leaves of silver, and the light tassel of the same material that floated
gracefully from its top.44

If this dazzling picture staggers the faith of the reader, he may reflect that
the Peruvian mountains teemed with gold; that the natives understood the
art of working the mines, to a considerable extent; that none of the ore, as
we shall see hereafter, was converted into coin, and that the whole of it
passed into the hands of the sovereign for his own exclusive benefit,
whether for purposes of utility or ornament. Certain it is that no fact is
better attested by the Conquerors themselves, who had ample means of
information, and no motive for misstatement.--The Italian poets, in their
gorgeous pictures of the gardens of Alcina and Morgana, came nearer the
truth than they imagined.

Our surprise, however, may reasonably be excited, when we consider that
the 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 left them, and his
mansions, save one, were closed up for ever. The new sovereign was to
provide himself with every thing 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 every thing to which he had been used in life prepared for his
reception.45

When an Inca died, or, to use his own language, "was called home to the
mansions of his father, the Sun," 46 his obsequies were celebrated with
great pomp and solemnity. The bowels were taken from the body, and