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$Title{History Of The Conquest Of Peru
Chapter II: Part II}
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$Author{Prescott, William H.}
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$Date{1864}
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Title:       History Of The Conquest Of Peru
Book:        Book I: Introduction. View Of The Civilization Of The Incas.
Author:      Prescott, William H.
Date:        1864

Chapter II: Part II

     The different provinces of the country furnished persons peculiarly
suited to different employments, which, as we shall see hereafter, usually
descended from father to son.  Thus, one district supplied those most skilled
in working the mines, another the most curious workers in metals, or in wood,
and so on. ^28 The artisan was provided by government with the materials; and
no one was required to give more than a stipulated portion of his time to the
public service.  He was then succeeded by another for the like term; and it
should be observed, that all who were engaged in the employment of the
government - and the remark applies equally to agricultural labor - were
maintained, for the time, at the public expense. ^29 By this constant rotation
of labor, it was intended that no one should be overburdened, and that each
man should have time to provide for the demands of his own household.  It was
impossible - in the judgment of a high Spanish authority - to improve on the
system of distribution, so carefully was it accommodated to the condition and
comfort of the artisan. ^30 The security of the working classes seems to have
been ever kept in view in the regulations of the government; and these were so
discreetly arranged, that the most wearing and unwholesome labors, as those of
the mines, occasioned no detriment to the health of the laborer; a striking
contrast to his subsequent condition under the Spanish rule. ^31

[Footnote 28: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 15. - Ondegardo, Rel. Seg., Ms.]

[Footnote 29: Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms. - Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1,
lib. 5, cap. 5.]

[Footnote 30: "Y tambien se tenia cuenta que el trabajo que pasavan fuese
moderado, y con el menos riesgo que fuese posible. . . . . . . Era tanta la
orden que tuvieron estos Indios, que a mi parecer aunque mucho se piense en
ello Seria dificultoso mejorarla conocida su condicion y costumbres."
Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms.]

[Footnote 31: "The working of the mines," says the President of the Council of
the Indies, "was so regulated that no one felt it a hardship, much less was
his life shortened by it." (Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 15) It is a frank
admission for a Spaniard.]

     A part of the agricultural produce and manufactures was transported to
Cuzco, to minister to the immediate demands of the Inca and his Court.  But
far the greater part was stored in magazines scattered over the different
provinces.  These spacious buildings, constructed of stone, were divided
between the Sun and the Inca, though the greater share seems to have been
appropriated by the monarch.  By a wise regulation, any deficiency in the
contributions of the Inca might be supplied from the granaries of the Sun. ^32
But such a necessity could rarely have happened; and the providence of the
government usually left a large surplus in the royal depositories, which was
removed to a third class of magazines, whose design was to supply the people
in seasons of scarcity, and, occasionally, to furnish relief to individuals,
whom sickness or misfortune had reduced to poverty; thus, in a manner,
justifying the assertion of a Castilian document, that a large portion of the
revenues of the Inca found its way back again, through one channel or another,
into the hands of the people. ^33 These magazines were found by the Spaniards,
on their arrival, stored with all the various products and manufactures of the
country, - with maize, coca, quinua, woollen and cotton stuffs of the finest
quality, with vases and utensils of gold, silver, and copper, in short, with
every article of luxury or use within the compass of Peruvian skill. ^34 The
magazines of grain, in particular, would frequently have sufficed for the
consumption of the adjoining district for several years. ^35 An inventory of
the various products of the country, and the quarters whence they were
obtained, was every year taken by the royal officers, and recorded by the
quipucamayus on their registers, with surprising regularity and precision.
These registers were transmitted to the capital, and submitted to the Inca,
who could thus at a glance, as it were, embrace the whole results of the
national industry, and see how far they corresponded with the requisitions of
government. ^36

[Footnote 32: Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 34. - Ondegardo,
Rel. Prim., Ms.

     "E asi esta parte del Inga no hay duda sino que de todas tres era la
mayor, y en los depositos se parece bien que yo visite muchos en diferentes
partes, e son mayores e mas largos que no los de su religion sin comparasion."
Idem, Rel. Seg., Ms.]

