Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/739

Rh ANCIENT PERU.] AMERICA 697 Egyptian ; sloping roofs, -which, it is supposed, were covered with rushes or stone slabs; no windows, but niches symmetrically distributed. 1 Ancient stone structures, which are so rare in Mexico, are pretty abundant in Peru, a fact for which we can only account by the dif ficulty with which the Mexicans erected buildings, in consequence of their inferiority in the art of masonry. The architecture of the Peruvians, like everything else connected with the? r social state, displays a remarkable uniformity, not only of style, but of plan. &quot; It is impos sible,&quot; says Humboldt, &quot; to examine a single edifice of the time of the Incas, without recognising the same type in all the others which cover the ridge of the Andes, along an extent of 450 leagues.&quot; Roads. The ancient public roads of Peru are justly considered as striking monuments of the political genius of the government. One of these extended along the sides of the Andes from Quito to Cuzco, a distance of 1500 miles. It is about forty feet broad, and paved with the earth and stones which were turned up from the soil ; but in some marshy places it is formed, like the old Roman roads, of a compact body of solid masonry. A tolerably level line is preserved, by filling up hollows, cutting down small emi nences, and winding round the sides of large ones. At proper distances tambos or storehouses were erected, for the accommodation of the Inca and his messengers. A similar road was made along the coast in the low country. Fissures a few yards in breadth were passed by bridges formed of beams laid horizontally ; and an invention, at once bold and ingenious, afforded the means of crossing deep ravines, or the channels of rivers, which hap pened to intersect the route. This consisted of a suspen sion bridge, perfectly analogous in its principle to those with which we are familiar. It was formed of half a dozen of cables of twisted osiers, passed over wooden supports, and stretched from bank to bank ; then bound together with smaller ropes, and covered with bamboos. Humboldt passed over one of these pendulous bridges, of 120 feet span ; and Mr Miers crossed one of 225 feet span, over which loaded animals might travel. In low grounds the rivers were crossed on rafts with a mast and sail, which, by a particular contrivance, could be made to tack and veer. In this respect the Peruvians were a stage in advance of all the other American races, who had nothing superior to the canoe with paddles. The Peruvians manu- Manufac- factured a rude species of pottery : they understood the art of spinning, and, in an imperfect degree, that of weav ing. They procured native gold by washing the gravel of rivers ; and silver, and perhaps copper, by working veins downward from the outcrop. They knew how to smelt and refine the silver ore ; and they possessed the secret of giving great hardness and durability to copper by mixing it with tin. Their utensils and trinkets of gold and silver are said to have been fashioned with neatness and even taste. On the other hand, they had no money, no know ledge of iron or glass ; and they were ignorant of the mode of mortising or joining beams, and of casting arches. They had no animals fitted for draught ; but the llama, a small species of camel, which they had tamed, was em ployed to some extent as a beast of burden. Laws and The political organisation of Peru, which was artificial Customs. i n a })jgh degree, reminds one, in some of its features, of the old system of the Saxons in England, but bears a more general resemblance to that of the ancient Egyp tians. The mass of the people were in a state of servi tude, except a small number, who were free ; above these in rank were the Curacas, or chiefs of districts, who formed 1 See Humboldt s account of the ancient buildings of Callo and Ounnar, vols. i. and ii. of bis Researches. a sort of nobility ; and above the whole, the family of the Incas, the members of which, by intermarrying only with themselves, formed a numerous and distinct caste. For the purposes of police and civil jurisdiction, the people were divided into parties of ten families, like the tithings of Alfred, over each of which was ail officer. A second class of officers had control over five or ten tithings, a third class over fifty or a hundred. These last rendered account to the Incas, who exercised a vigilant superintendence over the whole, and employed inspectors to visit the provinces as a check upon mal administration. Each of these officers, down to the lowest, judged, without appeal, in all differences that arose within his division, and enforced the laws of the empire, among which were some for punishing idleness, and com pelling every one to labour. It is probable that the tithings and hundreds, as in England, would lose their numerical signification in course of time, and become mere local allotments. In the hamlets and villages a person moiinted a tower every evening, and announced where and how the inhabitants were to be employed next day. The taxes were paid in the produce of the fields, and magazines for receiving them were established in every district. Such is the account given by Acosta and Garcilasso of the civil institutions of Peru, which may be correct with regard to the oldest possessions of the Incas near Cuzco, where their power had been long established ; but it is not probable that such a complicated system was ever fully in operation in the more distant parts of the empire. The government of Peru was a theocracy. The Inca Coven was at once the temporal sovereign and the supreme nient &amp;lt; pontiff. He was regarded as the descendant and repre- sentative of the great deity the sun, who was supposed to inspire his counsels, and speak through his orders and decrees. Hence even slight offences were punished with death, because they were regarded as insults offered to the divinity. The race of the Incas was held sacred. To support its pretensions, it was very desirable that it should be kept pure and distinct from the people ; but human passions are often too strong for the dictates of policy ; and though the marriages of the family Avere con fined to their own race, the emperor, as well as the other males of the blood royal, kept large harems stocked with beauties drawn from all parts of the empire, and multi plied a spurious progeny, in whom the blood of the &quot; children of the sun&quot; was blended with that of the &quot; chil dren of the earth.&quot; Among a simple-minded and credulous people the claims of the Incas to a celestial origin seem to have been implicitly believed. They were blindly obeyed, and treated with a respect bordering on adora tion, by the nobles as well as the common people. The Peruvians worshipped the sun, the moon, the evening star, the spirit of thunder, and the rainbow, and had erected temples in Cuzco to all these deities. That of the sun, which was the most magnificent, had its walls covered with plates of gold. The sacrifices consisted of the objects most prized by the people, of grain and fruits, of a few animals, and of the productions of their own in dustry. Sabianism, as it is the most rational of all the forms of idolatry, is also generally the most mild ; and doubtless this results from the tendency which it has to fix the thoughts on the marks of beneficence and wisdom which are displayed in the works of nature. The Peru vian temples were accordingly never polluted, like those of Mexico, with the blood of human victims ; and the Incas even went farther, and signalised their zeal against such horrid rites, by suppressing them in all the countries they conquered. Though their history exhibits some bloody deeds, the general character of their government I. 88