The Royal Ornament Worn By The
Supreme Inca In Place Of A Crown Or Diadem, Consisted In A Fringe Of
Coloured worsted from one temple to the other, reaching almost to the eyes.
He governed their extensive empire with much
Grandeur and absolute power;
and perhaps there never was a country in the world where the subjects were
so submissive and obedient. They had only to place a single thread drawn
from their diadem in the hands of one of the _ringrim_ or great ears, by
which he communicated to this deputy the most absolute delegation of power,
which was respected and obeyed over the whole empire. Alone, and without
troops or attendants, the message or order which he carried was instantly
obeyed, were it even to lay waste a whole province, and to exterminate
every one of its inhabitants; as on the sight of this thread from the
royal fillet, every one offered themselves voluntarily to death, without a
single murmur or the slightest resistance.
In the before mentioned order of succession, the empire of the Incas fell
in process of time to a sovereign named _Huana Capac_[31], which signifies
the young rich man. This prince made great conquests, and augmented the
empire more considerably than had been done by any one of his predecessors,
and ruled over the whole more reasonably and with greater justice and
equity than had ever been done by the former sovereigns. He established
everywhere the most perfect police, and exact rules for cultivating the
earth; ruling and governing among a barbarous and ignorant nation with the
most surprising order and justice; and the love and obedience of his
subjects was equally wonderful and perfect. They gave him a signal proof
of this, worthy of being mentioned, in the construction of two roads
through the whole extent of Peru for his more convenient travelling; of
which the difficulty labour and expence equal or even surpass all that the
ancients have written of the seven wonders of the world. Huana Capac, in
marching from Cuzco to conquer the kingdom of Quito, had to march five
hundred leagues by the mountains, where he had everywhere to encounter
excessive difficulties, from bad roads, rocks, precipices and ravines,
almost impracticable in many places. After he had successfully executed
this great enterprize, by the conquest and submission of Quito and its
dependencies, his subjects conceived that it was incumbent on them to do
honour to his victorious career, by preparing a commodious road for his
triumphant return to Cuzco. They accordingly undertook, and executed by
prodigious labour, a broad and easy road through the mountains of five
hundred leagues in length, in the course of which they had often to dig
away vast rocks, and to fill up valleys and precipices of thirty to forty
yards in depth. It is said that this road, when first made, was so smooth
and level that it would have admitted a coach with the utmost ease through
its whole length; but since that time it has suffered great injuries,
especially during the wars between the Spaniards and the Peruvians, having
been broken up in many places, on purpose to obstruct the invasion of the
enemy. The grandeur and difficulty of this vast undertaking may be readily
conceived, by considering the labour and cost which has been expended in
Spain to level only two leagues of a mountain road between Segovia and
Guadarrama, and which after all has never been brought to any degree of
perfection, although the usual passage of the king and court on travelling
to or from Andalusia or the kingdom of Toledo. Not satisfied with this
first astonishing labour, the Peruvians soon afterwards undertook another
of a similar and no less grand and difficult kind. Huana Capac was fond of
visiting the kingdom of Quito which he had conquered, and proposed to
travel thither from Cuzco by way of the plain, so as to visit the whole
of his extensive dominions. For his accommodation likewise, his subjects
undertook to make a road also in the plain; and for this purpose they
constructed high mounds of earth across all the small vallies formed by
the various rivers and torrents which descend from the mountain, that the
road might be everywhere smooth and level This road was near forty feet
wide, and where it crossed the sandy heights which intervene betwixt the
verdant vallies of the torrents, it was marked on each side by stakes,
forming palings in straight lines to prevent any one losing the way. This
road was five hundred leagues in length like that of the mountain; but the
palings are now wanting in many places, the wood of which they were
constructed having been used by the Spaniards for fuel during the war; but
the mounds still exist across the vallies, and most of them are yet
tolerably entire, by which the grandeur of the entire work may be judged
of. In his journeys to and from Quito, Huana Capac used to go by one of
these roads and return by the other; and during his whole journey his
subjects used to strew the way with branches and flowers of the richest
perfume.
Besides the two great roads already mentioned, Huana Capac ordered to be
built on the mountain road a number of large palaces, at the distance of a
days journey from each other, having a prodigious number of apartments,
sufficient to lodge his own personal suite and all his army. Such were
likewise built along the road in the plain, but not so numerous or so near
each other as on the mountain road, as these palaces of the plain had all
to be placed on the sides of the rivers for convenience and the
procurement of provisions and other necessaries; so that they were in some
places eight or ten leagues distant from each other, and in other places
fifteen or twenty leagues. These buildings were named _tambos_, and the
neighbouring Indians were bound to furnish each of these with provisions
and every thing else that might be wanted for the royal armies; insomuch
that in each of these _tambos_, in case of necessity, clothing and arms
could be had for twenty or thirty thousand men.
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