literature was less noticeable than the injury inflicted on population and industrial progress. A striking example of the way in which a people civilised up to a certain point may be plunged again into barbarism, is exhibited by the fate of the native Peruvians. This people could build roads and aqueducts, such as the Spaniards only knew of by inheriting them from Rome; and the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco was admitted by the Spanish historian, Sarmiento, to be surpassed only by two buildings in Spain, which at that time possessed all really good that it has now.[1] A Spanish conqueror has left it on record, that the Government was so admirable that there was perfect administration, absolute security of property, and a morality far higher than that of the Christian conquerors.[2] It was all swept away within a generation, and we only know of it by the labours of antiquaries. Cambodia and Cochin China are covered with magnificent ruins, which the present occupants of the country cannot account for, and do not claim for their ancestors.[3] No one knows
- ↑ "The road from Quito to Peru is variously estimated at from 1500 to 2000 miles long, built of heavy flags of freestone." Prescott, Conquest of Peru, p. 27. " The aqueduct that traversed the district of Condesugu measured between 400 and 500 miles."—Prescott, Conquest of Peru, p. 57. The aqueduct of Chimu is still more than 60 feet in height.—Squier's Peru, p. 118. Mr. Squier says that the fortress of the Sacrahuaman can only properly be compared with the Pyramids, or Stonehenge, or the Coliseum. He also calls it " the most massive among monuments of similar character, either in the old or the new world." Of Chimu Mr. Squier says, that a plain from 12 to 15 miles long, by 5 to 6 broad, is thickly studded over with the ruins of the ancient city.—Squier, Peru, pp. 468, 469, 118; Prescott, Conquest of Peru, p. 41.
- ↑ Will of Manco Sierra Lejesama.—Prescott, Conquest of Peru, Appendix iv.
- ↑ For good popular descriptions of these ruins, discovered in 1861 by M. Henri Mouhot, see Thomson's Malacca, Indo-China, and China, pp. 135-152; Cotteau's Un Touriste dans l'Extréme Orient, pp. 409-414; and Vincent's "Rival to Solomon's Temple," printed in his In and Out of Central America, pp. 146-181. The date is conjecturally assigned to
