CHAPTER VII. 



THE INDIANS OF THE CORDILLERAS. 



JEAVING the burning sand-coast, we will ascend once 

 more the steep sides of the Cordilleras to those 

 fertile tracts found at an elevation of many thou- 

 sand feet above the ocean ; but, before describing the brute 

 creation and the vegetable products of this interesting region, 

 we should properly take a glance at the human beings in- 

 habiting it. 



When, in 1524, the Spaniards first reached the western 

 coast of South America, of which they were soon to become 

 the conquerors, they found a people greatly advanced in 

 civilization. They consisted of two distinct races ; the one, 

 known as the Incas, showing a decided superiority in intel- 

 lectual power over the other. Whence they came is unknown ; 

 but a tradition existed, that two persons husband and wife 

 had appeared some four hundred years before that period in 

 the neighbourhood of Lake Titicaca, announcing themselves as 

 the Children of the Sun. The husband, Manco Capac, taught 

 the men the arts of agriculture ; and his wife, Mama Oello 

 (mama, meaning mother), initiating her own sex in the mys- 

 teries of weaving and spinning. The wise policy which 



