barbarians, because, having no letters, they could not preserve such
details as they give from so remote an antiquity. The answer is that, to
supply the want of letters, these barbarians had a curious invention
which was very good and accurate. This was that from one to the other,
from fathers to sons, they handed down past events, repeating the story
of them many times, just as lessons are repeated from a professor's
chair, making the hearers say these historical lessons over and over
again until they were fixed in the memory. Thus each one of the
descendants continued to communicate the annals in the order described
with a view to preserve their histories and deeds, their ancient
traditions, the numbers of their tribes, towns, provinces, their days,
months and years, their battles, deaths, destructions, fortresses and
"Sinchis." Finally they recorded, and they still record, the most
notable things which consist in their numbers (or statistics), on
certain cords called _quipu_, which is the same as to say reasoner or
accountant. On these cords they make certain knots by which, and by
differences of colour, they distinguish and record each thing as by
letters. It is a thing to be admired to see what details may be recorded
on these cords, for which there are masters like our writing
masters[39].

[Note 39: The system of recording by _quipus_ is described by
Garcilasso de la Vega, i. pp. 150 and 191, also ii. p. 117 and more
fully at ii. pp. 121--125. Cieza de Leon mentions the _quipu_ system in
his first part (see i. p. 291 and note) and in the second part (ii. pp.
33--35, 53, 57, 61,165). At p. 32 the method of preserving the memory of
former events is described very much as in the text. See also Molina,
pp. 10, 169. Molina also describes the boards on which historical events
were painted, p. 4. They were, he says, kept in a temple near Cuzco,
called Poquen-cancha. See also Cieza de Leon (second part), p. 28.]

Besides this they had, and still have, special historians in these
nations, an hereditary office descending from father to son. The
collection of these annals is due to the great diligence of Pachacuti
Inca Yupanqui, the ninth Inca, who sent out a general summons to all the
old historians in all the provinces he had subjugated, and even to many
others throughout those kingdoms. He had them in Cuzco for a long time,
examining them concerning their antiquities, origin, and the most
notable events in their histo