This is what is averred by the most ancient sages of the Inca line,
(_por aquellos ingas antiquissimos_)." We may well believe he did; for
the light of day, which is quenched in the western ocean, passes back
again, by the straits or in some other way, and appears again the next
morning, not in the West, where we watched its dying rays, but in the
East, where again it is born to pursue its daily and ever recurring
journey.
According to another, and also very early account, Viracocha was preceded
by a host of attendants, who were his messengers and soldiers. When he
reached the sea, he and these his followers marched out upon the waves as
if it had been dry land, and disappeared in the West.[1]
[Footnote 1: Garcia, _Origen de los Indios_, Lib. v, Cap. vii.]
These followers were, like himself, white and bearded. Just as, in Mexico,
the natives attributed the erection of buildings, the history of which had
been lost, to the white Toltecs, the subjects of Quetzalcoatl (see above,
chapter iii, Sec.2), so in Peru various ancient ruins, whose builders had been
lost to memory, were pointed out to the Spaniards as the work of a white and
bearded race who held the country in possession long before the Incas had
founded their dynasty.[1] The explanation in both cases is the same. In
both the early works of art of unknown origin were supposed to be the
productions of the personified light rays, which are the source of skill,
because they supply the means indispensable to the acquisition of
knowledge.
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