"
Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 14.]
[Footnote 60: "Plus pene parcendo victis, quam vincendo imperium
auxisse.' Livy, lib. 30, cap. 42.]
In the same considerate spirit, they were most careful to provide
for the security and comfort of their own troops; and, when a war
was long protracted, or the climate proved unhealthy, they took
care to relieve their men by frequent reinforcements, allowing
the earlier recruits to return to their homes. *61 But while thus
economical of life, both in their own followers and in the enemy,
they did not shrink from sterner measures when provoked by the
ferocious or obstinate character of the resistance; and the
Peruvian annals contain more than one of those sanguinary pages
which cannot be pondered at the present day without a shudder.
It should be added, that the beneficent policy, which I have been
delineating as characteristic of the Incas, did not belong to
all; and that there was more than one of the royal line who
displayed a full measure of the bold and unscrupulous spirit of
the vulgar conqueror.
[Footnote 61: Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 6, cap. 18.]
The first step of the government, after the reduction of a
country, was to introduce there the worship of the Sun. Temples
were erected, and placed under the care of a numerous priesthood,
who expounded to the conquered people the mysteries of their new
faith, and dazzled them by the display of its rich and stately
ceremonial. *62 Yet the religion of the conquered was not treated
with dishonor.
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