13.  They used sedan-chairs.

14.  They regarded agriculture as the principal interest of the nation, and held great agricultural fairs and festivals for the interchange of the productions of the farmers.

15.  The king opened the agricultural season by a great celebration, and, like the kings of Egypt, he put his hand to the plough, and ploughed the first furrow.

16.  They had an order of knighthood, in which the candidate knelt before the king; his sandals were put on by a nobleman, very much as the spurs were buckled on the European knight; he was then allowed to use the girdle or sash around the loins, corresponding to the toga virilis of the Romans; he was then crowned with flowers.  According to Fernandez, the candidates wore white shirts, like the knights of the Middle Ages, with a cross embroidered in front.

17.  There was a striking resemblance between the architecture of the Peruvians and that of some of the nations of the Old World.  It is enough for me to quote Mr. Ferguson’s words, that the coincidence between the buildings of the Incas and the Cyclopean remains attributed to the Pelasgians in Italy and Greece, “is the most remarkable in the history of architecture.”

Owl-headed vases, Troy and Peru

The illustrations on page 397 strikingly confirm Mr. Ferguson’s views.

“The sloping jambs, the window cornice, the polygonal masonry, and other forms so closely resemble what is found in the old Pelasgic cities of Greece and Italy, that it is difficult to resist the conclusion that there may be some relation between them.”

Even the mode of decorating their palaces and temples finds a parallel in the Old World.  A recent writer says: 

“We may end by observing, what seems to have escaped Senor Lopez, that the interior of an Inca palace, with its walls covered with gold, as described by Spaniards, with its artificial golden flowers and golden beasts, must have been exactly like the interior of the house of Alkinous or Menelaus—­

     “’The doors were framed of gold,
     Where underneath the brazen floor doth glass
     Silver pilasters, which with grace uphold
     Lintel of silver framed; the ring was burnished gold,
     And dogs on each side of the door there stand,
     Silver and golden.’”

“I can personally testify” (says Winchell, “Preadamites,” p. 387) “that a study of ancient Peruvian pottery has constantly reminded me of forms with which we are familiar in Egyptian archaeology.”

Dr. Schliemann, in his excavations of the ruins of Troy, found a number of what he calls “owl-headed idols” and vases.  I give specimens on page 398 and page 400.

In Peru we find vases with very much the same style of face.