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 342 PERU desperately, but was at last conquered by Pa- chacutec, and the incas then overran the coast. They compelled all the conquered nations to adopt their sun worship, but they spared the temples of the idols Pachacamac and Ri- mac, which were held in great veneration, though they erected sun temples near them. The last exploit of inca power was the an- nexation of Quito, but this led to a civil war which made Spanish conquest easy. There is great difficulty in ascertaining the precise date of the accession of the first inca, which tradition refers to the opening of the llth century, while some writers carry it back to within 500 years of the deluge, and fancifully bring the new race from Armenia to the shores of Titicaca. The ruling inca, as son of the sun, and a lineal descendant of Manco Oapac, was at once sovereign and pontiff, exercising abso- lute authority. His person was sacred in life, and his body after death received divine honors. He had many wives, but the principal one, whose eldest son was heir to the throne, must be his eldest sister, or, if he had no sister, his nearest kinswoman (cousin, niece, or aunt). His concubines were numerous. The heir was educated by the amautas or sages; but before his admission into the huaracu (a sort of knight- hood) he was nowise distinguished from the inca's other sons. The empire and the capital were divided into four quarters, corresponding to the cardinal points, each in the rural districts governed by a viceroy; the inhabitants were divided into groups of 10,000, under a native chief and inca governor ; and these into sub- groups of 1,0,00, 100, and 10, with appropriate officers, each responsible to those above him. The right of every individual to a portion of the earth sufficient to support life was clearly recognized. All cultivable lands were divided into three parts : one devote^ to the support of religion, another to the inca, and the third to the people at large. Each Peruvian received a portion of land called a topu, producing maize enough for a man and his wife ; on the birth of a son he received another topu, and on the birth of a daughter half a topu. On the death of an individual his land reverted to the state for reallotment. Children were obliged to fol- low the professions of their fathers, and must not receive an education superior to their posi- tion in life. No one could change his residence without permission from his superior. "Tell no lies," "Do not kill," were the concise terms in which the laws were promulgated. Idleness was severely punished, and homicides and rob- bers were put to death ; but those who sinned against religion or the sacred majesty of. the inca were burned or buried alive, with their families and friends, their houses were levelled, the trees on their lands cut down, and the lands themselves laid waste. When a province re- belled against the emperor, all the males in it were slain. The first care of the incas, after reducing a nation or province, was to grad- ually mould its people into the Quichuan sys- tem, reinstating over them their own chiefs in the capacity of officers of the empire. The Quichuan language was taught to the children of the new vassals, and took the place of their own. To secure the new acquisitions from re- bellion, colonies of from 8,000 to 10,000 indi- viduals, from provinces of tried fidelity, were settled in the subjugated territory, in place of an equal number removed thence to other parts of the empire ; and to reconcile these colonists to their new conditions, they were invested with many privileges and treated with marked partiality. Thus by a complex system of lib- erality and severity, persuasion and force, the inca empire was not only extended, but the conquered nations were effectually amalgama- ted and moulded into a compact whole. Not content, however, with concentrating in them- selves the functions of government and reli- gion, the inca stock monopolized also the ad- vantages of instruction and all that there was of science. Their wisdom was chiefly politi- cal and practical. Territorial extension being their leading object, military science received their closest attention ; but none were highly educated, even in this department, except the young men of the blood royal. When the monarch died, or, as it was termed, was "called home to the mansion of his father, the sun," his body was embalmed and invested with royal robes, seated in a chair of gold, in the great temple of the sun in Cuzco. His obse- quies were performed with the greatest pomp, and his favorite servants and wives were bu- ried with him. In 1512 Yasco Nufiez de Bal- boa, the Spanish governor of a small colony in Darien, was informed by a son of the cacique Oomogra that there was a country to the south- ward where gold was in common use, and of as little value among the people as iron among the Spaniards ; but his attempt to discover it was unsuccessful. A portion of the coast was explored in 1522 by Pascual de Andagoya. In 1524 Francisco Pizarro reached the coast, in company with the vicar Hernando de Luque and Diego de Almagro, an illiterate adventurer like himself ; but he immediately returned to Panama, whence he had set out. A second and equally fruitless attempt was made by the adventurers in 1526. In January, 1531, hav- ing obtained the title of adelantado goberna- dor and captain general of all the territory he should conquer, Pizarro again set sail with his four brothers and a small band of men, leaving Almagro behind to procure provisions and reinforcements, and landed at St. Mat- thew's bay, about lat. 1 N"., after a voyage of about 14 days. The adventurers plundered a town in the province of Coaque; and being reenforced by the arrival of about 130 men, they began building a town in the valley of Tangarala, calling it San Miguel. The empire of the incas, having been divided into two branches, Cuzco and Cajamarca, was now dis- tracted by civil war between the two brothers Huascar of the former and Atahuallpa of the