Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/741

Rh ANCIENT PERU. AMERICA 699 of civil officers which the Peruvians had, and the same chain of subordination from the emperor down to the petty constable. In China this system was undoubtedly the growth of many centuries ; but it was too artificial to occur to the thoughts of a cacique, educated amongst a tribe of savages on the sides of the Andes. 2. In China as in Peru, the emperor assumes the title of the &quot; father of his people;&quot; and his government is modelled upon this figure of speech. He affects to be sprung from pro genitors who descended from heaven like the children of the sun, and he unites the character of supreme pontiff with that of temporal prince. There are vestiges, too, of the worship of the heavenly bodies in China. 1 3. The Chinese emperor extends an ostentatious patronage to agriculture, by celebrating an annual festival in its honour, on which occasion he proceeds to the field in great pomp, and takes a part in the labour of cultivating the ground with his own hands. This singular custom existed in Peru, where the Incas went through an annual ceremony perfectly similar. How foreign was such an institution to the spirit of the American tribes ! 4. In China agriculture is in a rude state, and exhibits proofs of intelligence and skill only in two things the use of manures, and a laborious system of irrigation. Pre cisely the same circumstances characterised the agricul ture of Peru. 5. The internal taxes of China, like those of Peru, are paid in kind (maize, rice, silk, cotton, &c.), and stored in public magazines or granaries. 6. The Chinese government maintained public roads, even in those provinces where neither carriages nor beasts of burden were used, of course for the use of pedestrians, and storehouses or places of refreshment were built upon them at proper distances. The Peruvians constructed roads on precisely the same plan, and for the same pur poses ; and this was done by no other people in America. 7. The Chinese do not inter the bodies of the dead, but lay them on the ground and raise a tumulus or conical heap of earth over them. Such was also the practice in Peru. The only barbarously cruel rite practised in Peru, that of immolating the Inca s domestics at the obsequies of their master, was brought into China by the Tartars. Its existence is an anomaly in each case, for the genius of both nations was peaceful and mild. 8. The architecture of the Chinese displays little taste, but is distinguished by two peculiarities the power shown of cutting and moving immense masses of stone, and the uniformity of style which pervades their structures, of every size and description. &quot; All the buildings,&quot; says Mr Barrow, &quot;from the meanest hut to the viceroy s palace, are upon one plan.&quot; Humboldt remarks the same adherence to a single model among the Peruvians, and the walls of Cuzco show that they were acquainted with the method of moving stones of prodigious size. The Chinese were fond of covering their walls with carving, and examples of the same practice occur in Peru. If any of the Peruvian buildings had remained entire with their roofs on, it would perhaps have been found, that the type or primary architectural form employed in the two countries was not very dissimilar, and some allowance should be made for the circumstance, that Peru must have borrowed her models from China 700 or perhaps 1000 years ago. 9. The Peruvians made coarse pottery, and all the world knows that this is an art in which the Chinese excel. The Peruvians were the only American nation who had made any progress in the art of fusing and alloying metals, in which the Chinese have long been distinguished by their skill. 10. The 1 See accounts of the temples at Pekin dedicated to the heavens, the north star, the moon, the earth, &c., and of the festival kept at the summer solstice, like the grand solar festival in Peru. Peruvians had dramas and dramatic spectacles. Whence could a people so uninventive have derived the idea of such entertainments, if not from China, where they have been long familiar to the people? There were mimics and buf foons in Mexico, but nothing, we believe, to which the term drama could be applied. 11. But perhaps the most remarkable coincidence is found in an invention entirely confined to the two countries. We have described the sus pension bridges made of ropes, employed by the Peruvians in crossing deep ravines. oSTow, it is singular that bridges of the very same description, some of chains, and some of ropes, are found in the south of China, and nowhere else except in Thibet, which has interchanged arts and cus toms with China from time immemorial. This single fact we would consider as a proof of communication between the two countries. The Peruvians made their ropes of twisted osiers, and the Chinese had ropes also of this description. 12. From what people nearer than the Chinese could the Peruvians borrow the idea of rafts with a mast and sail 1 ? These rafts, supporting covered huts, may be considered as literal copies of some that are used in China ; and the peculiar mechanism employed in lieu of a rudder is no doubt borrowed from the paddles attached to the Chinese boats, fore and aft. 13. The Chinese in ancient times made use of quipus or knotted cords to facilitate calculation. Is it not probable that this invention had passed from them to the Peruvians, the Mexicans, the Kaluschi, and other American nations who employed it 1 It would be easy to trace similar analogies in many other customs, laws, and institutions of the two nations. Both had nunneries or religious societies of women, who lived under a vow of celibacy; both had a class of literary men (the Haravecs and Amautas, or poets and philosophers, in Peru), patronised by the government; both divided the year into twelve months, and placed the beginning of it in January (a coincidence the more remarkable, as the year of the Mexicans and other northern nations consisted of 18 months); both were strangers to the use of milk, cheese, and butter. 2 These facts may suffice, for we have not room for lengthened inquiries, neither are we anxious to press our argument beyond its proper limits. Our po sition is, not that the Peruvians are descended from the Chinese, but simply that Peru had been inoculated with civilisation by persons who derived their ideas from China. If it be asked why these persons did not import from China the use of letters, the method of casting arches, and many other arts practised there, our answer is, that no individual, and still less any casual assemblage of individuals such as the purposes of trade or navigation might bring together, possesses a knowledge of every art and science which exists in his country. How many men are there in Eng land at this day, who could not even carry the knowledge of the alphabet to another country 1 We must remember, too, that all the arts existing in China do not exist in every province of it, and have not always existed in those provinces where we now find them. 3 As to the means of communication, it is evident that the trade- wind renders Peru almost unapproachable from Eastern Asia, between the parallels of 30 N. and 30 S. latitude. 2 Sir John Barrow is our authority for this fact, which is t-he more remarkable, as the Mongols, the neighbours and conquerors of the Chinese, had the use of all the three articles immemorially. 3 The uniformity and unchangeableness of customs in China have evidently been much exaggerated. The empire is formed of an assemblage of small states, conquered one after another, each of which must have had its peculiar laws, manners, and superstitions ; and common sense tells us, that to blend these into one perfectly homo geneous mass, must have required a much longer period than has elapsed since the empire attained its present magnitude. It would be easy, too, to find instances of the Chinese having changed their customs, both in matters of business and matters of domestic economy.