Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/303

 The belief, so widely current among the natives, that to take possession of buried treasures which belonged to the Incas would be wrong, and would incur punishment and bring misfortune on the entire race, is connected with another belief which prevailed, especially in the 16th and 17th centuries, i. e. the future restoration of a kingdom of the Incas. Every suppressed nationality looks forward to a day of change, and to a renewal of the old government. The flight of Manco Inca, the brother of Atahuallpa, into the forests of Vilcapampa on the declivity of the eastern Cordillera, and the sojourn of Sayri Tupac and Inca Tupac Amaru in those wildernesses, have left permanent recollections. It was believed that the dethroned dynasty had settled between the rivers Apurimac and Beni, or still farther to the east in Guiana. The myth of el Dorado and the golden city of Manoa, travelling from the west to the east, increased these dreams, and Raleigh's imagination was so inflamed by them, that he founded an expedition on the hope of "conquering 'the imperial and golden city,' placing in it a garrison of three or four thousand English, and levying from the 'Emperor of Guiana,' a descendant of Huayna Capac, and who holds his court with the same magnificence, an annual tribute of £300,000 sterling, as the price of his promised restoration to the throne in Cuzco and Caxamarca." Wherever the Peruvian Quichua language has extended, some traces of such expectations of the return of the Inca's sovereignty continue[17] to exist in the minds of many among those of the natives who are possessed of some knowledge of the history of their country.