Lake Titicaca seems to have been the
cradle of their civilization, offering another example how inland seas
and well-watered plains favor the change from a hunting to an
agricultural life. These four nations, the Aztecs, the Mayas, the
Muyscas and the Peruvians, developed spontaneously and independently
under the laws of human progress what civilization was found among the
red race. They owed nothing to Asiatic or European teachers. The Incas
it was long supposed spoke a language of their own, and this has been
thought evidence of foreign extraction; but Wilhelm von Humboldt has
shown conclusively that it was but a dialect of the common tongue of
their country.[31-1]
When Columbus first touched the island of Cuba, he was regaled with
horrible stories of one-eyed monsters who dwelt on the other islands,
but plundered indiscriminately on every hand. These turned out to be the
notorious Caribs, whose other name, _Cannibals_, has descended as a
common noun to our language, expressive of one of their inhuman
practices.
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