Twenty thousand men are said to have been employed on
this great structure, and fifty years consumed in the building.
*25 However this may be, we see in it the workings of a despotism
which had the lives and fortunes of its vassals at its absolute
disposal, and which, however mild in its general character,
esteemed these vassals, when employed in its service, as lightly
as the brute animals for which they served as a substitute.
[Footnote 24: Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap. 93. - Ondegardo, Rel.
Seg., Ms. Many hundred blocks of granite may still be seen, it is
said, in an unfinished state, in a quarry near Cuzco.]
[Footnote 25: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 48. - Ondegardo,
Rel. Seg., Ms. - Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 7, cap.
27, 28.
The Spaniards, puzzled by the execution of so great a work with
such apparently inadequate means, referred it all, in their
summary way, to the Devil; an opinion which Garcilasso seems
willing to indorse. The author of the Antig y Monumentos del
Peru, Ms., rejects this notion with becoming gravity.]
The fortress of Cuzco was but part of a system of fortifications
established throughout their dominions by the Incas. This system
formed a prominent feature in their military policy; but before
entering on this latter, it will be proper to give the reader
some view of their civil institutions and scheme of government.
The sceptre of the Incas, if we may credit their historian,
descended in unbroken succession from father to son, through
their whole dynasty.
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