Compare Velasco, Historia de Quito, 1844, T. i. p. 126-128, and Prescott, Hist. of the Conquest of Peru, Vol. i. p. 157.
[46] p. 273.—“Where the road was interrupted by flights of steps.”
Compare Pedro Sancho in Ramusio, Vol. iii. fol. 404, and Extracts from Manuscript Letters of Hernando Pizarro, employed by the great historical writer now living at Boston; Prescott, Vol. i. p. 444. “El camino de las sierras es cosa de ver, porque en verdad en tierra tan fragosa en la cristiandad no se han visto tan hermosos caminos, toda la mayor parte de calzada.”
[47] p. 275.—“Greeks and Romans shew these contrasts.”
“If,” says Strabo, (Lib. v. p. 235, Casaub) “the Greeks in building their cities sought for a happy result by aiming especially at beauty and solidity, the Romans on the other hand have regarded particularly, objects which the Greeks left unthought of;—stone pavements in the streets; aqueducts bringing to the city abundant supplies of water; and provisions for drainage so as to wash away and carry to the Tiber all uncleanliness. They also paved the roads through the country, so that waggons may transport with ease the goods brought by trading ships.”
[48] p. 276.—“The messenger of the deity Nemterequeteba.”
The civilisation of ancient Mexico (the Aztec land of Anahuac), and that of the Peruvian theocracy or empire of the Incas, the children of the Sun, have so engrossed attention in Europe, that a third point of comparative light and of dawning civilisation, which existed among the nations inhabiting the mountains of New Granada, was long almost entirely overlooked. I have touched on this subject in some detail in the Vue des Cordillères et Monumens des Peuples Indigènes de l’Amérique (ed. in 8vo.) T. ii. p. 220-267. The form of the government of the Muyscas of New Granada reminds us of the constitution of Japan and the relation of the Secular Ruler (Kubo or Seogun at Jeddo) to the sacred personage the Daïri at Miyako. When Gonzalo Ximenez de Quesada advanced to the high table land of Bogota (Bacata, i. e. the extremity of the cultivated fields, probably from the proximity of the mountain wall), he found there three powers or authorities respecting whose reciprocal relations and subordination there remains some uncertainty. The spiritual chief, who was appointed by election, was the high priest of Iraca or Sogamoso (Sugamuxi, the place of the disappearance of Nemterequeteba): the secular rulers or princes were the Zake (Zaque of Hunsa or Tunja), and the Zipa of Funza. In the feudal constitution the last-named prince appears to have been originally subordinate to the Zake.
The Muyscas had a regular mode of computing time, with intercalation for amending the lunar year: they used small circular plates of gold, cast of equal diameter, as money (any traces of which among the highly civilised ancient Egyptians have been sought in vain), and they had temples of the Sun with stone columns, remains of which have very recently been discovered in the Valley of Leiva. (Joaquin Acosta, Compendio historico del Descubrimiento de la Nueva Granada, 1848, p. 188, 196, 206, and 208; Bulletin de la Société de Géographie de Paris, 1847, p. 114.) The tribe or race of the Muyscas ought properly speaking to be always denoted by the name of Chibchas; as Muysca in the Chibcha language signifies merely “men,” “people.” The origin and elements of the civilisation introduced are attributed to two mystical forms, Bochica (Botschica) and Nemterequeteba which are often confounded together. The first of these is still more mythical than the second; for it was only Botschica who was regarded as divine, and made almost equal to the Sun itself. His fair companion Chia or Huythaca occasioned by her magical arts the overflowing of the valley of Bogota, and for so doing was banished by Botschica from the earth, and made to revolve round it for the first time, as the moon. Botschica struck the rock of Tequendama, and gave a passage for the waters to flow off near the field of the Giants (Campo de Gigantes) in which the bones of elephant-like mastodons lie buried at an elevation of 8250 (8792 Engl.) feet above the level of the sea. Captain Cochrane (Journal of a Residence in Colombia, 1825, Vol. ii. p. 390) and Mr. John Ranking (Historical Researches on the Conquest of Peru, 1827, p. 397), state that animals of this species are still living in the Andes, and shed their teeth! Nemterequeteba, also called Chinzapogua (enviado de Dios) is a human person, a bearded man, who came from the East, from Pasca, and disappeared at Sogamoso. The foundation of the sanctuary of Iraca is sometimes ascribed to him and sometimes to Botschica, and as the latter is said to have borne also the name of Nemqueteba, the confusion between the two, on ground so unhistoric, is easily accounted for.
My old friend Colonel Acosta, in his instructive work entitled Compendio de la Hist. de la Nueva Granada, p. 185, endeavours to prove by means of the Chibcha language that “potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) bear at Usmè the native non-Peruvian name of Yomi, and were found by Quesada already cultivated in the province of Velez as early as 1537, a period when their introduction from Chili, Peru, and Quito, would seem improbable, and therefore that the plant may be regarded as a native of New Granada.” I would remark, however, that the Peruvian invasion and complete possession of Quito took place before 1525, the year of the death of the Inca Huayna Capac. The southern provinces of Quito even fell under the dominion of Tupac Inca Yupanqui at the conclusion of the 15th century (Prescott, Conquest of Peru, Vol. i. p. 332.) In the unfortunately still very obscure history of the first introduction of the potato into Europe, the merit of its introduction is still very generally attributed to Sir John Hawkins, who is supposed to have received it from Santa Fé in 1563 or 1565. It appears more certain that Sir Walter Raleigh planted the first potatoes on his Irish estate near Youghal, from whence they were taken to Lancashire. Before the conquista, the plantain (Musa), which since the arrival of the Spaniards has been cultivated in all the warmer parts of New Granada, was only found, as Colonel Acosta believes, (p. 205) at Choco. On the name Cundinamarca,—applied by a false erudition to the young republic of New Granada in 1811, a name “full of golden dreams” (sueños dorados), more properly Cundirumarca (not Cunturmarca, Garcilaso, lib. viii. cap. 2),—see also Joaquin Acosta, p. 189. Luis Daza, who joined the small invading army of the Conquistador Sebastian de Belalcazar which came from the south, had heard of a distant country abounding in gold, called Cundirumarca, inhabited by the tribe of the Chicas, and whose prince had solicited Atahuallpa at Caxamarca for auxiliary troops. These Chicas have been confounded with the Chibchas or Muyscas of New Granada; and thus the name of the unknown more southern country has been unduly transferred to that territory.
[49] p. 278.—“The fall of the Rio de Chamaya.”