Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/299

Rh which he owed to his Creator, drew down ignorance on his posterity, and established idolatry. Thence originated the chimerical traditions which led man by degrees to the greatest absurdities. In this deplorable state every thing is God: even that which is most vile receives the adorations that are solely due to him. Some offer up their incenses to the crocodile; others, possessed by a religious terror, prostrate themselves before the voracious ibis, which feeds on serpents; others erect golden statues to the ape; and others, again, worship the dog, and the fishes of the seas and rivers, dreading least they should prophane the leek and the onion which grow in their gardens, if, peradventure, they should be made to constitute a part of their food.

The infatuations of the inhabitants of Peru were similar to these extravagancies, when Manco-Capac, the founder of the Peruvian empire, replete with cunning and ambition, supposed himself the offspring and envoy of the sun, sent to establish his worship, and to govern all nations in his name. The brilliancy of this luminary, the stupidity which prevailed among the Peruvians, and the fabulous relations contrived by that adventurer, laid the foundation of a new religion, and of the monarchy of the Yncas. As the latter gloried in deriving their origin from the above planet, they were very anxious to give proofs of the zeal with which they fulfilled the wishes of their progenitor, and of the profound veneration in which they held him. They ere6ted to him, in the capital of their empire, a sumptuous temple, on which they bestowed a profusion of gold and silver, adorning it with magnificent statues of animals of every description. The sun did not shine on his altar solely beneath the figure by which he is usually sented,