But the fact is, that the Peruvians as well as the Mexicans were not unwarlike. On the contrary, by their army they had extended and consolidated their empire to a surprising extent. They had vanquished all the nations around them; and it was only the bursting upon them of a new people, with arts so novel and destructive as to confound and paralyse their minds, that they were so readily overcome. A variety of circumstances combined to prostrate the Americans before the Europeans. Those prophecies to which we have alluded, the fire-arms, the horses, the military movements, and the very art of writing, all united their influence to render them totally powerless. The Inca, Garcillasso, says that at the period of Pizarro’s appearance in Peru, many prodigies and omens troubled the public mind, and prepared them to expect some terrible calamity. There was a comet—the tides rose and fell with unusual violence—the moon appeared surrounded by three bands of different colours, which the priests interpreted to portend civil war, and total change of dynasty. He says that the fire-arms, which vomited thunder and lightning, and mysteriously killed at a distance—the neighing and prancing of the war-horses, to people who had never seen creatures larger than a llama, and the art of conveying their thoughts in a bit of paper above all, gave them notions of the spiritual intercourse of these invaders, that it was totally hopeless to contend against. The very cocks, birds which were unknown there before their introduction by the Spaniards, were imagined to pronounce the name of Atahualpa, as they crew in triumph over him, and became called Atahualpas, or Qualpas, after him. He assures us that even after the Spaniards had become entire masters of the country, the Indians on meeting a horseman on the highway, betrayed the utmost perturbation, running backward and forward several times, and often falling on their faces till he was gone past. And he relates an anecdote, which amusing as it is, shews at once what was the effect of the art of writing, and that the humblest natives did not want natural ingenuity even in their deepest simplicity. The steward of Antonio Solar, a gentleman living at a distance from his estate, sent one day by two Indians ten melons to him. With the melons he gave them a letter, and said at the same time—“now mind you don’t eat any of these, for if you do this letter will tell.” The Indians went on their way; but as it was very hot, and the distance four leagues, they sate down to rest, and becoming very thirsty, longed to eat one of the melons. “How unhappy are we that we cannot eat a melon that grows in our master’s ground.”—“Let us do it,” says one—“Ah,” said the other, “but then the letter.”—“Oh,” replied the first speaker, “we can manage that—we will put the letter under a stone, and what it does not see it cannot tell.” The thing was done; the melon eaten, and afterwards another, that they might take in an equal number.