"[68-2] The
earliest divisions of territory were in conformity to this view. Thus it
was with ancient Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and China;[68-3] and in the
new world, the states of Peru, Araucania, the Muyscas, the Quiches, and
Tlascala were tetrarchies divided in accordance with, and in the first
two instances named after, the cardinal points. So their chief
cities--Cuzco, Quito, Tezcuco, Mexico, Cholula--were quartered by
streets running north, south, east, and west. It was a necessary result
of such a division that the chief officers of the government were four
in number, that the inhabitants of town and country, that the whole
social organization acquired a quadruplicate form. The official title of
the Incas was "Lord of the four quarters of the earth," and the
venerable formality in taking possession of land, both in their domain
and that of the Aztecs, was to throw a stone, to shoot an arrow, or to
hurl a firebrand to each of the cardinal points.[69-1] They carried out
the idea in their architecture, building their palaces in squares with
doors opening, their tombs with their angles pointing, their great
causeways running in these directions.
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