Part 6

Soon afterwards they came to a land of giant trees. Many of them raised their mighty stems, like the pillars of a wonderful cathedral, a hundred feet in the air before they sent forth a single branch. Here a strange fit of home-sickness surprised Fray Fernando in the midst of Nature’s richest glories. In the lower levels there was no perceptible change of season; eternal summer reigned supreme. But here it was autumn, and these giant trees were shedding on his pathway withered leaves, like those that used to rustle round his footsteps in the cork-groves of his native land. He began to feel an affection for them such as he never could have felt for the wonderful trees of the valley, whose great spreading branches kept their green the whole year round.

Yet another day’s journey, and the travellers entered the region of mist and rain. Here were no great trees, but the perpetual moisture nourished a luxuriant growth of evergreens, of arbutus, and other flowering shrubs, in whose blossoms a bright yellow seemed the prevailing hue. José called this district the Puna, and hastened through it as rapidly as he might, unconsoled for the absence of Ynty by its numerous flowers, its verdant mosses, and its creeping mimosas.

At length they came to colder and more rugged regions, where the vegetation, at first abundant and pleasant to the eye, like that of our temperate zone, grew gradually poor and scanty. But Fray Fernando said reverently, that God had given the mountain to the beasts to dwell in. Here graceful fawn-coloured vicuñas, and guanucos with long shaggy fleeces and mild camel-like faces, roamed at large, feeding on the ychu and alfalfa, that still grew in abundance. Pretty little piscaches, with bushy tails, startled by the footsteps of the travellers, ran to hide in the ychu; and here and there a plover flew screaming into the air above their heads. Once they saw a huge condor perched on an elevated rocky peak.

Thus for many days they journeyed onwards, now ascending, now in turn descending again. By-and-by they came to grassy table-lands, where herds of llamas or alpacas roamed about, either wild, or more often under the care of Indian shepherds. Where the nature of the ground permitted cultivation, the soil was well and carefully cultivated. Even on the steep sides of mountains terraces were constructed with ingenious industry. By means of these andenaria, as the Spaniards called them, many a hill, that in another country would have been a brown and sterile mass, was transformed into a beautiful hanging-garden, displaying every variety of production, from the rich tropical splendours that adorned the broad belts around the base, to the few rows of maize which were all that even the industrious Indian could persuade to take root on the narrow strip at the top.

The long journey was a very safe and easy one. For nearly all the way our travellers had only to use the excellent roads provided by the care of the Incas. Fray Fernando was not the first Spaniard who grew enthusiastic in his admiration of these wonderful works, executed without machinery, and even without iron tools. Passages leagues in length were cut through the living rock, precipices were scaled by long flights of steps, ravines were filled up with masonry, and rivers crossed by means of suspension bridges made of maguey—the native osier. At convenient distances all along the road tampus, or post-houses, were erected, where the wayfarers found shelter. José explained that, in the old times, they would have found entertainment also in many of these tampus; but since, to use his mournful and oft-repeated expression, “the Spaniards have changed all,” they had usually to throw themselves on the hospitality of the Indians; and sometimes, in lonely places, to rely on the little store of roasted maize or of frozen potatoes (called chuñu), which José never failed to bring as provision for the way. The Indians were always kind and generous to wayfarers; but they had only to recognize José as a Child of the Sun, to induce them to lay the best their huts contained at his feet.

The hardihood and agility displayed by José during the journey surprised Fray Fernando. He made very little of the wound he had received from Pepe, though it was severe enough to have laid a European aside for weeks. But this was thoroughly Indian. No amount of walking or running seemed to fatigue him. Fray Fernando was by no means a match for him, and was always the first to propose a halt. José, compassionating his weakness, would frequently offer him some of his favourite coca, but this the monk always declined, from an unaccountable idea taken up by the Spaniards, that the use of the harmless stimulant was in some way connected with the superstition of the Indians.

From the extreme of supposing his pupil a child, whose simple thoughts he could read like an open book, Fray Fernando passed into the opposite one, of considering him a hopeless enigma. And, indeed, José, or rather, as the Spaniards would have called him—for they conceded the honours of nobility to the Children of the Sun—Don José Viracocha Inca, was a compound of so many heterogenous elements, that his character might well be a perplexity. He was an American Indian, with nearly all the peculiarities that distinguish the aborigines of the New World from the natives of the Old fully and clearly developed. But races flower as well as plants. The flower of the American race—and a strange, rare flower it was—was surely that mysterious family, the self-styled Children of the Sun. Their origin continues wrapt in obscurity, but their moral and intellectual ascendancy has been written on the page of history, in the peace, the order, and the prosperity they secured to millions of their fellow-men. José was an Inca, and heir not only to the very peculiar character, but to the traditions of the sons of Manco Capac. But upon these had been grafted seven years of careful training in the white man’s thoughts and habits, as well as in the white man’s learning and religion. And, moreover, there was that within him for which neither race, education, nor training could fully account. Had he lived fifty years earlier, he would have been the foremost “haravec”[23] at the court of his great kinsman, Huayna Capac. He would have made sweet “yaravis”[24] for the Indian girls to sing, and more ambitious dramas to be acted before the Inca and his court. But the faculties which would then have found expression in song had now no exercise, save in the ever-recurring wail over those former days, which indeed were better than these.

