See Tiraboschi,
Historia della Letteratura Italiana, tom. VI. lib. 2, cap. 2,
sec. 38.]
This meagre account embraces nearly all that has come down to us
of Peruvian astronomy. It may seem strange that a nation, which
had proceeded thus far in its observations, should have gone no
farther; and that, notwithstanding its general advance in
civilization, it should in this science have fallen so far short,
not only of the Mexicans, but of the Muyscas, inhabiting the same
elevated regions of the great southern plateau with themselves.
These latter regulated their calendar on the same general plan of
cycles and periodical series as the Aztecs, approaching yet
nearer to the system pursued by the people of Asia. *14
[Footnote 14: A tolerably meagre account - yet as full, probably,
as authorities could warrant - of this interesting people has
been given by Piedrahita, Bishop of Panama, in the first two
Books of his Historia General de las Conquistas del Nuevo Regno
de Granada, (Madrid, 1688.) - M. de Humboldt was fortunate in
obtaining a Ms., composed by a Spanish ecclesiastic resident in
Santa Fe de Bogota, in relation to the Muysca calendar, of which
the Prussian philosopher has given a large and luminous analysis.
Vues des Cordilleres. p. 244.]
It might have been expected that the Incas, the boasted children
of the Sun, would have made a particular study of the phenomena
of the heavens, and have constructed a calendar on principles as
scientific as that of their semi-civilized neighbours.
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