tic circle to the neighbourhood of the isthmus of Darien, and can
form some sort of a mental picture of the continent at the time of its
discovery by Europeans in the fifteenth century. Much more might have
been said without going beyond the requirements of an outline sketch,
but quite as much has been said as is consistent with the general plan
of this book. I have not undertaken at present to go beyond the isthmus
of Darien, because this preliminary chapter is already disproportionately
long, and after this protracted discussion the reader's attention may be
somewhat relieved by an entire change of scene. Enough has been set
forth to explain the narrative that follows, and to justify us
henceforth in taking certain things for granted. The outline description
of Mexico will be completed when we come to the story of its conquest by
Spaniards, and then we shall be ready to describe some principal
features of Peruvian society and to understand how the Spaniards
conquered that country.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The "Mound-Builders."]

[Sidenote: The notion that they were like the Aztecs;]

[Sidenote: or like the Zunis.]

There is, however, one conspicuous feature of North American antiquity
which has not yet received our attention, and which calls for a few
words before we close this chapter. I refer to the mounds that are
scattered over so large a part of the soil of the United States, and
more particularly to those between the Mississippi river and the
Alleghany mountains, which have been the subject of so much theorizing,
and in late years of so much careful study.[155] Vague and wild were
the speculations once rife about the "Mound-Builders" and their
wonderful civilization. They were supposed to have been a race quite
different from the red men, with a culture perhaps superior to our own,
and more or less eloquence was wasted over the vanished "empire" of the
mound-builders. There is no reason, however, for supposing that there
ever was an empire of any sort in ancient North America, and no relic of
the past has ever been seen at any spot on our planet which indicates
the former existence of a vanished civilization even remotely
approaching our own. The sooner the student of history gets his head
cleared of all such rubbish, the better. As for the mounds, which are
scattered in such profusion over the country west of the Alleghanies,
there are some which have been built by Indians sinc