Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/353

Rh they are analogous to our own. The short sketch we have given of their amusements and public occupations, may serve to illustrate the history of man, and extend the information we possess relative to the societies of the inhabitants of Peru in general, and of the casts in particular which constitute among us a third estate. The knowledge of their inclinations and defects, cannot fail to interest the curious by the novelty and singularity of the principles that govern them, and the politicians by the certain data which these principles afford to their combinations. We have ventured to introduce a few applications and corollaries, not so much to give a higher zest to the subject matter, as to show that all the ideas of philosophy, and the relations of history, are useless and ineffectual, if we do not direct them, by comparison, to the knowledge and advantage of ourselves.

One of the above unfortunate class of beings makes the subject of Plate XVI. His haggard and forlorn look, and the wretched garb he wears, betoken the misery of his condition, surrounded as he is by affluence, in the territory to which he has been transported; and afford a striking and melancholy contrast to the splendour, exhibited in several of the preceding engravings, of those who oppress and hold him in chains. PART