"The edifices of the better sortand they were very numerous—were of stone, or faced with stone. Among the principal were the royal residences, as each sovereign built a new palace for himself, covering, though low, a large extent of ground. The walls were stained or painted with gaudy tints, and the gates, we are assured, were sometimes of colored marble. In the delicacy of the stonework,' says another of the conquerors, 'the natives far excelled the Spaniards, though the roofs of their dwellings, instead of tiles, were only of thatch, but put together with the nicest art.' The sunny climate of Cuzco did not require a very substantial material for defense against the weather. * * * The streets were long and narrow. They were arranged with perfect regularity, crossing one another at right angles; from the great square diverged four principal streets necting with the highroads of the empire. The square itself, and many parts of the city, were paved with fine pebble. Through the heart of the capital ran a river of pure water (if it might not be rather termed a canal), the banks or sides of which, for a distance of twenty leagues, were faced with stone. Across this stream bridges, constructed of similar broad flags, were thrown at intervals, so as to afford an easy communication between the different quarters.

con

"The most sumptuous edifice in Cuzco in the time of the Incas was undoubtedly the great temple dedicated to the sun, which, studded with gold plates, as already noticed, was surrounded by convents and dormitories for the priests, with their gardens and broad parterres sparkling with gold. The exterior ornaments had been already removed by the conquerors-all but the frieze of gold, which, embedded in the stones, still en

But what at last befell this strange people in whose institutions the dreams of utopians and socialists for a time became realities-the single instance of such realization in the history of the world? For a time, as Sir Clements Markham says, they "were nourished and well cared for and they multiplied exceedingly. In the wildest and most inaccessible valleys, in the lofty punas surrounded by snowy heights, in the dense forests and in the sand-girt valleys of the coast, the eye of the central power was ever upon them and the never-failing brain, beneficent though inexorable, provided for all their wants, gathered in their tribute and selected their children for the various occupations required by the state, according to their several aptitudes.

"This was indeed socialism such as dreamers in past ages have conceived and unpractical theoriests now talk about. It existed once because the essential conditions were combined in a way never likely to occur again. These are an inexorable despotism. absolute exemption from outside interference of any kind, a very peculiar and remarkable people in an early stage of civilization and an extraordinary combination of skillful statesmanship. It was destroyed by Spanish conquest and the world will never see its like again. A few of the destroyers, only a very few, could appreciate the fabric they had pulled down, its beauty and symmetry and its perfect adaptation to its environment; but no one could rebuild it."

was a feeling of unrest abroad in the land.

Yet the people themselves were still vigorous and needed only a resolute. chief, with a genius for command, to step in and guide them to a restoration of their former power. was a condition of affairs that presented a simply perfect opportunity for a highly gifted adventurer.

It

an adventurer, or rather adventuress, was found in the person of Siuyacu, a woman of the royal blood, shrewd, cautious and determined, and who had a son, who is described as having been then "in his twentieth year, well formed, handsome, valiant and with a mind filled with lofty ideals," also as "already the leader of the young men who were discontended." Among his friends he was known as the "Inca", or Lord.

The tradition goes that his mother persuaded him to lend himself to a scheme of her own devising, whereby he was to be invested in the eyes of the people with divine attributes and thus attain the throne, after which, by his valor and her wisdom, he was to restore the nation to its former prosperity. In furtherance of this scheme, she employed certain artisans whom she could trust to beat out a great number of small, thin squares of gold which she polished and sewed on a garment long enough to reach from her son's neck to his feet, and filled the spaces between the golden plates with precious stones, so that the whole shone like the rays of the sun. This done, she took the boy secretly to a cave in the side of the great hill of Sacsahuaman, overlooking the city, and, having instructed him to remain. concealed for three days, and on the fourth, at noon, to appear on the heights gowned in the gold and jewel bedecked robe, went among the people and spread the story that he had been carried up to heaven but would soon return as the favorite son of the radiant God to rule over them as their king.

