to the sand and joined
by Ozier ropes. No remains of such roads have been found by modern
travelers.
Illustration of Fortress, Huatica Valley.-------
From this description it is "clear that but a small portion of the
country was inhabitable, or capable of supporting a considerable number
of people. The rich and productive valleys and bolsons are hardly
move than specks on the map."<5> It is necessary that we bear this
description of the country in mind. It will help us to understand as
nothing else will how the tribes located in one rich and productive
bolson could, by successive forays, reduce to a condition of tribute
tribes living in other detached valleys and bolsons. It will also enable
us to put a correct estimate on the extravagant accounts that have
reached us of the population of this country under the rule of its
ancient inhabitants. We can also readily see why the tribes living in
the hot and fertile valleys along the coast, which were called Yuncas
by the Peruvians, should differ in religion and mental and moral
characteristics from the tribes living in the bolsons of the interior,
where the snow-clad peaks were nearly always in sight, and where
the sun, shedding his warm and vivifying beams, would appear to the
shivering natives as the beneficent deity from whence comes all good.
We must now turn our attention to the tribes inhabiting the section of
country just described. We have seen that the Mayas, of Central America,
the Nahuas, of Mexico, and the sedentary tribes, of the United States,
were considerably in advance of the great body of the Indian tribes
of North America. We find the same fact true of the natives of South
America. Those tribes inhabiting the territory of ancient Peru, and
those of the territory now known as the United States of Columbia,
were considerably further advanced than the wild tribes living in the
remaining portions of South America. Quite a number of our scholars have
grouped in one class these partially civilized tribes of both North and
South America, and called them the Toltecan Family.<6> But others do not
think that there are sufficient grounds for such a class division. They
can not detect any radical changes in the domestic institutions of the
various tribes.<7> On this point we must wait until our authorities are
agreed among themselves.
Attempts have been made to classify the various partially civilized
tribes of Peru. There are several difficulties in the
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