The sides of this great mountain range might seem altogether unfitted for agriculture. But the advanced state of Peruvian civilization is at once demonstrated when it is said that these mountain slopes had become a garden. Immense terraces were constructed wherever required, and irrigation was employed on the grandest scale the world has ever seen. Peru possessed a varied climate. In the lower valleys near the coast could be raised all the products of tropical regions, at an elevation of a few thousand feet the climate was adapted for grains of a temperate zone. On table-lands, at a great elevation above the sea, there were villages and even cities. Thus the plain on which Quito stands, under the equator, is nearly ten thousand feet high, and enjoys a climate of perpetual {120} spring. So great was their industry that the Peruvians had gardens and orchards above the clouds, and on ranges still higher flocks of sheep and llamas, in regions bordering on the limit of perpetual snow. In Cuzco, the metropolis, was the residence of the _inca_ or emperor, and the great temple of the sun. The inca was both temporal prince and ruling priest of their religion. Though they ostensibly worshiped the sun, yet the higher classes recognized the existence of one almighty, invisible God. Like the Egyptians, the Peruvians understood the art of embalming the dead. The mummies of their incas being placed in the vaults beneath the temple of the sun, at Cuzco. This city contained edifices which excited the amazement of the Spanish adventurers themselves--streets, squares, bridges and fortresses surrounded by turreted walls. The public walls of Peru as well as Mexico were superior to those of Spain herself. Two great military roads extended the whole length of the empire--one along the coast, the other along the base of the mountains. These highways greatly aided the Spaniards in their conquest of the country. Having gained possession of the country and robbed the inhabitants of their gold, silver and precious stones, they put to death the inca and nobility, and took possession of their residences. The enormous crime of Spain in destroying this civilization has never been fully appreciated. In vain the Spaniards excuse their atrocities, on the plea that those nations were savages and permitted human sacrifices. True, the nations of America sank very low when the light of the gospel was withdrawn; but every candid mind will ask: "Which was the more degraded, papal Europe or apostate America?" Human sacrifice, however cruel, has nothing in it degrading to its victim. It may be rather said to ennoble him by devoting him to the gods. Although so terrible with the Mexicans, it was sometimes voluntarily embraced by them as the most glorious death, and one that opened a sure passage into paradise.