Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/117

Rh time that they needed certain aliments better calculated for the propagation of the human species. The wars which were carried on, with scarcely an interval of repose, between the nations that peopled the country; the sacrifices of human victims to.which several of them were accustomed; the crimes which were very common in others; and, lastly, the insalubrity of the climate, more especially in the islands and provinces bordering on the line, covered with forests and lakes, which rendered the atmosphere more humid than in any other part of the earth; all these principles concurred to prevent the generations from multiplying. The ignorance of the useful arts, of such as are essential to the conveniences of life, in which the American lived, contributed also to this effect.

This last deficiency was supplied by the Indians of Peru, according to the imperfect state of their acquirements. As they knew not how to reckon up to twenty, without employing such material signs as could be substituted to the idea of quantities, they had recourse to the quipos, the combination, knots, and colours of which served them instead of arithmetic, Jhistory, and painting. The celebrated ruins of the fortress of Cuzco point out to us the extent to which the force of man can be carried, when unassisted by the knowledge of the equilibrium, and by machinery. These fragments demonstrate, that, in the time of the Yncas, the Peruvians constructed their buildings with solidity and ostentation. To pile together stones of a prodigious size, by the means of a great number of