[Footnote 33: "Todos los dichos tributos y servicios que el Inga imponia y
llevaba como dicho es eran con color y para efecto del govierno y pro comun de
todos asi como lo que se ponia en depositos todo se combertia y distribuia
entre los mismos naturales." Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms.]

[Footnote 34: Acosta, lib. 6, cap. 15.

     "No podre decir," says one of the Conquerors, "los depositos.  Vide de
rropas y de todos generos de rropas y vestidos que en este reino se hacian y
vsavan que faltava tiempo para vello y entendimiento para comprender tanta
cosa, muchos depositos de barretas de cobre para las minas y de costales y
sogas de vasos de palo y platos del oro y plata que aqui se hallo hera cosa
despanto." Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms.]

[Footnote 35: For ten years, sometimes, if we may credit Ondegardo, who had
every means of knowing.  "E ansi cuando no era menester se estaba en los
depositos e habia algunas vezes comida de diez anos. . . . . . Los cuales
todos se hallaron Ilenos cuando Ilegaron los Espanoles desto y de todas las
cosas necesarias para la vida humana" Rel. Seg., Ms.]

[Footnote 36: Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms.

     "Por tanta orden e cuenta que seria dificultoso creerlo ni darlo a
entender como ellos lo tienen en su cuenta e por registros e por menudo lo
manifestaron que se pudiera por estenso." Idem, Rel. Seg., Ms.]

     Such are some of the most remarkable features of the Peruvian
institutions relating to property, as delineated by writers who, however
contradictory in the details, have a general conformity of outline.  These
institutions are certainly so remarkable, that it is hardly credible they
should ever have been enforced throughout a great empire, and for a long
period of years.  Yet we have the most unequivocal testimony to the fact from
the Spaniards, who landed in Peru in time to witness their operation; some of
whom, men of high judicial station and character, were commissioned by the
government to make investigations into the state of the country under its
ancient rulers.

     The impositions on the Peruvian people seem to have been sufficiently
heavy.  On them rested the whole burden of maintaining, not only their own
order, but every other order in the state.  The members of the royal house,
the great nobles, even the public functionaries, and the numerous body of the
priesthood, were all exempt from taxation. ^37 The whole duty of defraying the
expenses of the government belonged to the people.  Yet this was not
materially different from the condition of things formerly existing in most
parts of Europe, where the various privileged classes claimed exemption - not
always with success, indeed - from bearing part of the public burdens.  The
great hardship in the case of the Peruvian was, that he could not better his
condition.  His labors were for others, rather than for himself.  However
industrious, he could not add a rood to his own possessions, nor advance
himself one hair's breadth in the social scale.  The great and universal
motive to honest industry, that of bettering one's lot, was lost upon him. The
great law of human progress was not for him.  As he was born, so he was to
die.  Even his time he could not properly call his own.  Without money, with
little property of any kind, he paid his taxes in labor. ^38 No wonder that
the government should have dealt with sloth as a crime.  It was a crime
against the state, and to be wasteful of time was, in a manner, to rob the
exchequer.  The Peruvian, laboring all his life for others, might be compared
to the convict in a treadmill, going the same dull round of incessant toil,
with the consciousness, that, however profitable the results to the state,
they were nothing to him.

[Footnote 37: Garcilasso. Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 15.]

[Footnote 38: "Solo el trabajo de las personas era el tributo que se dava,
porque ellos no poseian otra cosa." Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms.]

     But this is the dark side of the picture.  If no man could become rich in
Peru, no man could become poor.  No spendthrift could waste his substance in
riotous luxury.  No adventurous schemer could impoverish his family by the
spirit of speculation.  The law was constantly directed to enforce a steady
industry and a sober management of his affairs.  No mendicant was tolerated in
Peru.  When a man was reduced by poverty or misfortune, (it could hardly be by
fault,) the arm of the law was stretched out to minister relief; not the
stinted relief of private charity, nor that which is doled out, drop by drop,
as it were, from the frozen reservoirs of "the parish," but in generous
measure, bringing no humiliation to the object of it, and placing him on a
level with the rest of his countrymen. ^39

