must remark that the sun was the ancestral deity of the Incas. All
the Andean people worshiped some object as an ancestral deity. "An
Indian," says La Vega, "is not looked upon as honorable unless he is
descended from a fountain, river, or lake, or even the sea, or from a
wild animal, such as a bear, lion, tiger, eagle, or the bird they
called a condor, or from a mountain, cave, or forest." The Incas claimed
descent from the sun. So we can see why their legends would center on
the place where the sun appeared to rise. In after years, when they had
extended their conquests to the Collao,<19> and stood on the shore of
Lake Titicaca, the sun appeared to them to rise out of its waves; and so
this lake became to them a second point of traditional origin.

We see we can not solve the question of the origin of the Incas until
we solve the deeper problems of the origin of the Andean tribes.
Every thing seems to indicate a long-continued residence, perhaps for
centuries, and a slow advance in culture. We are not to suppose the
Incas were endowed with unusual capacity for improvement; all the tribes
were probably about equal in this respect.<20> But their situation was
in their favor, and they did not have to contend with those obstacles
that confronted other tribes. They must have increased in numbers and in
culture; they would in time feel themselves strong enough for conquest.
We must bear in mind the peculiar geographical features of the country.
In the isolated valleys and bolsons were living other tribes, but little
inferior to the Incas. There were no common interests between these
tribes. One by one they fell before the assaults of the Incas, and were
reduced to tribute. Rendered still more powerful by success, the Incas
pushed on their conquests until finally all the tribes living in that
vast stretch of country from the Andes to the Pacific, from Chili to
the United States of Colombia, acknowledged themselves tributary to the
Incas. This was the state of things when the Spaniards, under Pizarro,
appeared on the scene.

When we undertake to learn the history or the state of culture among the
Incas, we are entering on a difficult subject. Of their history, we know
but very little more than is given in this outline; and owing to the
complete absence of all records, we can not expect to know very much.
Garcillasso draws such an inviting picture of the happy government of
the Incas, that we would suppose that no rebellion o