So great was the empire of the Incas. But from whom were these remarkable rulers descended who brought their people to a state of civilization relatively so superior to that of the savages east of the Andes? To what race did they belong? From whence did they originally come—Europe or Asia?—and, if so, how did they get to South America? How did they acquire the knowledge of the arts and sciences that they possessed? “Students of archæology have essayed in vain to answer these questions,” says Mozans. “All is still shrouded in mystery—in mystery even darker than that which veils the advent of the Toltecs and Aztecs to the valley of Anahuac, more profound than that which obscures the first beginnings of the civilizations on the elevated Pamirs and in the valleys of the Nile and Euphrates. In all this uncertainty and mystery, however,” he adds, “One fact seems to remain incontrovertible, and that is that Manco Capac and Mama Oello” (the founders of the dynasty) “first appeared on the shores of Lake Titicaca” (a body of water nearly as large as Lake Erie, lying between the two main Cordillera of the Andes in southeastern Peru, two miles and a half up above the level of the sea). “On this point tradition and the concurrent testimony of the earlier historians are practically at one.... Another fact, too, is unquestioned. Whether Manco Capac, the Minos of Peru, was of foreign or of native birth, it is certain that he was able, in the space of thirty years, to lay the foundation of that vast empire which, under the Inca Yupanqui, extended its conquests to the Maule in Chile, and, under Huayna Capac, planted its victorious banners above the fortresses of the Shiri” (the _Cacique_ of the Caras), “in the extended territory of Quito, and which gave its laws and religion and language to hundreds of conquered tribes.” “What is one to do with no historical records to study over?” asks Hawthorne.