[Footnote 39: "Era tanta la orden que tenia en todos sus Reinos y provincias,
que no consentia haver ningun Indio pobre ni menesteroso, porque havia orden i
formas para ello sin que los pueblos reciviesen vexacion ni molestia, porque
el Inga lo suplia de sus tributos." (Conq. i Pob. del Piru, Ms.) The
Licentiate Ondegardo sees only a device of Satan in these provisions of the
Peruvian law, by which the old, the infirm, and the poor were rendered, in a
manner, independent of their children, and those nearest of kin, on whom they
would naturally have leaned for support; no surer way to harden the heart, he
considers, than by thus disengaging it from the sympathies of humanity; and no
circumstance has done more, he concludes, to counteract the influence and
spread of Christianity among the natives.  (Rel. Seg., Ms.) The views are
ingenious, but, in a country where the people had no property, as in Peru,
there would seem to be no alternative for the supernumeraries, but to receive
support from government or to starve.]

     No man could be rich, no man could be poor, in Peru; but all might enjoy,
and did enjoy, a competence.  Ambition, avarice, the love of change, the
morbid spirit of discontent, those passions which most agitate the minds of
men, found no place in the bosom of the Peruvian.  The very condition of his
being seemed to be at war with change.  He moved on in the same unbroken
circle in which his fathers had moved before him, and in which his children
were to follow.  It was the object of the Incas to infuse into their subjects
a spirit of passive obedience and tranquillity, - a perfect acquiescence in
the established order of things.  In this they fully succeeded.  The Spaniards
who first visited the country are emphatic in their testimony, that no
government could have been better suited to the genius of the people; and no
people could have appeared more contented with their lot, or more devoted to
their government. ^40

[Footnote 40: Acosta, lib. 6, cap. 12, 15. - Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap.
10]

     Those who may distrust the accounts of Peruvian industry will find their
doubts removed on a visit to the country.  The traveller still meets,
especially in the central regions of the table-land, with memorials of the
past, remains of temples, palaces, fortresses, terraced mountains, great
military roads, aqueducts, and other public works, which, whatever degree of
science they may display in their execution, astonish him by their number, the
massive character of the materials, and the grandeur of the design. Among
them, perhaps the most remarkable are the great roads, the broken remains of
which are still in sufficient preservation to attest their former
magnificence.  There were many of these roads, traversing different parts of
the kingdom; but the most considerable were the two which extended from Quito
to Cuzco, and, again diverging from the capital, continued in a southern
direction towards Chili.

     One of these roads passed over the grand plateau, and the other along the
lowlands on the borders of the ocean.  The former was much the more difficult
achievement, from the character of the country.  It was conducted over
pathless sierras buried in snow; galleries were cut for leagues through the
living rock; rivers were crossed by means of bridges that swung suspended in
the air; precipices were scaled by stairways hewn out of the native bed;
ravines of hideous depth were filled up with solid masonry; in short, all the
difficulties that beset a wild and mountainous region, and which might appall
the most courageous engineer of modern times, were encountered and
successfully overcome.  The length of the road, of which scattered fragments
only remain, is variously estimated, from fifteen hundred to two thousand
miles; and stone pillars, in the manner of European milestones, were erected
at stated intervals of somewhat more than a league, all along the route.  Its
breadth scarcely exceeded twenty feet. ^41 It was built of heavy flags of
freestone, and in some parts, at least, covered with a bituminous cement,
which time has made harder than the stone itself.  In some places, where the
ravines had been filled up with masonry, the mountain torrents, wearing on it
for ages, have gradually eaten a way through the base, and left the
superincumbent mass - such is the cohesion of the materials - still spanning
the valley like an arch! ^42

[Footnote 41: Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms.

     "Este camino hecho por valles ondos y por sierras altas, por montes de
nieve, por tremedales de agua y por pena viva y junto a rios furiosos por
estas partes y ballano y empedrado por las laderas, bien sacado por las
sierras, deshechado, por las penas socavado, por junto a los Rios sus paredes,
entre nieves con escalones y descanso, por todas partes limpio barrido
descombrado, lleno de aposentos, de depositos de tesoros, de Templos del Sol,
de Postas que havia en este camino." Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 60.]

