J^otice of Peruvian Antiquities. 117 



which they contained. Unhappy nation ! whose greatness and power 

 consist in destruction ! 



If we believe modern historians, who have described in novels, 

 hymns, and histories, the greatness, the extent of territory, and the 

 laws of the Peruvian people ; and if we examine with some minyte- 

 ness the remains of their monuments, we shall be easily persuaded 

 that the empire of the Incas contained many millions of people ; and 

 that its civilization, tolerably advanced, compared with the neighbor- 

 ing kingdoms, was owing to a system of government, made firm and 

 respected by the laws which ruled it. The monuments of Siahun- 

 aco, at Cuzco, its great roads and aqueducts, its arts, and its benefi- 

 cial laws, give some foundation to the thought respecting the exist- 

 ence of a kingdom anterior to the documents of chronologies ; be- 

 sides, all the writers on this subject have devoted their pens to paint 

 to us, in exaggerated colors, their greatness and magnanimity : but 

 no one has wished to undertake the task of describing the rank of 

 civilization to which they had arrived, by arts and sciences, a sub- 

 ject of great interest to human researclies. If we judge by the re- 

 mains which we see, and by what we find in their huacas,^ they 

 were not barbarous and ignorant ; as is evinced by their architecture, 

 and by the fact that they were acquainted with the fusion and solder- 

 ing of metals, with the manufacture of earthen ware, and the cutting 

 of stones, and also with the construction of roads and aqueducts, and 

 the labors of agriculture. A proof of this is seen in their sumptuous 

 edifices, obelisks, bridges, statues, he. whose remains are admired 

 for the enormous masses, which without machines are raised to a 

 great elevation. The copper and stone tools which they used, their 

 permanent colors, their earthen vases, and finally their instruments, 

 such as hatchets, pinchers, copper and stone chisels, he. prove evi- 

 dently, the knowledge which they possessed in these branches, which 

 we are disposed to boast of at the present time ; and it is also ap- 

 parent that they possessed in perfection, the art of soldering, 

 which is so permanent in some figures of gold and silver, that die 

 solid part would break before it separated. We observe also, in the 

 many figures which we possess, of gold, silver, copper, stone, and 

 clay, the resemblance which they have to those of the Egyptians, from 

 whom, some have said, that the Peruvian people are descended. 



The figures engraved on the adjoining plate, are in our possession. 

 The three first are of gold, made it appears with the hammer ; they 



* Tluacas : houses of prayer, which are constructed in caverns. 



