The irrigated valleys of Chile lie open to the ocean or are easily accessible over the low coast range. The sea-board of Peru is likewise defenceless, and though the Andean passes are high they are dry and practicable and offer a way of approach to the table-land behind. The want of rain from Valparaiso to Paita is explained by the Antarctic current whose waters cool the breezes so that the warmer land condenses no moisture. But at the northern boundary of Peru the coast bends abruptly to the east; the cold current follows its original north-east direction and lets the warm tropical waters wash the land. From the Gulf of Guayaquil to Panama the coast and mountainsides are covered with luxuriant vegetation and the ascent of the passes becomes well-nigh impracticable. Therefore the Andean plateau in Ecuador is accessible from the Pacific only on the south and the Colombian plateaux are virtually cut off from communication with the western ocean.

Tradition relates that about the seventh century of the Christian era a nation of Indians, bearing the name of Caras, invaded the sea-board of central Ecuador. They were warlike, aggressive, conquerors by instinct, and their civilisation was superior to that of the barbarous tribes upon whom they descended. They came by way of the sea, most probably from the south, bringing a complicated religion to which they were fanatically devoted, and a military and tribal organisation which gave them an overwhelming advantage. In all probability the Caras were akin to those highly civilised nations who lived in the valleys of the northern Peruvian coast. Be this as it may, there is no doubt that the Caras were not long content with dominance along the coast, and succeeded in forcing their way up the slopes of the Cordillera through a zone uninhabitable on account of the perpetual rain, and only penetrable along defiles where the soaked clay of the steep mountainsides affords no footing and the tangle of vegetation leaves no path.

At six thousand feet above sea-level the roads became better, the vegetation ceased to be tropical, and when they emerged through the passes to the comparatively level plains about Quito, some eight thousand feet above the sea, they found themselves in a country where the cereals and fruits of the temperate zone flourish and no forests interrupt communication. Two lines of great mountains stretched north and south and between them lay a plateau less than forty miles in width, and though much of it was bleak and arid, at least half lay below the elevation where the successful cultivation of the cereals and the potato becomes possible. At regular intervals transverse ranges of mountains, called "nudos," or knots, cut the plateau into separate divisions, each measurably protected from attack by its neighbours. Andean Ecuador has been aptly compared to a great ladder four hundred miles long, with the "nudos" forming its gigantic rungs. Beginning at the northern boundary of modern Ecuador, Quito lies in the second of the eight sub-plateaux, which is one of the largest and most fertile. Into it descended the Caras and began to conquer and absorb the aborigines. These inter-Andean valleys were inhabited by numerous tribes speaking distinct languages, who had developed considerable skill in agriculture. The compact and efficient military organisation of the Caras gave them a great advantage over more loosely organised peoples, but for three hundred years they were occupied in extending their power over the valley of Quito and thence over Latacunga and Ibarra, which adjoin it north and south.

From the year 1300 the Cara traditions gather more clearness and precision. By a law handed down from immemorial times each Shiri was succeeded by his son, or if he had no son by the son of a sister, daughters and other female descendants being absolutely excluded. The eleventh Shiri, whose reign corresponded with the last years of the thirteenth century, had no male heir, and he asked the general council of the nation for permission to name as successor the husband he might choose for his daughter. Each one of the different chiefs, hoping to be selected, voted for the proposition, but the Shiri diplomatically went outside of his own dominions and proposed to the monarch who ruled in Riobamba that his eldest son, Duchisela, marry the Princess Toa. The proposition was accepted and the Quito kingdom doubled its territory and power.

Duchisela reigned seventy years, and upon his death was succeeded by his son Autachi, the thirteenth Shiri. This monarch raised the Cara power to its highest pitch, extending his dominions south over the plateaux of Alausi, CaÑar, Cuenca, Jubones, Zaruma, and Loja, and thence far beyond the present Ecuadorian boundary over the Peruvian provinces of Huanacabamba, Piura, and Paita. This vast increase of territory was due more to treaties of confederation and alliance than to conquest. None of the new provinces were ever thoroughly incorporated into the Cara confederacy, and their allegiance to the Shiri in far-away Quito sat lightly upon them. By the end of the fourteenth century the Cara influence was dominant along the Andean plateau from the first degree of north latitude to the sixth south, and extended to the arid coast plain of northern Peru. The humid and forested coast region north of Guayaquil remained in the hands of barbarous tribes, nor were the Caras ever able to extend their power down the wooded eastern slopes of the Andes into the Amazon plain.

Cara expansion was suddenly checked by the Incas. In the latter part of the fourteenth century these fierce and indomitable Islamites of the western continent under the lead of Tupac Yupanqui conquered the coast nations from Lima to Paita, and the ruder tribes who lived in the mountains from Cerro de Pasco north to the Ecuadorian border. Tupac did not respect the southern confederates of the Caras, and the Shiri appears to have made little resistance when his allies were rapidly reduced. The Inca system was the far better adapted for conquest. The emperor could equip and lead to invasion armies numbering tens of thousands, well disciplined, blindly obeying their generals, marching over carefully prepared roads, and supplied by an admirable commissariat. The Caras had contented themselves with treaties of alliance; they were only the chief tribe in a confederacy, and warlike as were the members they could not combine to offer any effective resistance to the first onslaught of the great military empire.

