The key to the entire gigantic system was the conception of a central immutable supreme power which directed all visible and invisible manifestations and which sent forth and re-absorbed all energy. In Cuzco and in the Inca Empire we have a minutely described instance of the application, to terrestrial government, of the laws of fixed order, harmony, periodicity and rotation learned by earnest and patient observers of the northern heaven, during countless centuries of time. The centre of Cuzco consisted of a great square whence four roads radiated to the cardinal points. In the centre of this stood a gold vase from which a fountain flowed. The Spaniards also found in Cuzco a large, beautifully-polished stone-cross which evidently symbolized, as in Mexico, the four quarters and must have been appropriately placed in the square. Garcilaso de la Vega states that the capital formed an actual image of the whole empire, “for it was divided into four quarters and an extremely ancient law rendered it obligatory that representatives of each province and of each class of population should reside there in homes, the location of which precisely corresponded to the geographical position of their respective provinces. Each lineage was thus represented and occupied separate dwellings, assigned to them by the governors of the quarters. All persons were obliged to adhere to the customs of their forefathers and also wear the costumes of their ayllus or tribes (Cieza de Leon, Cronica chap. XCIII). For the Incas had decreed that the dresses worn by the members of each tribe should be different, so that the people might be distinguished from each other as, down to that time, there had been no means of knowing to what locality or tribe an Indian belonged.”... In order to avoid confusion the modes of wearing the hair were rigidly prescribed and the bands worn on the head by the vassals had to be black or of a single color only. The higher in rank a person was the more his costume resembled that of the Inca, without, however, approaching it in length and richness. “Thus, even in an assemblage of 100,000 persons it was easy to recognize individuals of each tribe and of each rank by the signs they wore on their heads.”... “It was obligatory that each should permanently live in the province he belonged to. Each province, each tribe and, in many parts each village, had its own language which was different from that of its neighbors. Those who understood each other by speaking the same language considered themselves as related to each other and were friends and confederates.... The Incas employed a private language of their own which none but members of the royal lineage presumed or dared to learn.” Garcilaso de la Vega, who claimed royal descent, stated that unfortunately no records remained to enable one to form an idea of what the Inca language was like.