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Agriculture and Irrigation

[Book 1.

nations. They buried vessels of water with the dead.“ The Mexicansworshipped it. b The Peruvians sacrificed to rivers and fountains. c TheMexicans had Ttaloc their god of water. d Holy water was kept in theirtemples. e They practised divination by water.f The Peruvians drewtheir drinking water from deep wells, ff and for irrigaiion in times ofdrought, they drew it from pools, and lakes, and rivers.

The annals of the world do not furnish brighter examples of nationalbenevolence, than the early history of Peru . The wars of the incaswere neither designed nor carried on, to gratify ambition or the lustof con-quest, but to extend to the brutalized people by whom they were sur-rounded, the advantages of civilized life ; to infroduce agriculture and allits attending blessings, among Kordes of savages, that were sunk in thelowest depths of bestiality. But that which sheds a peculiar glory overthe aneient Peruvians, was their systematic and persevering efforts toachieve their conquests without the effusion of blood. In reading theirhistory, the mind is not only relieved from those horrible details of car-nage that constitutes so prominent a part in the historic pages of other na-tions, but the most agreeable emotions are excited by the benevolent andgenerally successful endeavors of this people, to overcome their foes byreason—by exhibiting to them the advantages of regulated society, and byinvitations to embrace them. This policy was in accordance with the in-junctions of their first king, whose precepts they greatly reverenced. Hetaught them to overcome their enemies “ by love—by the force of bene-fits,” and hence we find that when they were successful, they neitherrobbed the inhabitants of their land, their liberty, nor their lives but usedtheir influence and Superior knowledge to ameliorate their condition. Andwhen these efforts failed, and active warfare was the only resource, they,conscious of the wickedness of conquering men by their destruction,and that, those could never be good subjects who ‘ obeyed from fear,’uniformly besieged them, tili the latter became convinced of their own ina-bility to resist, and of the policy of acceding to the terms of their pow-erful invaders.

In this manner the ‘ children of the sun’ extended their conquests overa large part of the Southern continent; and in no part of the world wereprovinces more loyal, or a people more attached to their institutions andto their princes ; nor was there ever a people more humane. The con-ducf of some of the incas, when at the head of their armies, in endur-ing the taunts and scoffs of their ignorant and imbecile foes with philo-sophic forbearance, is truly admirable, and might be contrasted with that ofChristian warriors ; but then their object was not to acquire fame by thedestruction of their species, but to benefit them, even at the risk of theirreputation. If ever offensive wars were justifiable, those of the earlyincas certainly were, since their object was the extension of human hap-piness, and which they carried on in a corresponding spirit of humanity.In neither saered nor profane history can such examples be found.

Agriculture was the first object to which their attention was directed;hence we findengineers and other artists immediately sentinto the subduedcountries, or rafher, among their new friends, to introduce the arts ofploughing and cultivating the soil, &c. And as large tracts of land weredestitute of Vegetation for warnt of water, mention is constantly made ofaqueducts and Reservoirs among the earliest of works undertaken. Insome districts, rain was, and still is, unknown. “ For the space of seven

»Purchas ’s Pilgrim. 1080. b Ibid.966. 'Ibid. 1070. Mbid.986. «Ibid.987. f Ibid.994. s Ibid. 1064