the curacas and other territorial officers in the district. There were, also,
regular tribunals of justice, consisting of magistrates in each of the towns
or small communities, with jurisdiction over petty offences, while those
of a graver character were carried before superior judges, usually the
governors or rulers of the districts. These judges all held their authority
and received their support from the Crown, by which they were
appointed and removed at pleasure. They were obliged to determine
every suit in five days from the time it was brought before them; and
there was no appeal from one tribunal to another. Yet there were
important provisions for the security of justice. A committee of visitors
patrolled the kingdom at certain times to investigate the character and
conduct of the magistrates; and any neglect or violation of duty was
punished in the most exemplary manner. The inferior courts were also
required to make monthly returns of their proceedings to the higher ones,
and these made reports in like manner to the viceroys; so that the
monarch, seated in the centre of his dominions, could look abroad, as it
were, to the most distant extremities, and review and rectify any abuses
in the administration of the law.7

The laws were few and exceedingly severe. They related almost wholly
to criminal matters. Few other laws were needed by a people who had
no money, little trade, and hardly any thing that could be called fixed
property. The crimes of theft, adultery, and murder were all capital;
though it was wisely provided that some extenuating circumstances
might be allowed to mitigate the punishment.8 Blasphemy against the
Sun, and malediction of the Inca,--offences, indeed, of the same
complexion were also punished with death. Removing landmarks,
turning the water away from a neighbor's land into one's own, burning a
house, were all severely punished. To burn a bridge was death. The inca
allowed no obstacle to those facilities of communication so essential to