VII.

By this feeble effay of ingenuity, the means Book of fubfiftence were rendered fomewhat more plentiful and fecure, than when men depend folely on hunting; but they had no idea of attempting to fubdue the more robust animals, or of deriving any aid from their ministry in carrying on works of labour. The Peruvians seem to have neglected the inferior animals, and had not rendered any of them domestic except the duck; but they were more fortunate in taming the Llama, an animal peculiar to their country, of a form which bears fome refemblance to a deer, and fome to a camel, and is of a fize fomewhat larger than a fheep. Under the protection of man, this fpecies multiplied greatly. Its wool furnished the Peruvians with clothing, its flesh with food. It was even employed as a beaft of burden, and carried a moderate load with much patience and docility. It was never used for draught; and the breed being confined to the mountainous country, its fervice, if we may judge by incidents which occur in the early Spanish writers, was not very extensive among the Peruvians in their original state.

In tracing the line by which nations proceed towards civilization, the discovery of the useful

Vega, p. 1. lib. viii. c. 16. Zarate, lib. i. c. 14.

VOL. III.

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metals,

BOOK metals, and the acquifition of dominion over VII. the animal creation, have been marked as steps

View of the inftitutions and man

ners of each,

of capital importance in their progrefs. In our continent, long after men had attained both, fociety continued in that ftate which is denominated barbarous. Even with all that command over nature which thefe confer, many ages elapfe, before induftry becomes fo regular as to render fubfiftence fecure, before the arts which fupply the wants and furnish the accommodations of life are brought to any confiderable degree of perfection, and before any idea is conceived of various inftitutions requifite in a well-ordered fociety. The Mexicans and Peruvians, without knowledge of the useful metals, or the aid of domestic animals, laboured under difadvantages which must have greatly retarded their progrefs, and in their highest state of improvement their power was fo limited, and their operations fo feeble, that they can hardly be confidered as having advanced beyond the infancy of civil life.

AFTER this general obfervation concerning the most fingular and diftinguishing circumftance in the state of both the great empires in America, I shall endeavour to give fuch a view of the constitution and interior police of each, as may enable us to afcertain their place in the political

fcale,

VII.

fcale, to allot them their proper station between BOOK the rude tribes in the New World, and the polished states of the ancient, and to determine how far they had rifen above the former, as well as how much they fell below the latter.

information

those of

MEXICO was first fubjected to the Spanish Imperfect crown. But our acquaintance with its laws concerning and manners is not, from that circumftance, Mexico. more complete. What I have remarked concerning the defective and inaccurate information on which we must rely with respect to the condition and cuftoms of the favage tribes in America, may be applied likewife to our knowledge of the Mexican empire. Cortes, and the rapacious adventurers who accompanied him, had not leisure or capacity to enrich either civil or natural history with new obfervations. They undertook their expedition in queft of one object, and feemed hardly to have turned their eyes towards any other. Or, if during fome short interval of tranquillity, when the occupations of war ceased, and the ardour of plunder was fufpended, the inftitutions and manners of the people whom they had invaded, drew their attention, the inquiries of illiterate foldiers were conducted with fo little fagacity and precision, that the accounts given by them of the policy and order established in the Mexican monarchy are fuper.

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It is

BOOK fuperficial, confufed, and inexplicable.
VII. rather from incidents which they relate occasion-

ally, than from their own deductions and
remarks, that we are enabled to form fome
idea of the genius and manners of that people.
The obfcurity in which the ignorance of its
conquerors involved the annals of Mexico, was
augmented by the fuperftition of those who
fucceeded them. As the memory of past events
was preferved among the Mexicans by figures
painted on skins, on cotton cloth, on a kind of
pasteboard, or on the bark of trees, the early
miffionaries, unable to comprehend their mean-
ing, and struck with their uncouth forms, con-
ceived them to be monuments of idolatry which
ought to be destroyed, in order to facilitate the
converfon of the Indians. In obedience to an
edict iffued by Juan de Zummaraga, a Francifcan
monk, the first bishop of Mexico, as many
records of the ancient Mexican story as could be
collected were committed to the flames. In
confequence of this fanatical zeal of the monks
who first visited New Spain (which their fucceffors
foon began to lament), whatever knowledge of
remote events fuch rude monuments contained
was almost entirely loft, and no information
remained concerning the ancient revolutions and
policy of the empire, but what was derived from
tradition, or from fome fragments of their
historical

VII.

hiftorical paintings that escaped the barbarous BOOK researches of Zummaraga . From the experience of all nations it is manifeft, that the memory of past tranfactions can neither be long preserved, nor be tranfmitted with any fidelity, by tradition. The Mexican paintings, which are supposed to have ferved as annals of their empire, are few in number, and of ambiguous meaning. Thus, amidst the uncertainty of the former, and the obfcurity of the latter, we must glean what intelligence can be collected from the fcanty materials scattered in the Spanish writers *.

ACCORD

Acosta, lib. vi. c. 7. Torquem. Proem. lib. ii. lib. iii. c. 6. lib. xiv. c. 6.

* In the first edition, I obferved that in confequence of the deftruction of the ancient Mexican paintings, occafioned by the zeal of Zummaraga, whatever knowledge they might have conveyed was entirely loft. Every candid reader must have perceived that the expreffion was inaccurate; as in a few lines afterwards I mention fome ancient paintings to be ftill extant. M. Clavigero, not fatisfied with laying hold of this inaccuracy, which I corrected in the fubfequent editions, labours to render it more glaring, by the manner in which he quotes the remaining part of the fentence. He reprehends with great afperity the account which 1 gave of the scanty materials for writing the ancient history of Mexico, Vol. I. Account of writers, p. xxvi. Vol. II. 389. My words, however, are almost the same with those of Torquemada, who seems to have been better acquainted with the ancient monuments of the Mexicans than any Spanish author

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