which other smaller cords of different colors were tied. Of these cross threads, the color, the length, the number of knots upon them, and the distance of one from another, all had their significance; but after the invasion of the Spaniards, when the whole Peruvian system of government and civilization underwent dis- location, the art of reading the quipus seems either to have been lost or was eftectualh' concealed. Thus it is that we have no exact knowledge of Teruvian history farther back than about one century before the coming of the Spaniards. In 1453 Tupac Inca Yupanqui, the eleventh Inca, according to the list given by Garcilasso de la Vega, greath' enlarged his already widespread dominions. He led his armies southward, crossed into Chili, marched over the terrilde desert of Atacama, and penetrating as far south as the river Maule (lat. 30° S.), fixed there the southern boundary of Peru. Returning, he crossed the Chilian Andes by a pass of unequalled danger and ditiicult;^', and at length re- gained his capital, which he ent_ red in triumph. While thus engaged, his son, the young Iluaj'na Capac, heir to the fiime as well as the throne of his father, had marched northward to the Amazon, crossed that bar- rier, and conquered the kingdom of Quito. In 1475 Huayna Capac ascended the throne, and under him the empire of the Incas attained to its greatest extent and the height of its glor}-. His sway extended from the equatorial valleys of the Amazon to the temperate plains of Chili, and from the sandy shores of the Pacific to the marshy sources of the Paraguaj'. Or- der and civilization accompanied canquest among the Peruvians, and each tribe that was vanquished found itself under a careful paternal government, which pro- vided for it, and fostered it in every way.
Tlie early tiovernment of Peru was a pure but a mild despotism. The Inca, as the representative of the Sun, was the head of the priesthood, and presided at the
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great religions festivals. He imposed taxes, made laws, and was the source of all dignity and power. He wore a peculiar liead-dress, of wliich the tasselled fringe, witli two feathers placed upright in it, was the proper insig- nia of royalty. Of the nobility, all those descended bj' tiie male line from the founder of the monarchy shared, in common with the riding monarch, the sacred name of Inca. They wore a peculiar dress, enjoyed special privileges, and lived at court; but none of them could enter the ])resence of the Inca except with bare feet, and bearing a burden on the shoulders, in token of alle- giance and homage. TlieT formed, however, the real strength of the empire, and, being superior to the other races in intellectual power, they were the fountain whence flowed that civilization and social organization which gave Peru a position above every other state of South America. Prior to the arrival of the Span- iards Peru contained a population of 30,000,000 — twelve times greater than it is at the present day. Money was unknown among the Peruvians. They were a nation of workers, but they wrought as the members of one family, labor being enforced on all for the ben- efit of all.