of the Troad, he who showered the
darts of pestilence among the Greeks, so constantly associated with a
mouse? The very name, Smintheus, by which his favourite priest calls
on him in the _Iliad_ (i. 39), might be rendered 'Mouse Apollo,' or
'Apollo, Lord of Mice.' As we shall see later, mice lived beneath the
altar, and were fed in the holy of holies of the god, and an image of
a mouse was placed beside or upon his sacred tripod. The ancients were
puzzled by these things, and, as will be shown, accounted for them by
'mouse-stories,' ~Sminthiakoi logoi~, so styled by Eustathius, the
mediaeval interpreter of Homer. Following our usual method, let us ask
whether similar phenomena occur elsewhere, in countries where they are
intelligible. Did insignificant animals elsewhere receive worship:
were their effigies elsewhere placed in the temples of a purer creed?
We find answers in the history of Peruvian religion.

After the Spanish conquest of Peru, one of the European adventurers,
Don Garcilasso de la Vega, married an Inca princess. Their son, also
named Garcilasso, was born about 1540. His famous book, _Commentarias
Reales_, contains the most authentic account of the old Peruvian
beliefs. Garcilasso was learned in all the learning of the Europeans,
and, as an Inca on the mother's side, had claims on the loyalty of the
defeated race. He set himself diligently to collect both their
priestly and popular traditions, and his account of them is the more
trustworthy as it coincides with what we know to have been true in
lands with which Garcilasso had little acquaintance.

* * * * *

To Garcilasso's mind, Peruvian religion seems to be divided into two
periods--the age before, and the age which followed the accession of
the Incas, and their establishment of sun-worship as the creed of the
State. In the earlier period, the pre-Inca period, he tells us 'an
Indian was not accounted honourable unless he was descended from a
fountain, river, or lake, or even from the sea, or from a wild
animal, such as a bear, lion, tiger, eagle, or the bird they call
_cuntur_ (condor), or some other bird of prey.'[108] To these
worshipful creatures 'men offered what they usually saw them eat' (i.
53). But men were not content to adore large and dangerous animals.
'There was not an animal, how vile and filthy soever, that they did
not worship as a god,' including 'lizards, toads, and frogs.' In the
midst of these supers