Page:The Hasty-Pudding.djvu/39

Rh habitations, where they might live in human society, and subsist upon such food as was appropriated to man, and not to beasts. These, and similar declarations were announced to such savages as they met in the mountains and deserts, who, in beholding the grace of their countenances, the jewels, and the gay attire with which these two persons were adorned, and in listening to the gentleness and sweetness of their words, acknowledged them to be the true Children of the Sun, and such as were appointed to cause their people to assemble into societies, and to administer such kinds of food as were wholesome, and adapted to human sustenance. They were struck with such admiration at the sight of their figure and person, and allured with the promises they made them, that they gave entire credence to their words, obeyed them as their princes, and adored them as superior beings. And these poor wretches, relating these sayings one to another, the fame so increased, that great numbers, both men and women, flocked together, and were willing to follow to what place soever they should guide them.

“‘Thus, great multitudes of people being assembled together, the princes commanded that provision should be made of such fruits as the earth produced for their sustenance, lest they should be scattered abroad again in small numbers, to gain their food. Our Inca taught some of his subjects those labours, which appertain unto men, as to build houses, plough, sow the land with maize and divers sort of seeds, that were useful or fit for food; to which end he instructed them how to make ploughs and other implements necessary for the purpose; he showed them also how to make aqueducts and reservoirs for holding water, and various other arts tending to the more commodious well-being of human life. He employed others to gather and tame the llamas and more gentle sorts of cattle into flocks, which ran dispersed and wild through the mountains and woods, that garments might be made of their wool, and shoes of their