e over his people, who were treated like mere
children--not suffered to be oppressed, but compelled to be occupied;
for, with a worldly wisdom which no other nation presents, labour was
here acknowledged not only as a means, but also as an end. In Peru a man
could not improve his social state; by these refinements of legislation
he was brought into an absolutely stationary condition. He could become
neither richer nor poorer; but it was the boast of the system that every
one lived exempt from social suffering--that all enjoyed competence.

[Sidenote: Military system; warlike resources.] The army consisted of
200,000 men. Their weapons were bows, lances, slings, battle-axes,
swords; their means of defence, shields, bucklers, helmets, and coats of
quilted cotton. Each regiment had its own banner, but the imperial
standard, the national emblem, was a rainbow, the offspring of the Sun.
The swords and many of the domestic implements were of bronze; the
arrows were tipped with quartz or bone, or points of gold and silver. A
strict discipline was maintained on marching, granaries and depots being
established at suitable distances on the roads. With a policy inflexibly
persisted in, the gods of conquered countries were transported to Cuzco,
and the vanquished compelled to worship the Sun; their children were
obliged to learn the Peruvian language, the government providing them
teachers for that purpose. As an incitement, this knowledge was
absolutely required as a condition for public office. To amalgamate the
conquered districts thoroughly, their inhabitants were taken away by ten
thousand, transported to distant parts of the empire, not, as in the Old
World, to be worked to death as slaves, but to be made into Peruvians;
an equal number of natives were sent in their stead, to whom, as a
recompense for their removal, extraordinary privileges were given. It
was the immemorial policy of the empire to maintain profound
tranquillity in the interior and perpetual war on the frontiers.

The philosophical advancement of the Peruvians was much retarded by
their imperfect method of writing--a method greatly inferior to that of
Egypt. [Sidenote: Peruvian literature--the quipus.] A cord of coloured
threads, called quipus, was only indifferently suited to the purposes of
enumeration, and by no means equal to hieroglyphics as a method of
expressing general facts. But it was their only system. Notwithstanding
this drawback, they had a liter