In his book on the “History of the Conquest of Peru,” Prescott makes the following statement:—“When an Inca died (or, to use his own language, was called home to the mansion of his father, the Sun) his obsequies were celebrated with great pomp and solemnity. The bowels were taken from the body and deposited in the Temple of Tampu, about five leagues from the capital. A quantity of his plate and jewels was buried with him, and a number of his attendants and favourite concubines, amounting sometimes, it is said, to a thousand, were immolated on his tomb.... “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 princely attire which they had been accustomed to wear, were placed on chairs of gold, and sat with their heads inclined downwards, their hands placidly crossed over their bosoms, their countenances exhibiting their natural dusky hue—less liable to change than the fresher colouring 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. [Note—Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., M.S.—Garcilasso, Com. Real., parte i., lib. v., cap. xxix. The Peruvians secreted their 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 males and two females. The former were the bodies of Viracocha, of the great Tupac, Inca Yupanqui, and of his son, Huayna Cupac. Garcilasso saw them in 1650. They were dressed in their regal robes, with no insignia but the llautu on their heads. They were in a sitting position, and, to use his own expression, ‘perfect as life, without so much as a hair of 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]” (=58=, pp. 19 and 20).