This preponderance of imagination in his character was the real cause of his temporary repudiation of Christianity (or rather Catholicism), and return to the faith of his fathers. But such a return could be only temporary, if indeed it was more than fancied. What Huayna Capac, on whom no gleam of the light of revelation ever shone, had been taught by the light of reason to abandon, could scarcely be held seriously by a youth instructed as José had been.

Fray Fernando saw with pleasure that his prejudices against Christianity were melting away, and that he was anxious to resume his studies. Often when they halted for the night he would eagerly take up the Breviary, and try to translate the Latin psalms and prayers it contained. He would frequently ask questions suggested by what he read; sometimes startling ones enough, betraying an acquaintance with facts, or rumours of facts, about the Old World, assuredly not learned from Fray Fernando. One day he asked: “Patre, do not the Jews also build great ships, and sail over the Mother Sea, even as far as this country?”

“Truly they are wanderers over the face of the earth, according to the just judgments of God,” returned the monk; “but that they have come hither have I never heard. Who told you of them?”

“No one,” answered José, who was caution itself in speaking of any rumours current amongst his own people. “But is it not true that they hate the Spaniards and the Catholic faith?”

“It is,” Fray Fernando responded briefly. “They are an accursed race.”

He did not know, until long years afterwards, that José was confounding the Jews with the English!

During the past six months, José had found means to supplement the well-remembered lessons of his childhood, and to complete his acquaintance with the history, the customs, and the social polity of his forefathers. He failed not to improve the various circumstances of their journey into occasions for enlarging upon these topics to Fray Fernando. One day, for instance, an Indian chasqui, or messenger, shot past them like an arrow, his body bent forward, his burden on his shoulder, and his staff in his hand. “See the speed of that fellow!” cried the monk.

“That’s nothing,” said José, smiling. “In the old times, the Inca supped at sundown in Cuzco upon fish taken from the Mother Sea at Lurin the same hour the day before.”

Fray Fernando knew the distance between Lurin and Cuzco—more than a hundred leagues. He said, “That is too much even for _my_ faith, José.”

“The Children of the Sun speak truth,” returned José, a little offended. “Our chasquis,” he continued, “were trained to the work from their earliest childhood; and each had but a short way to run until he should be relieved by another. He had plenty of rest, and plenty of good food and chica; and he was stirred to do his utmost by the hope of reward, and of praise—that was better than reward. Was not that chasqui a happy man ever after, to whom the Inca once said with his own lips, ‘Sit down, huanucu’?—The patre knows the huanucu is the swiftest of all creatures.—But this I say,” added José with a sorrowful smile, “the Spaniards will find no man to run so fast for them, even for fear of the lash.”

On another occasion they passed a melancholy troop of Indians who were being driven to their forced labour on a Spanish farm. José divided his little store of coca amongst them, and then complained bitterly to Fray Fernando of the hardship of their condition.

But the monk said it seemed not unfair that they should pay tribute in the form of personal labour. “I thought they did so,” he added, “even under your Incas.”

“True,” replied José, “they tilled the lands of the Sun and of the Inca. But after this fashion: First, the lands of the Sun, as was meet and right. Next, the lands of the widow and the orphan, of the sick man, and the soldier who was fighting the battles of his country. Then each man tilled his own tupu.[25] These tupus were given them according to their need. If a man had a child born to him, he had a little piece added to his share of land. And they were all taught to help each other in their labour. Lastly, and not until all else was done, they tilled the Inca’s land; such was the Inca’s law. The work was a happy festival: men, women, and children, in their holiday dresses, thronged to the fields together; and as they drew the plough, or sowed the maize and quinoa, they chanted merry songs, or yaravis about the great deeds of the Incas. Always they had abundance of good food and chica. Neither in the field, nor in the workshop, nor yet in the mine, was any man’s health ever known to suffer from the labour he did for his lords. And in all Tahuantin Suyu there was no man that had not food enough, and clothing suited to the climate in which he dwelt. The Spaniards know this.[26] Ask them, when you go to Cuzco, and they—even they themselves—will bear witness that never were a people more happy, more peaceful, more content with their lot, more loyal to their lords, than were we when they came to us. Why God, who governs all, let them come, He knows—I do not.”

