and that while the policy of the remarkable
aborigines of Mexico was the policy of hate, that of the Inca kings was
the policy of love and mildness. Above all, we were told much of the
long line of Inca monarchs, the royal family, whose last great king,
Huayna Capac, had died not a great while before the coming of the
Spaniards. He was represented as dividing the throne between his sons
Atahualpa and Huascar, who soon quarrelled and began a wicked and
merciless fratricidal war with armies and other civilized arrangements.
Then, we were told, came Pizarro and took advantage of this unfraternal
war, arrayed one brother against the other, and thus was enabled at last
to conquer the empire.

All this, with a thousand other things as ridiculous, as untrue, and as
impossible, is part of one of the most fascinating but misleading
historical romances ever written. It never could have been written if
the beautiful and accurate science of ethnology had then been known. The
whole idea of Peru so long prevalent was based upon utter ignorance of
the country, and, above all, of Indians everywhere. For you must
remember that these wonderful beings, whose pictured government puts to
shame any civilized nation now on earth, were _nothing but Indians_. I
do not mean that Indians are not men, with all the emotions and feelings
and rights of men,--rights which I only wish we had protected with as
honorable care as Spain did. But the North and South American Indians
are very like each other in their social, religious, and political
organization, and very unlike us. The Peruvians had indeed advanced
somewhat further than any other Indians in America, but they were still
Indians. They had no adequate idea of a Supreme Being, but worshipped a
bewildering multitude of gods and idols. There was no king, no throne,
no dynasty, no royal blood, nor anything else royal. Anything of that
sort was even more impossible among the Indians than it would be now in
our own republic. There was not, and could not be, even a nation. Indian
life is essentially tribal. Not only can there be no king nor anything
resembling a king, but there is no such thing as heredity,--except as
something to be guarded against. The chief (and there cannot be even one
supreme chief) cannot hand down his authority to his son, nor to any one
else. The successor is elected by the council of officials who have such
things in charge. Where there are no kings there can be no
palaces,-