Summary
I should like much to go to Cuzco, but I fear it would be too fatiguing a journey for my little girl.
Probably the most striking vestiges of the civilization of the ancient inhabitants of the country are to be found there. Manco Capac, the First Inca, taught the Indians to plough, to sow, and also to irrigate the fields, which so greatly contributed to the fertility of the land. His thrifty Queen Consort, the fair Daughter of the Sun, did not disdain to instruct the female part of the population in the simple arts of spinning, carding wool, and making clothes for themselves and their husbands and children! The rude altars erected to the savage beasts of the field in the forests were demolished; the chase, as a means of subsistence, was abandoned; the earth was carefully cultivated, and peace and content smiled over the now fruitful and happy land. The worship of the sun was made the ruling spirit of all their institutions.
These people were ignorant of the art of writing, but they skilfully preserved the memory of particular events by bold paintings, and by knotted cords of a variety of colours, in which latter art they were singularly expert and showed great ingenuity. They constructed remarkably fine roads: the route from Quito to Cuzco was five hundred leagues in length, and there was another of the same extent that traversed the lower country, nearer to the ocean.
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- Travels in the United States, etc. During 1849 and 1850 , pp. 167 - 199Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009