Nor did Fray Fernando. Long did he ponder over the problem thus set before him. For the first time in his life, a great grief and wrong, with which he had personally no concern, was sinking into his heart. He used to satisfy himself that the natives of the New World received a full indemnity for their injuries and sufferings in the introduction of Christianity, with its creed and its sacraments, by which their souls might be saved from everlasting perdition. But this thought was losing its power to content him. He was beginning to learn that wrong remains wrong for ever, and cannot be changed into right by virtue of any benefits, real or supposed, which may eventually accrue from it.

That night, as they rested together in a deserted tampu, he said to José, “My son, it is not fit that I should conceal from you what I truly think. I think my people are verily guilty concerning yours. May God forgive us, and in His own time turn our evil into good.”

José made no answer, and almost immediately went out to gather sticks for a fire. Yet never had Fray Fernando been so dear to him as at that moment. Nor had any single act or speech ever done so much to bring their hearts together as that one free and generous acknowledgment. So great is the power of truth between man and man.

X.

The Dead Men who Fought against Spain.

“If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they.”

ECCLES. v. 8.

Three hundred years have passed away since the men of the Old World spoiled and conquered Tahuantin Suyu. Those who did and those who suffered wrong have slept side by side for ages. The ancient Incas lie in glory “with kings and counsellors of the earth, who have built desolate places for themselves, or with princes that had gold, and filled their houses with silver;” while their once happy subjects, doomed to toil in the service of the cruel stranger, have found repose at last, where “the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. The small and the great are there, and the servant is free from his master.” And the men who robbed and tortured them, who made their fair land a desolation, until the cry of it reached unto heaven, and those who were left alive envied those whom the sword had devoured,—they also have gone to render account of their deeds before Him who is the Judge of quick and dead.

Do we still say with the Inca’s son, “Why God allowed these things to be, we know not”? Not altogether. First, let it be said, once for all, that beautiful—wonderfully beautiful—as the social polity of the Incas undoubtedly was, it was no more perfect than any other scheme which man has devised for making this earth the paradise it would have been if sin had never entered. Two defects may be specially mentioned; since these probably contained the seeds of dissolution for the whole magnificent and extensive fabric. The royal and privileged race—the Children of the Sun—stood too far above the people, and looked down on them from too lofty an eminence, as beings of quite another and a lower order. Not only had the Incas different ideas and traditions—it is said even a different language—but they had actually _a different code of morality_ for themselves to that which they imposed on their subjects. Great liberties were allowed them: it is true that, in accordance with the beneficence which formed their distinguishing characteristic, they seem to have used them most mercifully,—yet still they used them. What were accounted vices in the people, were none in them; and here, perhaps, may really be found “the little speck within the garnered fruit” that, “rotting inwards,” would by-and-by have slowly mouldered all.

Moreover, the idea of freedom was unknown to them. While the Inca gave his subjects—and gave nobly, “as a king,” to friend and foe alike—every other boon his hand could bestow, he never dreamed of giving them the rights of free men. Properly speaking, they were _not_ men, they were children; to be cared for kindly, even tenderly; to be fed, and clothed, and housed; to have their work and their play, and plenty of the latter, duly apportioned them; and, in one word, to be made good and happy. It may be said, and truly, that in intelligence they _were_ children, incapable of self-control and self-government. Still, the Inca’s ideal fell below the Christian one in this, that he neither sought to raise them out of that condition, nor provided room for them should they desire to raise themselves. Under his system there was no growth, no freedom of choice; and there was to be none. Every man must be harmless, well-behaved, industrious, or there would be no room for him in Tahuantin Suyu. But a principle which should make a free man choose the good and refuse the evil, was amongst the things not revealed to the Children of the Sun.

But growth there must be, or decay will take its place. If the cruel white men from beyond the sea had not overwhelmed Tahuantin Suyu with swift destruction, it is still probable that the whole system would have melted gradually away, like a palace of ice, grand and beautiful, white and glistening with rainbow hues, but, from its very nature, unenduring. And the bloody civil war, which preceded and facilitated the conquest of the Spaniards, seems no doubtful indication of what might have taken place. One such tyrant as Atahualpa[27] (who, it should however be remembered, was not a legitimate Inca) had it in his power to cause unspeakable confusion and misery, and to destroy the fruit of the beneficent labours of a long line of honoured predecessors.

Perhaps, therefore, after all, it was not so dark and sad a fate for the Empire of the Incas to fall at once and in a single day almost from the very summit of prosperity, like a royal oak in the forest struck down by the tempest. If it was ever true of any empire (which is doubtful) that she “fell unwept, without a crime,” it was true of Tahuantin Suyu. She and her children took, once for all, their place amongst the sufferers, not the doers, of wrong; the oppressed, not the oppressors. There can be no doubt which is the better place.

