[Footnote 46: The Aztecs, also, believed that the soul of the warrior who fell in battle went to accompany the Sun in his bright progress through the heavens. (See Conquest of Mexico, book 1, chap. 3.)] [Footnote 47: Conq. i Pob. del Piru, Ms. - Acosta, lib. 5, cap. 6. Four thousand of these victims, according to Sarmiento, - we may hope it is an exaggeration, - graced the funeral obsequies of Huayna Capac, the last of the Incas before the coming of the Spaniards. Relacion, Ms., cap. 65.] [Footnote 48: Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap. 62. - Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 6, cap. 5. - Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 8.] The body of the deceased Inca was skilfully embalmed, and removed to the great temple of the Sun at Cuzco. There the Peruvian sovereign, on entering the awful sanctuary, might behold the effigies of his royal ancestors, ranged in opposite files, - the men on the right, and their queens on the left, of the great luminary which blazed in refulgent gold on the walls of the temple. The bodies, clothed in the princely attire which they had been accustomed to wear, were placed on chairs of gold, and sat with their heads inclined downward, their hands placidly crossed over their bosoms, their countenances exhibiting their natural dusky hue, - less liable to change than the fresher coloring of a European complexion, - and their hair of raven black, or silvered over with age, according to the period at which they died! It seemed like a company of solemn worshippers fixed in devotion, - so true were the forms and lineaments to life. The Peruvians were as successful as the Egyptians in the miserable attempt to perpetuate the existence of the body beyond the limits assigned to it by nature. *49 [Footnote 49: Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms. - Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 29. The Peruvians secreted these mummies of their sovereigns after the Conquest, that they might not be profaned by the insults of the Spaniards. Ondegardo, when corregidor of Cuzco, discovered five of them, three male and two female. The former were the bodies of Viracocha, of the great Tupac Inca Yupanqui, and of his son Huayna Capac. Garcilasso saw them in 1560. They were dressed in their regal robes, with no insignia but the llautu on their heads. They were in a sitting posture, and, to use his own expression, "perfect as life, without so much as a hair or an eyebrow wanting." As they were carried through the streets, decently shrouded with a mantle, the Indians threw themselves on their knees, in sign of reverence, with many tears and groans, and were still more touched as they beheld some of the Spaniards themselves doffing their caps, in token of respect to departed royalty. (Ibid., ubi supra.) The bodies were subsequently removed to Lima; and Father Acosta, who saw them there some twenty years later, speaks of them as still in perfect preservation.]