A fairly homogeneous civilisation had grown up in the Ecuadorian Cordillera during the four hundred years of Cara influence. Bringing with them from their unknown original home a capacity for military and political organisation far superior to that of most American aborigines, the Caras were like a ferment introduced into the heterogeneous and inert tribes of the plateau, which gradually transformed the latter into a vigorous people so well fitted to their surroundings that they survived the Inca conquest, even turning the tables and becoming the dominant element in the empire, and then outlived the decimating tyranny of the Spaniards, so that ninety-five per cent. of the present population is composed of their descendants. That this civilisation was in the main self-developed can hardly be doubted. There is no evidence of any intimate contact with the Incas; with the peoples of Yucatan and Mexico the Caras had no connection, and the conjectures as to communication with the peoples of eastern Asia have no historical or archÆological basis. Their civilising and consolidating mission was aided by exceptionally favourable surroundings. The climate was healthy, agreeable, and conducive to bodily and intellectual vigour; the soil reasonably fertile and well adapted to the production of eminently nourishing food crops, while requiring hard labour in its cultivation. The potato, the quinoa grain, and maize played no insignificant rÔle in the history of the Caras; they might never have risen above the level of Caribs if they had lived in a region where savoury and poorly nourishing esculents grow wild. Not less important was the physical configuration of Ecuador. Dry and open valleys, some of them large enough to sustain two hundred thousand people, and easily penetrable in every part, while surrounded by high mountains and bleak "paramos," shut off from the outer world by the forest-covered declivities of the Cordilleras, were admirably adapted to favour the growth of compact little states, whose inhabitants would retain their individual initiative and local pride even after incorporation in a larger political system.

Hualcopo, the fourteenth Shiri, ascended the throne of Quito in 1430. Tupac Yupanqui had completed the reduction of the coast tribes of northern Peru and the mountain tribes as far north as the present Ecuador border had ceased to resist him. From the coast valleys of Piura and Paita, he marched up the easy pass which leads over the Cordillera into the fertile plateaux of southern Ecuador, and after a few victories all the tribes as far north as the nudo of Azuay submitted, and transferred their allegiance from Quito to Cuzco. Loja, Zaruma, Jubones, the great valley of Cuenca, and CaÑar were taken away, and Hualcopo was deprived of all but his hereditary dominions—the old kingdoms of Riobamba and Quito. The Shiri possessed no army capable of undertaking an offensive campaign against the Incas, but, although terrified at Tupac's rapid advance, the ancient possessions of the Shiri remained faithful. Tupac spent two years in the province of CaÑar, erecting fortifications and recruiting his army by new arrivals from the south and enlistment among the recently conquered tribes. Meanwhile Hualcopo was fortifying himself in the valley of Alausi, which lies north of Azuay, and in the passes that lead over the Tiocajas nudo into Riobamba. About the year 1455 the Inca army advanced in force. Defeated in several minor actions, the Shiri abandoned Alausi and concentrated his forces in the passes of Tiocajas. After three months of skirmishes and sieges in which the forts fell one by one, the Caras were compelled to accept a pitched battle. The conflict was well sustained, but with the death of the principal Cara general, victory declared for the Incas and the Caras fled from the field leaving sixteen thousand dead.

Hualcopo retired to Riobamba, but there it was impossible to maintain himself, and he was forced to retreat to the fortress of Mocha in the nudo which divides Riobamba from the valley of Latacunga. Here he made a determined and successful stand, and all Tupac's efforts to force his way over the last line of natural fortifications which kept him out of the northern valleys were in vain. The Inca emperor was forced to content himself with assuring his possession of the provinces already conquered. In 1460 he returned to Cuzco, leaving the territory garrisoned. Three years later the heroic Hualcopo died, and was succeeded by his son, Cacha, the fifteenth and last Shiri. The young man signalised his accession to the throne by an aggressive campaign for the recovery of the lost provinces. He passed south into the valley of Riobamba, surprised the Inca garrisons, and put them to the sword, revindicating all the country as far south as the nudo of Azuay. Beyond that range he was unable to go, for all his efforts failed before the obstinate resistance of the inhabitants of CaÑar. Tupac began preparations to lead an overwhelming army against Cacha, but his own death interrupted him, and it was not until 1475 that his son, Huaina Capac, surnamed the "great," was able to take the road for the north, determined to put an end to the Shiri dynasty. He first consolidated his power among the tribes on the coast south of Guayaquil, whom his father had left half independent, and then extended his conquests along the northern shore among the barbarians of Manabi. On the island of Puna he put to the sword all the male inhabitants, and one tribe in Manabi, notorious for its abominable and unnatural practices, he extirpated. Returning south, he crossed the mountains in northern Peru, and descending their eastern slopes, waged a bloody war against the PacamorÉs, who inhabited the forests where the Upper Amazon debouches into the plain. Having thus secured his line of communications he devoted himself to the main object of the campaign—the conquest of Quito.

