- In a
former work I have endeavoured to exhibit the institutions and
character of the ancient Mexicans, and the story of their
conquest by the Spaniards. The present will be devoted to the
Peruvians; and, if their history shall be found to present less
strange anomalies and striking contrasts than that of the Aztecs,
it may interest us quite as much by the pleasing picture it
offers of a well-regulated government and sober habits of
industry under the patriarchal sway of the Incas.
The empire of Peru, at the period of the Spanish invasion,
stretched along the Pacific from about the second degree north to
the thirty-seventh degree of south latitude; a line, also, which
describes the western boundaries of the modern republics of
Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chili. Its breadth cannot so easily
be determined; for, though bounded everywhere by the great ocean
on the west, towards the east it spread out, in many parts,
considerably beyond the mountains, to the confines of barbarous
states, whose exact position is undetermined, or whose names are
effaced from the map of history. It is certain, however, that its
breadth was altogether disproportioned to its length. *1
[Footnote 1: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 65. - Cieza de Leon,
Cronica del Peru, (Anvers, 1554,) cap. 41. - Garcilasso de la
Vega, Commentarios Reales, (Lisboa, 1609,) Parte 1, lib. 1, cap.
8.
According to the last authority, the empire, in its greatest
breadth, did not exceed one hundred and twenty leagues.
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