Charles Kingsley says there were "cruelties and miseries unexampled in the history of Christendom, or perhaps on earth, save in the conquests of Sennacherib and Zinghis-Khan." Millions perished at the forced labor of the mines, The Incan Empire had, it is calculated, a population of twenty millions at the arrival of the Spaniards, In two centuries the population fell to four millions. When the groans of these beasts of burden reached the ears of the good (?) Queen Isabel of Spain, she enacted a law that throughout her new dominions no Indian, man or woman, should be compelled to carry more than three hundred pounds' weight at one load! Is it cause for wonder that the poor, down-trodden natives, seeing the flaunting flag of Spain, with its stripe of yellow between stripes of red, should regard it as representing a river of gold between two rivers of blood? "Not infrequently," said a reliable witness, "I have seen the Spaniards, long after the Conquest, amuse themselves by hunting down the natives with blood hounds, for mere sport, or in order to train their dogs to the game. The most unbounded scope was given to licentiousness. The young maiden was torn remorselessly from the arms of her family to gratify the passion of her brutal conqueror. The sacred houses of the Virgins of the Sun were broken open and violated, and the cavalier swelled his harem with a troop of Indian girls, making it seem that the crescent would have been a more fitting emblem for his banner than the immaculate cross." With the inexorable conqueror came the more inexorable priest. "Attendance at Roman Catholic worship was made compulsory. Men and women with small children were compelled to journey as much as thirty-six miles to attend mass. Absentees were punished, therefore the Indian feared to disobey." [Footnote: Neely, "Spanish America."] As is well known, the ancient inhabitants worshipped the sun and the moon. The Spanish priest, in order to gain proselytes with greater facility, did not forbid this worship, but placed the crucifix between the two. Where the Inca suns and moons were of solid gold and silver, they were soon replaced by painted wooden ones. The crucifix, with sun and moon images on each side, is common all over Bolivia to-day.