]
Such is the report of the impressions made by the appearance of
the Spaniards in the country, reminding one of the similar
feelings of superstitious terror occasioned by their appearance
in Mexico. But the traditions of the latter land rest on much
higher authority than those of the Peruvians, which, unsupported
by contemporary testimony, rest almost wholly on the naked
assertion of one of their own nation, who thought to find,
doubtless, in the inevitable decrees of Heaven, the best apology
for the supineness of his countrymen.
It is not improbable that rumors of the advent of a strange and
mysterious race should have spread gradually among the Indian
tribes along the great table-land of the Cordilleras, and should
have shaken the hearts of the stoutest warriors with feelings of
undefined dread, as of some impending calamity. In this state of
mind, it was natural that physical convulsions, to which that
volcanic country is peculiarly subject, should have made an
unwonted impression on their minds; and that the phenomena, which
might have been regarded only as extraordinary, in the usual
seasons of political security, should now be interpreted by the
superstitious soothsayer as the handwriting on the heavens, by
which the God of the Incas proclaimed the approaching downfall of
their empire.
Huayna Capac had, as usual with the Peruvian princes, a multitude
of concubines, by whom he left a numerous posterity. The heir to
the crown, the son of his lawful wife and sister, was named
Huascar.
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