More to be desired was her doom, with all its anguish, than that of her destroyer and desolater, Spain. Here God’s judgments are written on the page of history in characters of fire: “Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoiled; and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee! When thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled; and when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee.” As Spain did to others, so was it done to her. From the foremost place amongst the nations of the earth, she was cast into the depths of a degradation far worse, far lower than that into which she plunged the Empire of the Incas. She robbed the stores of an industrious people, destroyed their water-courses, deprived them of the means of subsistence. And from that day, even to the present, want, and scarcity, and cleanness of teeth in all her cities has been her own portion. Her very nobles, amidst their pomp and pride, have hungered and suffered thirst; the children of her chiefs and conquerors have pined away, and their eyes have failed them for want of those common fruits of the field of which, under the Inca’s beneficent sway, every poor man had enough and to spare. Well have the Despoplados of Spain—bare, and brown, and barren—avenged the fertile plains of Tahuantin Suyu, laid waste by the cruel stranger.

The punishment sprang naturally out of the offence. The booty was a weight round the neck of the robber that sank him to perdition. It was the gold of Peru that ruined Spain. When she put forth her hand and took it, she took the curse of God with it. To the proud and idle Castilian, the lord of the New World, industry became the brand of slavery; commerce, a degradation; trade, the appropriate work of Jews and infidels. All those useful arts which make a people’s prosperity and happiness were neglected or despised. And the treasure that undermined the life and the energy of the nation, supplied at the same time fuel to sustain the fire of that long conflict which was the passion and the doom of the Spanish monarchy.

In the contest that followed the Reformation, Spain was the great champion of Rome. Spain and England stand out before us during the last half of the sixteenth century, representatives of the principles that were contending for the world’s future; and sometimes the conflict seems almost narrowed to a duel between them. Victory for Spain, meant victory for Rome; meant kingly and priestly tyranny; the inquisition, the rack, and the stake. Victory for England, meant an open Bible, free thought, equal rights, liberty of conscience.

And the tide of battle ebbed and flowed; and flowed and ebbed again. Sometimes it seemed as if the God of battles would declare for His own cause; sometimes it looked as though He stood aloof, and did not heed what men were doing on the earth.

But amidst the din and smoke of the fiercest conflict, the enemies of Spain were joined by a vast and shadowy host. Their voices no man heard, their faces no man saw, their footfalls were noiseless as the snow, “their arrows drew no blood.” Yet were they valiant warriors, who did good service in the cause of England, of truth, of freedom. The men of the New World,—“the men thrust through with the sword,” the men slain by famine, by torture, by excessive toil and cruel blows,—they it was who “arose, every man in his place,” and fought against Spain. The tale of their wrongs and sufferings flew like fire from heart to heart, from lip to lip, and nerved the arm of the avenger. Both on the land and on the wave the strength of the Englishman became “the strength of ten,” to smite down the cruel Spaniard, and to keep the fair homes of his native land from the men who conquered Tahuantin Suyu. Noble hearts, like that of Raleigh, burned over the wrongs of the conquered race, and it was their cherished dream, and his, to restore the Empire of the Incas.

But this work was not given to him, or to any man, to accomplish. In God’s providence empires and dynasties pass away, and come not again. “The old order changeth, giving place to new.” Yet not the less, from age to age, He is above all, the God that giveth to every man, and to every nation, “according to their works.”

Still we must allow that dread mysteries, as yet but partially explained, underlie this and every other act in the great drama of human history. Questions arise within us to which man _can_ give no answer, and to which God _has_ given none—as yet. There are those amongst us who in secret “weep much,” because the Book wherein are written the destinies of their race is sealed with seven seals, and no man is found worthy to open and to read it, neither to look thereon.

Let such accept the one thought of comfort that can avail to dry their tears: “Weep not; behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the Book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.” None ever loved man as He did—He who died for man. Yet He knows _all_, from the beginning to the end. And He is satisfied.

Nay, more. He it is who shall be the Judge of man. Before His judgment-seat shall be gathered all nations—sons of Europe, who have known and dishonoured Him; dusky children of the East and West, who have never heard His name. It is in His hand—the hand pierced for man—that the destinies of man are lying. Is there any heart amongst us not content to leave them there; not satisfied, to its inmost depths, by His own assurance, “What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter”?

XI.

Across the Apurimac.

An Inca king for Cuzco’s throne In victor strength shall rise.

“Look, patre! We have but to cross yonder stream, and we shall have entered the sacred land where the golden wand of my great father Manco sank into the ground—the patrimony of the Children of the Sun. Let the patre hasten.”