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Show 418 PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA. Quito, are 1000 English geographical miles apart in a straight line (SS.E., NN.W.), without reckoning the many windings of the way; and including the windings, the distance is estimated by Garcilasso de la Vega and other Conquistadores at " 500 leguas." Natwithstanding the great distance, we learn, from the well-confirmed testimony of the Licentiate Polo de Ondegardo, that Huayna Capac, whose father had conquered· Quito, caused some of the building materials for the "princely buildings" (the houses of the Incas) in the latter city, to be brought from Cuzco. When enterprising races inhabit a land where the form of the ground presents to them difficulties on a grand scale which they may encounter and overcome, this contest with nature becomes a means of increasing their strength and power as well as their courage. Under the despotic, centralizing system of the Inca-rule, security and rapidity of communication, especially in the movement of troops, became an important necessity of government. Hence the construction of artificial roads on so grand a scale, and hence also the establishment of a highly improved postal system. Among nations in very different stages of cultivation, we see the national activity display itself with peculiar predilection in some particular directions, but we can by no means determine the general state of culture of a people from the striking development of such particular and partial activity. Egyptians, Greeks, (1) Etruscans, and Romans, Chinese, Japanese, and Hindoos show many interesting contrasts in these respects. It is difficult to pronounce what length of time may have been required for the execution of the Peruvian roads. The great works in the northern part of the Empire of the Incas, in the highlands of Quito, must at all events have been completed in less than 30 or 35 years, i. e. within the short period intervening between the defeat of the Ruler of " Quitu" and the death of Huayna Capac, but entire obscurity prevails as to the period of the formation of the Southern, and more properly speaking Peruvian roads. The mysterious appearance of Manco Capac is usually placed 400 years before the landing of Pizarro in the Island of Puna (1532), therefore towards the middle of the 12th century, almost 200 years before the foundation of the city of Mexico (Tenochtitlan); some Spanish writers even reckon, instead of 400, 500 and 550 years |