[Footnote 42: "On avait comble les vides et les ravins par de grandes masses
de maconnerie.  Les torrents qui descendent des hauteurs apres des pluies
abondantes, avaient creuse les endroits les moins solides, et s'etaient fraye
une voie sous le chemin, le laissant ainsi suspendu en l'air comme un pont
fait d'une seule piece." (Velasco, Hist. de Quito, tom. l. p. 206.) This
writer speaks from personal observation, having examined and measured
different parts of the road, in the latter part of the road, in the latter
part of the last century.  The Spanish scholar will find in Appendix, No. 2.,
an animated description of this magnificent work, and of the obstacles
encountered in the execution of it, in a passage borrowed from Sarmiento, who
saw it in the days of the Incas.]

     Over some of the boldest streams it was necessary to construct suspension
bridges, as they are termed, made of the tough fibres of the maguey, or of the
osier of the country, which has an extraordinary degree of tenacity and
strength.  These osiers were woven into cables of the thickness of a man's
body.  The huge ropes, then stretched across the water, were conducted through
rings or holes cut in immense buttresses of stone raised on the opposite banks
of the river, and there secured to heavy pieces of timber.  Several of these
enormous cables, bound together, formed a bridge, which, covered with planks,
well secured and defended by a railing of the same osier materials on the
sides, afforded a safe passage for the traveller. The length of this aerial
bridge, sometimes exceeding two hundred feet, caused it, confined, as it was,
only at the extremities, to dip with an alarming inclination towards the
centre, while the motion given to it by the passenger occasioned an
oscillation still more frightful, as his eye wandered over the dark abyss of
waters that foamed and tumbled many a fathom beneath. Yet these light and
fragile fabrics were crossed without fear by the Peruvians, and are still
retained by the Spaniards over those streams which, from the depth or
impetuosity of the current, would seem impracticable for the usual modes of
conveyance.  The wider and more tranquil waters were crossed on balsas - a
kind of raft still much used by the natives - to which sails were attached,
furnishing the only instance of this higher kind of navigation among the
American Indians. ^43

[Footnote 43: Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 3, cap. 7.

     A particular account of these bridges, as they are still to be seen in
different parts of Peru, may be found in Humboldt.  (Vues des Cordilleres, p.
230, et seq.) The balsas are described with equal minuteness by Stevenson.
Residence in America, vol. II. p. 222. et seq.]

     The other great road of the Incas lay through the level country between
the Andes and the ocean.  It was constructed in a different manner, as
demanded by the nature of the ground, which was for the most part low, and
much of it sandy.  The causeway was raised on a high embankment of earth, and
defended on either side by a parapet or wall of clay; and trees and
odoriferous shrubs were planted along the margin, regaling the sense of the
traveller with their perfumes, and refreshing him by their shades, so grateful
under the burning sky of the tropics.  In the strips of sandy waste, which
occasionally intervened, where the light and volatile soil was incapable of
sustaining a road, huge piles, many of them to be seen at this day, were
driven into the ground to indicate the route to the traveller. ^44

[Footnote 44: Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap. 60. - Relacion del Primer
Descubrimiento de la Costa y Mar del Sur, Ms.

     This anonymous document of one of the early Conquerors contains a minute
and probably trustworthy account of both the high roads, which the writer saw
in their glory, and which he ranks among the greatest wonders of the world.]

     All along these highways, caravansaries, or tambos, as they were called,
were erected, at the distance of ten or twelve miles from each other, for the
accommodation, more particularly, of the Inca and his suite, and those who
journeyed on the public business.  There were few other travellers in Peru.
Some of these buildings were on an extensive scale, consisting of a fortress,
barracks, and other military works, surrounded by a parapet of stone, and
covering a large tract of ground.  These were evidently destined for the
accommodation of the imperial armies, when on their march across the country.
- The care of the great roads was committed to the districts through which
they passed, and a large number of hands was constantly employed under the
Incas to keep them in repair.  This was the more easily done in a country
where the mode of travelling was altogether on foot; though the roads are said
to have been so nicely constructed, that a carriage might have rolled over
them as securely as on any of the great roads of Europe. ^45 Still, in a
region where the elements of fire and water are both actively at work in the
business of destruction, they must, without constant supervision, have
gradually gone to decay.  Such has been their fate under the Spanish
conquerors, who took no care to enforce the admirable system for their
preservation adopted by the Incas.  Yet the broken portions that still
survive, here and there, like the fragments of the great Roman roads scattered
over Europe, bear evidence to their primitive grandeur, and have drawn forth
the eulogium from a discriminating traveller, usually not too profuse in his
panegyric, that "the roads of the Incas were among the most useful and
stupendous works ever executed by man." ^46

[Footnote 45: Relacion del Primer Descub., Ms. - Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap.
37. - Zarate, Conq. del Peru, lib. 1, cap. 11. - Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte
1, lib. 9, cap. 13.]

