HE wealth displayed by the Peruvian princes was only that which each had amassed individually for himself. He owed nothing to inheritance from his predecessors. On the decease of an Inca, his palaces were abandoned; all his treasures, except what were employed in his obsequies, his furniture and apparel, were suffered to remain as he had left them, and his mansions, save one, were closed up forever. The new sovereign was to provide himself with everything new for his royal state. The reason of this was the popular belief that the soul of the departed monarch would return after a time to reanimate his body on earth; and they wished that he should find everything to which he had been used in life prepared for his reception.
When an Inca died, or, to use his own language, “was called home to the mansions of his father, the Sun,” his obsequies were celebrated with great pomp and solemnity. The bowels were taken from the body and deposited in the temple of Tampu, about five leagues from the capital. A quantity of his plate and jewels was buried with them, and a number of his attendants and favorite concubines, amounting sometimes, it is said, to a thousand, were immolated on his tomb. Some of them showed the natural repugnance to the sacrifice occasionally manifested by the victims of a similar superstition in India. But these were probably the menials and more humble attendants; since the women have been known, in more than one instance, to lay violent hands on themselves, when restrained from testifying their fidelity by this act of conjugal martyrdom. This melancholy ceremony was followed by a general mourning throughout the empire. At stated intervals, for a year, the people assembled to renew the expressions of their sorrow; processions were made, displaying the banner of the departed monarch; bards and minstrels were appointed to chronicle his achievements, and their songs continued to be rehearsed at high festivals in the presence of the reigning monarch, thus stimulating the living by the glorious example of the dead.
The body of the deceased Inca was skilfully embalmed, and removed to the great temple of the Sun at Cuzco. There the Peruvian sovereign, on entering the awful sanctuary, might behold the effigies of his royal ancestors, ranged in opposite files, the men on the right, and their queens on the left of the great luminary which blazed in refulgent gold on the walls of the temple. The bodies, clothed in the princely attire which they had been accustomed to wear, were placed on chairs of gold, and sat with their heads inclined downward, their hands placidly crossed over their bosoms, their countenances exhibiting their natural dusky hue—less liable to change than the fresher coloring of an European complexion—and their hair of raven black, or silvered over with age, according to the period at which they died! It seemed like a company of solemn worshippers fixed in devotion, so true were the forms and lineaments to life. The Peruvians were as successful as the Egyptians in the miserable attempt to perpetuate the existence of the body beyond the limits assigned by nature.
They cherished a still stranger illusion in the attentions which they continued to pay to those insensible remains, as if they were instinct with life. One of the houses belonging to the deceased Inca was kept open and occupied by his guard and attendants with all the state appropriate to royalty. On certain festivals the revered bodies of the sovereigns were brought out with great ceremony into the public square of the capital. Invitations were sent by the captains of the guard of the respective Incas to the different nobles and officers of the court; and entertainments were provided in the names of their masters, which displayed all the profuse magnificence of their treasures, and “such a display,” says an ancient chronicler, “was there in the great square of Cuzco, on this occasion, of gold and silverplate and jewels, as no other city in the world ever witnessed.” The banquet was served by the menials of the respective households, and the guests partook of the melancholy cheer in the presence of the royal phantom with the same attention to the forms of courtly etiquette as if the living monarch had presided!
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY.
HISTORIAN AND DIPLOMATIST.
OTLEY’S history of the “Rise of the Dutch Republic” is, in some important respects, America’s greatest contribution to historical literature. Its author was the son of a New England merchant of literary tastes, and inherited through both parents some of the best blood of New England. He was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, now a part of Boston, April 15, 1814. He was a delicate boy, but vigorous, vivacious, fond of outdoor sports and intellectual contests. He was a boyish friend of Wendell Phillips, and was early associated with many of that group of New England scholars who have done so much for American literature during the past half-century. Motley was educated at good schools near Boston, and entered Harvard at what would now seem the ridiculously early age of thirteen. He cared too much for general and voluminous reading to do thorough work in the prescribed college course, but his wit, his brilliant mind and his impulsive generosity made him a general favorite. After graduating from Harvard he studied in Germany, becoming acquainted at Göttingen with Bismarck, between whom and himself there sprang up an intimate friendship which was renewed at every opportunity throughout his life. Bismarck said of him that “The most striking feature of his handsome and delicate appearance was uncommonly large and beautiful eyes. He never entered a drawing-room without exciting the curiosity and sympathy of the ladies.” He was married in 1837 to Mary, sister of Park Benjamin, a most attractive and beautiful woman, and two years later he published an historical novel called “Morton’s Hope.” Neither this book nor another called “Merry Mount” proved a success, and both Motley and his friends were convinced that his real field of work was that of the historian. His first attempt in this direction was an essay published in the “North American Review” on the “Polity of the Puritans,” which not only demonstrated his skill and ability but gave expression to his intense love of liberty and to his lofty patriotism.