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 neighbour'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 the maintenance of public order. A rebellious city or province was laid waste, and its inhabitants exterminated. Rebellion against the "Child of the Sun" was the greatest of all crimes. *9 [Footnote 8: Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms. - Herrera, Hist. General, dec. 5, lib. 4, cap 3. Theft was punished less severely, if the offender had been really guilty of it to supply the necessities of life. It is a singular circumstance, that the Peruvian law made no distinction between fornication and adultery, both being equally punished with death. Yet the law could hardly have been enforced, since prostitutes were assigned, or at least allowed, a residence in the suburbs of the cities. See Garcilasso, Com Real., Parte 1, lib. 4, cap. 34.] [Footnote 9: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 23. "I los traidores entre ellos llamava aucaes, i esta palabra es la mas abiltada de todas quantas pueden decir aun Indio del Piru, que quiere decir traidor a su Senor." (Cong. i Pob. del Piru, Ms.) "En las rebeliones y alzamientos se hicieron los castigos tan asperos, que algunas veces asolaron las provincias de todos los varones de edad sin quedar ninguno." Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms.] The simplicity and severity of the Peruvian code may be thought to infer a state of society but little advanced; which had few of those complex interests and relations that grow up in a civilized community, and which had not proceeded far enough in the science of legislation to economize human suffering by proportioning penalties to crimes. But the Peruvian institutions must be regarded from a different point of view from that in which we study those of other nations. The laws emanated from the sovereign, and that sovereign held a divine commission, and was possessed of a divine nature. To violate the law was not only to insult the majesty of the throne, but it was sacrilege. The slightest offence, viewed in this light, merited death; and the gravest could incur no heavier penalty. *10 Yet, in the infliction of their punishments, they showed no unnecessary cruelty; and the sufferings of the victim were not prolonged by the ingenious torments so frequent among barbarous nations. *11