PLATEAU OF CAXAMAECA. 275 



vation we see the national activity display itself with peculiar 

 predilection in some particular directions, but we can by no 

 means determine the general state of culture of a people 

 from the striking development of such particular and partial 

 activity. Egyptians, Greeks ( 7 ), Etruscans, and Romans, 

 Chinese, Japanese, and Hindoos, shew many interesting 

 contrasts in these respects. It is difficult to pronounce what 

 length of time may have been required for the execution of 

 the Peruvian roads. The great works in the northern 

 part of the Empire of the Incas, in the highlands of Quito, 

 must at all events have been completed in less than 30 or 

 85 years ; i. e. within the short period intervening between 

 the defeat of the Ruler of " Quitu" and the death of Huayna 

 Capac, but entire obscurity prevails as to the period of the 

 formation of the Southern, and more properly speaking 

 Peruvian, roads. 



The mysterious appearance of Manco Capac is usually 

 placed 400 years before the landing of Pizarro in the Islend 

 of Puna (1532), therefore towards the middle of the 12th 

 century, almost 200 years before the foundation of the city 

 of Mexico (Tenochtitlan) ; some Spanish writers even 

 reckon, instead of 400, 500 and 550 years between Manco 

 Capac and Pizarro. But the history of the empire of Peru 

 only recognises thirteen ruling princes of the Inca-dynasty, 

 a number which, as Prescott very justly remarks, is not suf- 

 ficient to occupy so long an interval as 550 or even 400 years. 

 Quetzalcoatl, Botschica, and Manco Capac, are the three 

 mythical forms with which the commencements of civilisa- 

 tion among the Aztecs, the Muyscas (more properly Chib- 



