cause of displeasure, he rendered their country sterile and sandy as it now is, and commanded that it should never rain in that district; yet sent them the rivers and torrents which run through it, that they might have wherewithal to quench their thirst.  This person, named Con, who they allege was son of the sun and moon, they esteemed and adored as a god, pretending that he had given the herbs and wild fruits as food for the people whom he had created.  After him came another man from the south, named Pachacamac, or the creator, who was likewise the son of the sun and moon, but more powerful than Con, who disappeared on his arrival, leaving the men whom he had created without chiefs or laws, and Pachacamac transformed them all into various animals, as birds, cats, bears, lions, and the like, giving origin in this manner to all the beasts and birds which are now found in the country.  After this Pachacamac created the present race of Indians, teaching them the art of labouring the ground for the cultivation of plants of various kinds for food.  Pachacamac is considered as a god, and all the principal persons among the Peruvians are desirous of being buried in the province named from him Pachacamac, as he resided there, which is about four leagues from the city of Lima[29].  They pretended that their god Pachacamac continued several ages among them, even to the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, since when he has disappeared.  Hence we may presume that he was some demon by whom they were miserably abused and misled, and who filled their minds with so many extravagant absurd fables.

The Indians believe likewise, that even before Con and Pachacamac, there was a great deluge, during which mankind saved themselves in great caves in the high mountains, into which they carried a store of food, shutting up the entries, and carefully filling up all the crevices, to keep out the water.  After a long while, they sent out some dogs, who returned to them all wet but not dirtied with mud, from which circumstance they concluded that the waters still remained very high, and they did not venture to leave their caverns till the dogs came back a second time all covered with mud.  They allege that great numbers of serpents were engendered by the moisture left in the earth by this deluge, by which their ancestors were much distressed for a long time, till they at length succeeded to extirpate them.  From this tradition they appear to have retained some confused notion of the deluge, although they were ignorant of the way in which Noah and seven other persons were saved in the ark to repeople the whole earth.  Perhaps their tradition may refer to some partial deluge, like that of Deucalion.

The have a notion that the world is to come to an end; before which there is to be a great drought, when no rain is to fall for several years.  On this account, in former times, the caciques used to lay up large magazines of maize to serve them during the long drought.  Even yet, the more timid among the Peruvians make a great lamentation when the sun or moon are eclipsed, believing the end of the world to be at hand; as they allege that these luminaries are to be extinguished at the destruction of the world.