Page 138 - La Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique - Rapport 1961

134 WISCONSIN IIISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.
cotton had arrived at a good degree of refinement. Public
storehouses were provided in convenient parts of the empire in
which to deposit the revenues, both of church and state, which
were kept separate and distinct from each other; but in times of
scarcity, the storea of the Inca were drawn upon to supply the
people, and, when necessary, the church stores were drawn upon
by the Inca. In these store-houses were deposited vast quan-
tities of grain and of every article of convenience and luxury
within the compass of Peruvian skill. Such is the purity and
dryness of the atmosphere of those high plateaus that grain will
keep, in large masses, for a long time, without injury, and Mr.
Prescott tells us that many of the magazines of grain, found by
the conquerors, mould have sufficed for the consumption of the
adjoining districts for many years.
They understood, and extensively practiced the art of em-
balming their dead, land the mummies of many generations of
Incas were exhibited at their great festivals.
The Peruvians had but a very limited knowledge of astron-
omy. In this science, they were greatly inferior to the Muys-
cas, inhabiting another portion of the same great southern
plateau. They understood and practiced, substantially the
Aztec astronomy, with variations approaching nearer the Asiatic
systems. This, let us bear in mind, is one important link in
the chain of evidence that South America was peopled, for the
most part, if not exclusively, from the north-west coast, through
the Isthmus of Darien."
Prom this brief outline of the Peruvian civilization, we may
draw the following points of comparison.
- -
The government, in its general aspect, seems closely allied to
the despotic governments of Eastern Asia, while there is noth-
ing to establishthe claim of any particular one to be the original
model. They resembled the Chinese in many respects. Their
implicit aubmission to authority, parental, sacerdotal and civil;

* For a full and interesting account of the Peruvian civilization, see Pres-
cott's Conquest of Peru, vol. 1, Book 1, from which this sketch is chiefly
gathered.