The celestial pair,
brother and sister, husband and wife, advanced along the high
plains in the neighbourhood of Lake Titicaca, to about the
sixteenth degree south. They bore with them a golden wedge, and
were directed to take up their residence on the spot where the
sacred emblem should without effort sink into the ground. They
proceeded accordingly but a short distance, as far as the valley
of Cuzco, the spot indicated by the performance of the miracle,
since there the wedge speedily sank into the earth and
disappeared for ever. Here the children of the Sun established
their residence, and soon entered upon their beneficent mission
among the rude inhabitants of the country; Manco Capac teaching
the men the arts of agriculture, and Mama Oello *8 initiating her
own sex in the mysteries of weaving and spinning. The simple
people lent a willing ear to the messengers of Heaven, and,
gathering together in considerable numbers, laid the foundations
of the city of Cuzco. The same wise and benevolent maxims, which
regulated the conduct of the first Incas, *9 descended to their
successors, and under their mild sceptre a community gradually
extended itself along the broad surface of the table-land, which
asserted its superiority over the surrounding tribes. Such is
the pleasing picture of the origin of the Peruvian monarchy, as
portrayed by Garcilasso de la Vega, the descendant of the Incas,
and through him made familiar to the European reader.
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