"Manco Capac and Mama Ocollo, for such were the names of these extraordinary personages, having thus collected some wandering tribes, formed that social union which, by multiplying the desires, and uniting the efforts of the human species, excites industry and leads to improvement. Manco Capac instructed the men in agriculture and other useful arts; Mama Ocollo taught the women to spin and weave. By the labour of the one sex subsistence became less precarious; by that of the other life was rendered more comfortable. After securing the object of first necessity in an infant state, by providing food, raiment, and habitations for the rude people of whom he took charge, Manco Capac turned his attention towards introducing such laws and policy as might perpetuate their happiness. By his institutions, the various relations in private life were established, and the duties resulting from them prescribed with such propriety, as gradually formed a barbarous people to decency of manners. In public administration, the functions of persons in authority were so precisely defined, and the subordination of those under jurisdiction maintained with such a steady hand, that the society in which he presided soon assumed the aspect of a regular and well-governed state."

"Thus, according to the Indian traditions, was founded the empire of the Incas, or Lords of Peru. At first its extent was small; as the territory of Manco Capac did not reach above eight leagues from Cuzco: But within these narrow limits he exercised an uncontrolled authority. His successors, as their dominions extended, arrogated a similar jurisdiction over the new subjects which they acquired; the despotism of Asia was not more complete. The Incas were not only obeyed as monarchs, but revered as divinities. Their blood was held to be sacred, and by prohibiting intermarriages with the people, was never contaminated by mixing with that of any other race. The family thus separated from the rest of the nation, was distinguished by peculiarities in dress and ornaments, which it was unlawful for others to assume. The monarch himself appeared with ensigns of royalty reserved for him alone; and received from his subjects marks of obsequious homage and respect, which approached almost to adoration. But among the Peruvians, this unbounded power of their monarchs seems to have been uniformly accompanied with attention to the good of their subjects. It was not the rage of conquests, if we may believe the accounts of their countrymen, that prompted the Incas to extend their dominion, but the desire of diffusing the blessings of civilization, and the knowledge of the arts which they possessed, among the barbarous people whom they reduced. During a succession of twelve monarchs, it is said that not one deviated from this beneficent character."

"When the Spaniards first visited the coast of Peru in 1526, Huana Capac, the twelfth monarch from the founder of the state, was seated on the throne. He is represented as a prince distinguished not only for the pacific virtues peculiar to the race, but eminent for his martial talents. By his victorious arms the kingdom of Quito was subjected, a conquest of such extent and importance as almost doubled the power of the Peruvian empire. He was fond of residing in the capital of that valuable province which he had added to his dominions; and notwithstanding the ancient and fundamental law of the monarchy against polluting the royal blood by any foreign alliance, he married the daughter of the vanquished monarch of Quito. She bore him a son named Atahualpa, whom, on his death at Quito, which seems to have happened about the year 1529, he appointed his successor in that kingdom, leaving the rest of his dominions to Huascar, his eldest son, by a mother of the royal race. Greatly as the Peruvians revered the memory of a monarch who had reigned with greater reputation and splendour than any of his predecessors, the destination of Huana Capac concerning the succession appeared so repugnant to a maxim coeval with the empire, and founded on authority deemed sacred, that it was no sooner known at Cuzco than it excited general disgust. Encouraged by those sentiments of his subjects, Huascar required his brother to renounce the government of Quito, and to acknowledge him as his lawful superior. But it had been the first care of Atahualpa to gain a large body of troops which had accompanied his father to Quito. These were the flower of the Peruvian warriors, to whose valour Huana Capac had been indebted for all his victories. Atahuaipa first eluded the demand of his brother, and then marched against him in hostile array."

"Thus the ambition of two young princes, the title of the one founded on ancient usage, and of the other asserted by the veteran troops, involved Peru in civil war, a calamity to which it had been hitherto a stranger, under a succession of virtuous monarchs. In such a contest the issue was obvious. The force of arms triumphed over the authority of laws. Atahualpa remained victorious, and made a cruel use of his victory. Conscious of the defect in his own title to the throne, he attempted to exterminate the royal race, by putting to death all the children of the sun descended from Manco Capac, whom he could seize either by force or stratagem. From a political motive, the life of the unfortunate Huascar, who had been taken prisoner in a battle which decided the fate of the empire, was prolonged for some time; that, by issuing orders in his name, the usurper might more easily establish his own authority."

"When Pizarro landed in the bay of St Matthew, in 1531, this civil war raged between the two brothers in its greatest fury; and though the two competitors received early accounts of the arrival of the Spaniards, they were so intent upon the operations of a war which they deemed more interesting, that they gave no attention to the motions of an enemy too inconsiderable in number to excite any great alarm, and to whom it would be easy, as they imagined, to give a check when more at leisure. By this fortunate coincidence of events, of which he could have no foresight, and of which he remained long ignorant from its defective mode of intercourse with the people of the country, Pizarro was permitted to advance unmolested into the centre of a great empire, before any effort of its power was exerted to stop his career. During their progress, the Spaniards acquired some imperfect knowledge of the struggle between the two contending factions; and the first complete information respecting it was received from messengers sent by Huascar to Pizarro, to solicit his aid against Atahualpa, whom he represented as a rebel and an usurper."

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Manco Capac, the first Inca of the Peruvians, is said to have reigned about the middle of the twelfth century, as the traditionary accounts attribute a period of about 400 years between the commencement of his reign and the decease of Huana Capac in 1529, which would place the origin of the monarchy about the year 1129, allowing an average of 30 years to each of 13 successive reigns. The traditions of such ancient matters among an ignorant people are little to be depended on; and even admitting the series of kings to be right as to number, the ordinary average of twenty years to each of the thirteen successive reigns would only give 260 years for the duration of the monarchy, and would carry back the commencement of the reign of Manco Capac only to the year 1269. The series of these kings, as given by various Spanish writers, according to the traditions of the Peruvians, is as follows:

1. Manco Capac. 2. Sinchi Roca. 3. Lloque Yupanqui. 4. Mayta Capac. 5. Capac Yupanqui. 6. Inca Roca. 7. Yahuar Huacac. 8. Inca Roca, likewise named Viracocha. 9. Pachacutec142. 10. Yupanqui. 11. Tupac Yupanqui. 12. Huana Capac. 13. Huascar, or Inti-cusi-Hualpa. 14. Atahualpa. 15. Manco Capac the Second, crowned at Cuzco by permission of Pizarro; afterwards revolted and retired to the mountains. 16. Sayri Tupac; who resigned the nominal sovereignty of Peru to Philip II. He died a Christian, and left one daughter who married a Spaniard named Onez de Loyola, and from whom are descended the marquisses of Orepesa and Alcanises.