Part 26

“There is much for us to do while we wait and watch for His coming,” Fray Fernando answered with cheerful earnestness. “We have to hasten that coming by our holy conversation and godliness, our prayers and our efforts to spread abroad the knowledge of His name. And amidst all the sin and all the sorrow that we see around us, we have to keep fast hold of our faith in Him, and to rejoice in sure and steadfast hope of that blessed day when the kingdoms of this world shall have become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever. And ‘the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.’”

“Amen!” said Walter Grey. “THY KINGDOM COME.”

FOOTNOTES

[1] Sweet bread.

[2] No sound corresponding to the letter D is found in Quichua. Its place is supplied by T.

[3] Empress.

[4] Alas!

[5] Tribe, descendants.

[6] Yahuar-Huaccuc.

[7] Prince.

[8] The same word serves for both in Quichua.

[9] This is given as a specimen of the Inca legends and traditions.

[10] Tunic.

[11] The anecdote told above is related, by different historians, of several of the Incas. Other remarkable acknowledgments of the One True Invisible God are attributed to these heathen princes.

[12] Flowery meadow.

[13] Luna.

[14] The Deluge, of which most of the American nations preserved traditions.

[15] From a Quichua cradle-song.

[16] Trenches.

[17] The Moon.

[18] It is a Spaniard who tells us this—Don Marcio Serra de Leguisano, in his “Last Will and Testament”—a very noble testimony to the conquered race.

[19] Factories.

[20] Slaves.

[21] All the details given above are, of course, strictly true. The most harrowing instances of cruelty and oppression are, however, purposely omitted.

[22] Sweet-william.

[23] Poet.

[24] Songs.

[25] Allotment of land.

[26] “What is most wonderful is that all the labour and toil they used for their kings was their greatest delight and recreation; and such was the good rule and order observed in it that no labour was tedious, but rather of contentment and satisfaction.”—JOSEPH DE ACOSTA. (Other Spanish testimonies might be quoted, to the same effect.)

[27] Atahualpa, nevertheless, had some redeeming features of character: and it is almost certain that his cruelties were greatly exaggerated.

[28] This riot actually took place, and from the cause assigned in the text.

[29] This hereditary guild of doctors still exists among the Peruvian Indians, and they still pursue their calling as described in the text.

[30] The ease with which the Spaniards made their vast conquests in the New World was owing, in great measure, to the awe and terror inspired by their horses, animals entirely unknown to the aborigines; it has been even said that it was the horse, not the man, that conquered America.

[31] The “last of the Incas,” Tupac Amaru, who died as above related in 1571, must not be confounded with a far more remarkable character, the heroic and unfortunate Inca chieftain, José Gabriel Condercanqui, who assumed the name of Tupac Amaru, and led his people in their last gallant struggle for independence towards the close of the eighteenth century.

[32] Literally, _you shall count_; but used to mean virtuous, excellent.

[33] In Quichua, Coyllur means a star; Sumac, beautiful.

[34] Temple of the Sun.

[35] The Peruvians were as successful as the ancient Egyptians in the art of embalming the dead. The bodies of all the Incas, from Manco Capac downwards, were placed in the great Temple of the Sun at Cuzco. There each sat in state, in his royal robes, the llautu on his head and the sceptre in his hand; his Coya being seated opposite. At the approach of the conquerors the natives removed and concealed them; but the bodies of the three greatest Incas—Viracocha, Yupanqui, and Huayna Capac—with those of their Coyas, were afterwards found, and honourably interred, even the haughty conquerors baring their heads in silent reverence as they were borne past.

[36] Slave.

[37] The Peruvians paid extreme regard to omens, and were very superstitious about them.

[38] Sarmiento.

[39] Garçilasso de la Vega.

[40] Lily.

[41] Yes, yes.

[42] Humboldt.

[43] Officer whose duty it was to preserve and interpret the Quipus.

[44] Narrative of Job Hortop, in “Hakluyt’s Voyages.”

[45] The Spaniards called all the Indian princesses Pallas, though the title properly belonged only to the married ones amongst them.

[46] This fidelity of the Peruvians to any master to whom they had once yielded themselves, is described in very striking terms by Garçilasso de la Vega.

[47] The precious metals were very plentiful in those regions, and prices, of course, proportionably high.

[48] A hundred such stories could easily be gathered out of the blood-stained records of the Spanish conquests in America.

[49] The Incas believed that “Pacha-camac had appointed the same care to be taken of the wild as of the tame flocks;” for this reason they would not hurt or destroy them, except so far as was necessary for the food, the clothing, or the safety of man.

[50] See “Ollantā, an Ancient Ynca Drama, Translated from the Original Quichua by Clements R. Markham. C.B.”

[51] Out of thirty-six persons who were thus banished at one time, no less than thirty-five died within the space of two years.

[52] The arms granted by Charles V. to the Inca family.

[53] Garçilasso de la Vega.

[54] Alluding to a graceful custom of his royal forefathers. When they desired to honour any man, they would send him a cup exactly the same as that from which they drank themselves with the message.—“The Inca drinks with thee in this cup.”

[55] Humboldt.

[56] Sir Walter Raleigh.