Note 1 — Chapter I · THE SUNSET OF AN EMPIRE

On a couch of the softest textures ever woven by human hands, draped over a framework of precious woods clamped and in a great part overlaid with gold, Huayna-Capac, the last of the long line of Incas descended from the Divine Manco and his sister-wife Mama-Occlu, son and daughter of the Sun, lay dying. The heir of the great Inca Yupanqui, during his long life of unsparing conquest and yet wise and most merciful rule, had extended the empire of the Children of the Sun until, from the burning regions of the North, beyond the central line of the earth, to the arid deserts of the far South, and from the trackless forests of the East to the shores of the Western sea, all the lands and peoples of Tavantinsuyu1 owned, with gladness and without question, the glory of the Rainbow Banner and the just, yet rigid, sway of the Son of the Sun.