" Rel. Seg., Ms]
With their manifold provisions against poverty the reader has
already been made acquainted. They were so perfect, that, in
their wide extent of territory, - much of it smitten with the
curse of barrenness, - no man, however humble, suffered from the
want of food and clothing. Famine, so common a scourge in every
other American nation, so common at that period in every country
of civilized Europe, was an evil unknown in the dominions of the
Incas.
The most enlightened of the Spaniards who first visited Peru,
struck with the general appearance of plenty and prosperity, and
with the astonishing order with which every thing throughout the
country was regulated, are loud in their expressions of
admiration. No better government, in their opinion, could have
been devised for the people. Contented with their condition, and
free from vice, to borrow the language of an eminent authority of
that early day, the mild and docile character of the Peruvians
would have well fitted them to receive the teachings of
Christianity, had the love of conversion, instead of gold,
animated the breasts of the Conquerors. *37 And a philosopher of
a later time, warmed by the contemplation of the picture - which
his own fancy had colored - of public prosperity and private
happiness under the rule of the Incas, pronounces "the moral man
in Peru far superior to the European." *38
[Footnote 37: "Y si Dios permitiera que tubieran quien con celo
de Cristiandad, y no con ramo de codicia, en lo pasado, les
dieran entera noticia de nuestra sagrada Religion, era gente en
que bien imprimiera, segun vemos por lo que ahora con la buena
orden que hay se obra.
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