and tumultuous multitude sank into stillness the most profound, and not less appalling than its previous commotion. The Spaniards were struck with amazement at the scene, which manifested so clearly the extraordinary authority still exercised by the Inca over the minds of the Peruvians, and justified in some degree the policy of Toledo. The execution now proceeded tranquilly to its conclusion, and the Inca met his end with that unshrinking fortitude, dignity, and contempt of death, which have universally marked the Indian in the last struggles of dissolving nature.

Thus terminated the direct male lineage of the Children of the Sun. Don Jose Gabriel Candor Canqui, the individual who revolutionized the Peruvians in 1781, and filled the provinces of Upper Peru with bloodshed by his noble and daring, but unfortunate, attempt to restore the empire of the native princes, was, it is believed, a collateral descendant of the Inca Tupac Amaru, whose name he assumed to awaken the historical sympathies of the Peruvians.

Toledo on his return from his government, did not meet with the favorable reception which he anticipated. His long vice-regal rule had been remarkably prosperous. He counted upon holding a rank at court proportioned to the importance of his services abroad, and the large fortune he had there accumulated. Especially he presumed that his labors for rendering stable the Spanish empire

over Peru, by regulating the mita for the mines, and by cutting off the royal family, the rallying point of disaffection to the Peruvians, would be amply and suitably remunerated. But in this hope he was most egregiously disappointed. His enemies had pre-occupied his King's ear with an exaggerated account of his riches, and had so represented his execution of Tupac Amaru, that when he entered the presence chamber to kiss the hand of Philip II., the King commanded him, very shortly, to betake himself to his house, for that he had been sent to Peru to serve, not to slay, monarchs. Broken hearted at this harsh repulse, and at the complete overthrow of his ambitious expectations, he re tired to learn that he was also accused of embezzling public moneys, and that the fiscal officers were commissioned to take possession of all his gold and silver until the truth of the charge was ascertained. His proud spirit could not brook these indignities from a master, whom if he had offended, it had only been by reason of excess of zeal in his service. In a short time the once confident Toledo sickened and died of pure disappointment and chagrin,-in this respect accomplishing the poetic justice, which his cruel and unrighteous, though politic, murder of Tupac Amaru and of the Incas deserved.

The destiny of the Indian races in Spanish America has been widely and remarkably different from what it is in the United States. Here the

aboriginal nations have little or no physical weight in the progress of events, and are scattered, in weak tribes, over the face of the land, withering and dwindling daily before the overpowering beams of civilization. There they constitute a large and important element in the population, aggregated into powerful masses, capable by themselves alone of exerting a decided influence upon affairs, and holding, whether as independent communities, or as the subjects of the Spanish Americans, a rank in the scale of public estimation, from which no conceivable change of dynasties or governments can cast them down, and possessing importance which the late revolution has powerfully contributed to strengthen and perpetuate.

Of the independent nations, like the Araucos, the Abiponians, and the various other tribes in the vast interior regions of the continent, who have never bowed the neck under the Spanish yoke, the spirit, vigor and numbers are well known to be far from contemptible. The possession of that noble animal, the horse, especially, by bestowing pastoral habits on the wanderers of the immense savannahs of the South, has communicated an energy and a power of forcible and rapid impression to the movement of the Indians, through the means of which, should they ever become concentrated by any common point of union, they would ipánitely surpass, in barbaric splendor, the achievements of the ancient Peruvians and Mexicans. With these Arabs of 8*

VOL. I.

the West, compare the Creeks, the Cherokees, and other tribes in the United States, who, hemmed in by our fixed population, have no resources but either to adopt the manners of their civilized neighbors, to be gradually extinguished, or to fly with the feeble remnants of their might beyond the Mississippi and how striking is the relative consequence of the South Americans! These nomadic nations, therefore, who sweep the verdant plains of the South, on steeds tameless and swift as the winds, uniting the errant propensities of the Indian hunter and the Tartar horseman, are peculiar objects of interest to the philosophic observer of events intrinsic to America.

But other portions of the Indian population are fast attaining importance from quite different causes. Among these are the Peruvians, and the observation may serve as an apology for now rescuing from unmerited oblivion, some of the obscurer incidents of their political history. They have been a despised and an oppressed race. The hand of power has fallen heavily upon them in every age, from the days of the conquest, when the lawless bands of Pizarro trampled upon the nation, down through the tyranny of many a provincial autocrat, to the time when Tupa Catari shook the walls of La Paz with the cry of liberty or death, and the limbs of Tupac Amaru were torn asunder by four wild horses. But a ray of hope smiles upon their future prospect. The revolution has

raised them, in common with the other degraded casts, from the dust where they had been grovelling for centuries. In a democracy, rank must follow the lead of talent; and in South America men of Iudian descent, particularly those of mixed blood, begin to learn their consequence from the fortune of war. Mulattoes and mestizos are among the best and bravest soldiers of the revolution; and some of them have arisen upon its stormy waters to that distinction, which, in times of civil commotion, it is impossible to withhold from superior qualities. It may be long ere the multifarious and many-colored classes, which compose the population of the revolutionized countries, will acquire the regular and systematic movement of our own more fortunate land. But whether in peace or in war, in times of discord or of tranquillity, a race of men, which rises to two thirds of the whole population, which furnishes the laborers and mans the fleets and armies of a republican country, cannot easily relapse into insignificance or into the state of abject servitude. And a permanent melioration of condition is, therefore, the necessary consequence of the actual position of the Peruvians.