de la Vega, to have been constructed in the reign of Huana Capac, the father of Atahualpa, the Inca whom they found on the throne. In some of the finest situations, he says that the Indians had cut steps up to the summits of the Andes, and constructed platforms, so that when the Inca was travelling, the bearers of his litter could carry him up with ease, and allow him to enjoy a survey of the splendid views around and below. These were evidences of great advances in civilization, but there were particulars in which they were far more civilized than their invaders, and far more Christian too. Their Incas conquered only to civilize and improve the adjoining states. They were advocates for peace, and the enjoyment of its blessings. They even forbad the fishing for pearls, because, says Garcillasso, they preferred the preservation of their people, rather than the accumulation of wealth, and would not consent to the sufferings which the divers must necessarily undergo. When did the Christians ever shew so much true philanthropy and human feeling? And these are the people whom Robertson, falling miserably in with the views, or rather, the pretensions of the Spaniards, says, appeared so feeble in intellect as to be incapable of receiving Christianity. The idea is a gross absurdity. What! a people who, like the Mexicans and Peruvians, had cities, temples, palaces, a regular form of government; who cultivated the ground, and refined metals, and wrought them into trinkets and vessels, not capable of receiving the simple truths of Christianity which “the wayfaring man though a fool cannot err in?” The Mexicans had introduced their hieroglyphic writing, the Peruvians their quipos, or knotted and coloured cords, by which they made calculations, and transmitted intelligence, and handed down history of facts, yet they could not understand so plain a thing as Christianity! It is the base policy of those who violate the rights of men, always to add to their other injuries that of calumniating their victims as mere brutes in capacity and in the scale of being. By turns, Negroes, Hottentots, and the whole race of the Americans, have been declared incapable of freedom, and of embracing that simple religion which was sent for the good of the whole human family. If such an absurdity needed any refutation, it has had it amply in the reception of this religion by great numbers of all these races: but the fact is, that it would have been a disgrace to the understanding of the American Indians to have embraced the wretched stuff which was presented to them by the Spaniards as Christianity. A wooden cross was presented to the wondering natives, and they were expected instantly to bow down to it, and to acknowledge the pope, a person they had never heard of till that moment, or they were to be instantly cut to pieces, or burnt alive. No pains were taken to explain the beautiful truths of the Christian revelation—those truths, in fact, were lost in the rubbish of papal