Disproportionate as appeared the resources of the contending nations, the war which ensued was well contested. The Caras had resumed their warlike habits and the imminence of the danger animated them and their allies to a desperate resistance. For months the Caras held the great Inca army at bay in the defiles of the Azuay, but finally they were defeated and retreated to the line of Tiocajas. The Incas followed and in a great battle vanquished their opponents so decisively that not only was Riobamba lost, as had happened after the former defeat, but likewise Latacunga and Quito itself. No stand could be made at Mocha, and the Shiri fled to Ibarra, through Quito, where the Caranquis, the most warlike members of the confederacy, were determined to resist to the last. A considerable number of Cara warriors had escaped the slaughter at Tiocajas, and a formidable army assembled to defend the last fortresses in the extreme north of the kingdom. Huaina himself laid siege to Otavalo, the principal stronghold of the Caranquis, but was not able to reduce it. Their successes encouraged them to take the offensive, and in a sortie the Inca emperor narrowly escaped losing his life. Compelled to retire to suppress a mutiny among his southern troops, he left the northern army under the command of his brother, Auqui Toma, and the latter was killed in an assault on the redoubtable fortress of Otavalo. This, however, was the last victory which the Shiri won. Huaina's reinforcements had come up and he advanced with an overwhelming army to avenge his brother's death. Otavalo was taken and its garrison put to the sword; the Shiri fled to another fortress, where he was defeated and slain. The victorious emperor took a fearful vengeance on the Caranquis, whose obstinacy had cost him so dear. Tradition tells that twenty-four thousand were massacred, and their bodies thrown into a lake which has ever since borne the name of Yahuarcocha—the "pool of blood."

Thenceforth the provinces of the old Quito kingdom were integral parts of the Inca empire. The southern valleys had readily accepted the Inca rule, and the central ones appear to have abandoned the Shiri's cause promptly after the second battle of Tiocajas. Though the Caranquis had been exterminated and the Caras had suffered greatly, the other tribes remained intact. The Inca emperor saw that a policy of conciliation would best insure the obedience of these formidable peoples. He spent the remainder of his long life in Ecuador, married the daughter of the dead Shiri, and ruled rather as the legitimate successor of the ancient dynasty than as an alien conqueror. So far as possible the religious, political, and social customs of the Incas were introduced, but it does not appear that the work of amalgamation had proceeded very far in the fifty years which intervened until the advent of the Spaniards. The Quichua had not displaced the native tongues to any great extent, and while the Ecuadorean tribes became loyal subjects, they did not regard themselves as in any way inferior to the older subjects of the empire. Rather had the balance of power passed to them; they had acquired the skill in regular warfare once the exclusive property of the Incas; and the issue of the civil war between Huascar and Atahuallpa seems to prove that they would have played the principal rÔle in the Inca system if the advent of the Spaniards had not altered everything.

Huaina Capac died in Quito in 1525, and his body was taken to Cuzco to be laid with his ancestors. In order better to secure the northern kingdom to his descendants he named Atahuallpa, a son by his marriage with the Shiri princess, ruler of the old dominions of Quito. His eldest son, Huascar, was given the rest of the empire with the title of emperor and a suzerainty over Atahuallpa. But Huaina's wise provisions were rendered valueless by the dispute which arose between the two brothers about the boundaries of Atahuallpa's territories. The latter insisted that they included the provinces south of the Azuay, which had been wrested from Hualcopo by Tupac Yupanqui seventy years before, but Huascar would not admit that they extended beyond the hereditary dominions of the Shiri dynasty. The people of CaÑar, the most northerly of the disputed provinces, had always been bitter enemies of Quito, and their chief now refused to recognise Atahuallpa as overlord and sent a deputation to Huascar. Atahuallpa despatched his uncle Caluchima and his great general Quizquiz to occupy the province and dethrone the recalcitrant chief. Huascar hurried up some of his Inca regulars to aid the people of CaÑar, who won the first battles and advanced towards Atahuallpa's capital. The northerners rallied around the grandson of their old Shiri, and two great armies met on the banks of the Naxichi, only fifty miles south of Quito. Atahuallpa gained a complete victory, and followed it up by advancing over the Azuay into CaÑar, where he was again overwhelmingly victorious over a second army which Huascar had sent against him. The whole of southern Ecuador fell into his hands and he took a fearful vengeance on the CaÑaris. Atahuallpa himself remained in Ecuador while Quizquiz went on into Peru to achieve that crushing series of victories which resulted in the taking of Cuzco and the capture of Huascar himself. By the year 1532 the whole empire as far south as Cuzco lay prostrate, and it seemed certain that the Cuzco dynasty would be displaced by the illegitimate Quito branch.