Throughout the annals of history there is found no parallel to the extraordinary character and development of the great empire of the Incas, whose glory and splendor attained such supremacy and shone with such lustre, under a benign though despotic sovereignty, as to eclipse all earlier culture in pre-Columbian America. Whatever may have been the heritage which the Children of the Sun received from their predecessors, they carefully avoided giving it any importance in their records. The Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, who wrote the history of his people more than half a century after the Conquest, says that this rich and mighty monarchy was founded in the midst of barbarism and degradation and developed in all its magnificence through the divine direction of noble princes, who derived their power from heaven alone, and who were both the spiritual and the temporal rulers of the people, by right of their celestial origin. A romantic charm envelopes the fame of the Incas and their brilliant court, their spectacular religion with its temples prodigally ornamented with gold and silver, and, above all, their own royal personality, so impressive in the dignity and sanctity of heaven-born greatness. One must even confess to resentment when meddlesome scholars seek to take away any of the prestige of these picturesque Conquerors of the Andes in favor of an earlier race, or of successive races, whose identity is lost in a mist of fable and legend, and who can present no such fascinating pageant to our imagination as do the heroes of Cuzco, with their mythical genealogy, the fame of their refined theocracy, and the prowess of their splendid legions. After all, it has not yet been proved that the lords of Cuzco were not of the same race and origin as the authors of the most ancient civilization of Peru, and, even, of all America. Scholars who have studied the language, customs, and monuments of the ancient Peruvians, find what is evidently a parent influence making itself felt through all the changing conditions of successive periods, and in spite of seemingly foreign and unrelated cultures that have appeared in various localities during the course of the ages. The two languages which are most generally spoken by the Indians throughout the territory formerly included in the Incas’ dominion—the Aymará and the Quichua—are apparently derived from a common stock. May it not be true that the people who spoke these languages, and to whom are credited the monuments of Tiahuanaco and Cuzco, were the heirs of a common ancestry, and that their progenitors were the authors of the earliest culture in Peru?