On the fourth day, by her orders, an immense crowd gathered in the open space before the palace and offered prayers and sacrifices to the

Gods, but when the hour of noon arrived, an awed silence fell upon the throng, for there on the summit of the hill, in the sight of all, suddenly appeared the glittering figure, enveloped in the rays of the sun. Then, when he had been led by a solemn procession to the temple and seated on the throne, he is said to have addressed them as follows: "No one can doubt, my friends, the special love my father, the Sun, feels for us. When he weakened the power of this realm so that it fell to pieces, he took care to provide a remedy. It was vice and sloth that consumed its grandeur and reduced it almost to a vanishing point. Our policy was turned into a system of each man being his own master, leaving us to be satisfied with the thought that once we had a government. The tribute that every province used to pay is replaced by disdain. You, yourselves, instead of performing the duties of men, follow the path of animals. You have become so effeminate that you have forgotten what a sling or an arrow may be. My father, the Sun, has permitted this downfall, yet has preserved you from falling into slavery. Now his providence will apply a remedy. His command is that you obey me in all things as his son."

So awed were the people by the mystery surrounding the speaker and by the character of this announcement and many other things that he said, that the old monarch was deposed then and there and the audacious young pretender was declared king by acclamation. But he "made good" with a vengeance, this Inca. He rigorously enforced laws for the suppression of the viciousness and sloth he had complained of; he caused the torrents on either side of the city to be confined in stone conduits, thus draining the swamps and laying the real foundation of the great capital Prescott has described; he established schools; he completed a system of irrigation and terrace cultivation on the mountain sides that enabled the country round about to support a much larger population. Under his administration, military exercises were continuous; he

subdued the troublesome neighboring tribes and formed the nucleus of the great army that was destined to subjugate nearly the whole of the Andean region, and in his son, Vicaquiran, and nephew, Apu Mayta, he developed the two greatest generals that any aboriginal race of America. has ever produced.

The plans Rocca had formulated for the welfare of his own people, and which he and his son and grandson did much to carry out, his great grandson, Cusi, the Inca Pachacuti (Reformer of the World) perfected and imposed upon many peoples in a region of much vaster extent, which, through his prowess, became the nucleus of the Empire. Great as a conqueror, he was greater still as an administrator and law-giver. In all the regions that he brought under his sway he found the same system of communal ownership, the same manner of living, ideas and habits of thought, the same vague traditions of an enlightened past, and, making use of these elements with the sagacity and foresight of a profound statesman, he created a social and military structure so thorough in all its complicated details that, as Markham puts it, "it worked without friction and almost automatically, even when the guiding head was gone." But--and therein he made the one grave mistake that was eventually to result in the destruction of all he had done he also established an elaborate religious ritual, and, by inaugurating a custom of incestuous and morgantic royal marriages, made possible the formation of an ever-increasing privileged class. He had not taken into consideration-how could he when he knew of no such thing?-the existence of an outside world far more vast than the Andes.

As has been stated already, on the theory that the Incas of the royal blood were descended from the sun and moon, these bodies were worshipped as the ancestors paramount of the race. The sun the people regarded as the universal God the Father, the moon (which they believed to be both the Sun God's sister

and wife) as the Goddess - Mother. Following this conception of the divine relationship, the reigning Inca, from Pachacuti's time on, could marry only his sister of the whole blood and only their eldest son could inherit the throne. If no son was born of the first marriage, or if he died and no other was born during the Inca's lifetime, he married another sister, and so on until a son was born capable of inheriting.

As a result of the establishment of this morgantic marriage custom, every Inca left numerous sons and daughters, who, with the tribal chiefs, the priesthood and others distinguished for various reasons by the Inca, came in course of time to constitute a nobility. The daughters of the royal blood were given in marriage to nobles; their sons were devoted from their youth to warfare, statecraft or priesthood; and, although the marriage custom of the people was monogamous, both these nobles of royal blood and the lesser ones who desired them were permitted by decree of the Inca to have several wives. It was the practice of the sovereign, either when it pleased him to gratify a favorite or to reward a service, himself to select from among the virgins of the sun who preferred marriage to service in the temple at the end of their novitiate, the most beautiful for bestowal upon the nobles he wanted to favor or reward, and this of course still more largely increased the privileged or ruling class.

And it was, of course, inevitable that the nobility, not the plain people, should be the class to occupy itself with affairs of war and state. The founders and developers of the order had seized the opportunity that must be afforded by all ideal social conditions for men of intellectual ability and initiative to take the lead, and, as was also inevitable, these encroached more and more until they were completely in power. With power came wealth and luxury, and once more vice, and the plain people, with that indifference or apathy which seems inherent in their class, only looked on with eyes that saw not, and