The words of Isaiah the prophet, addressed to King Hezekiah, could have been as appositely addressed to King Montezuma and to his neighbour and kinsman Atahualpa; for they were equally applicable, and the words came true in all three cases. As the Babylonians conquered and took possession of Judea, so did the Spaniards in Mexico and Peru.
Moses, the founder of these several empires in different parts of the earth, foresaw the power and opulence to which they would attain in the course of time, and forbade the colonists from having intercourse with the outer world, who were strangers to them, knowing that they would be envied by them. For wherever indigent adventurers have been admitted by the rulers of these empires, they have been deceived, and their possessions carried away, as the prophet so graphically described to King Hezekiah.
The historian of North and South America continues:—
“The violent convulsions into which the empire had been thrown, first by the civil war between the two brothers, and then by the invasion of the Spaniards, had not only deranged the order of the Peruvian Government, but almost dissolved its frame. When they beheld their monarch a captive in the power of strangers, and at last suffering an ignominious death, the people in several provinces, as if they had been set free from every restraint of law and decency, broke out in the most licentious excesses.
“So many descendants of the sun, after being treated with the utmost indignity, had been cut off by Atahualpa that not only their influence in the state diminished with their number, but the accustomed reverence for that sacred race sensibly decreased. In consequence of this state of things, ambitious men in different parts of the empire aspired to independent authority, and usurped jurisdiction to which they had no title. The general who commanded for Atahualpa in Quito, seized the brother and children of his master, put them to a cruel death, and, disclaiming any connection with either Inca, endeavoured to establish a separate kingdom for himself.”[[70]]
The Spaniards eventually became masters of the whole empire, and in their endeavours to obliterate every record of its past history they burned everything they found which had any hieroglyphics or painting on it. Though only the ruins of monuments remain, yet these attest the superior ingenuity of the Peruvians. Ruins of sacred or royal buildings are found in every province of the empire, and by their great number demonstrate that they are monuments of a powerful people. They appear to have been edifices of various dimensions; some of a moderate size, many of immense extent, but all remarkable for solidity, and resembling each other in style of architecture.
“The temple of Pachacamac, together with a palace of the Inca, and a fortress, were so connected together as to form one great structure, above half a league in circuit. In this prodigious pile the same singular taste in building is conspicuous as in other works of the Peruvians.”
The land of the Peruvians and the Mexicans contained the precious metals in greater abundance than any other part of America; and Moses taught them to obtain gold by searching in the channels of rivers, or washing the earth in which particles of it were contained. But in order to procure silver, under his instruction, they exerted no inconsiderable degree of skill and invention. They hollowed deep caverns in the banks of rivers, and the sides of mountains, and exhausted such veins as did not dip suddenly beyond their reach. In other places, where the vein lay near the surface, they dug pits to such a depth that the person who worked below could throw out the ore, or hand it up in baskets. Moses taught them, moreover, the art of smelting and refining, either by the simple application of fire, or, where the ore was more stubborn, and impregnated with foreign substances, by placing it in small ovens or furnaces, so constructed on high ground that the draught of air performed the functions of a bellows. By this simple device the purer ores were smelted with facility; and the quantity of silver in Peru was so considerable that many of the utensils commonly employed were made of it.
In the land of Midian, where the Law-giver dwelt for many years, there are remains of similar caverns and pits where mines of the precious metal have been worked, which attest his ingenuity and skill.
“In the armoury[[71]] of the royal palace at Madrid are shown suits of armour, which are called Montezuma’s. They are composed of thin lacquered copper-plates. In the opinion of very intelligent judges, they are evidently eastern. The forms of the silver ornaments upon them, representing dragons, &c., may be considered as confirmation of this.