[Footnote 46: "Cette chaussee, bordee de grandes pierres de taille, puet etre
comparee aux plus belles routes des Romains que j'aie vues en Italie, en
France et en Espagne . . . . . . Le grand chemin de l'Inca, un des ouvrages
les plus utiles, et en meme temps des plus gigantesques que les hommes aient
execute." Humboldt, Vues des Cordilleres, p. 294.]

     The system of communication through their dominions was still further
improved by the Peruvian sovereigns, by the introduction of posts, in the same
manner as was done by the Aztecs.  The Peruvian posts, however, established on
all the great routes that conducted to the capital, were on a much more
extended plan than those in Mexico.  All along these routes, small buildings
were erected, at the distance of less than five miles asunder, ^47 in each of
which a number of runners, or chasquis, as they were called, were stationed to
carry forward the despatches of government. ^48 These despatches were either
verbal, or conveyed by means of quipus, and sometimes accompanied by a thread
of the crimson fringe worn round the temples of the Inca, which was regarded
with the same implicit deference as the signet ring of an Oriental despot. ^49

[Footnote 47: The distance between the posthouses is variously stated; most
writers not estimating it at more than three fourths of a league.  I have
preferred the authority of Ondegardo, who usually writes with more
conscientiousness and knowledge of his ground than most of his
contemporaries.]

[Footnote 48: The term chasqui, according to Montesinos, signifies "one that
receives a thing." (Me. Antiguas, Ms., cap. 7) But Garcilasso, a better
authority for his own tongue, says it meant "one who makes an exchange." Com.
Real., Parte 1, lib. 6, cap. 8.]

[Footnote 49: "Con vn hilo de esta Borla, entregado a uno de aquellos
Orejones, governaban la Tierra, i proveian lo que querian con maior
obediencia, que en ninguna Provincia del Mundo se ha visto tener a las
Provissiones de su Rei." Zarate, Conq. del Peru, lib. 1, cap. 9.]

     The chasquis were dressed in a peculiar livery, intimating their
profession.  They were all trained to the employment, and selected for their
speed and fidelity.  As the distance each courier had to perform was small,
and as he had ample time to refresh himself at the stations, they ran over the
ground with great swiftness, and messages were carried through the whole
extent of the long routes, at the rate of a hundred and fifty miles a day. The
office of the chasquis was not limited to carrying despatches.  They
frequently brought various articles for the use of the Court; and in this way,
fish from the distant ocean, fruits, game, and different commodities from the
hot regions on the coast, were taken to the capital in good condition, and
served fresh at the royal table. ^50 It is remarkable that this important
institution should have been known to both the Mexicans and the Peruvians
without any correspondence with one another; and that it should have been
found among two barbarian nations of the New World, long before it was
introduced among the civilized nations of Europe. ^51

[Footnote 50: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 18. - Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms.

     If we may trust Montesinos, the royal table was served with fish, taken a
hundred leagues from the capital, in twenty-four hours after it was drawn from
the ocean! (Men. Antiguas, Ms., lib. 2, cap. 7.) This is rather too
expeditious for any thing but rail-cars.]

[Footnote 51: The institution of the Peruvian posts seems to have made a great
impression on the minds of the Spaniards who first visited the country; and
ample notices of it may be found in Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 15. - Dec.
de la Aud. Real., Ms. - Fernandez, Hist. del Peru, Parte 2, lib. 3, cap. 5. -
Conq. i Pob. del Piru, Ms., et auct. plurimis.

     The establishment of posts is of old date among the Chinese, and,
probably, still older among the Persians.  (See Herodotus, Hist., Urania, sec.
98.) It is singular, that an invention designed for the uses of a despotic
government should have received its full application only under a free one.
For in it we have the germ of that beautiful system of intercommunication,
which binds all the nations of Christendom together as one vast commonwealth.]

     By these wise contrivances of the Incas, the most distant parts of the
long-extended empire of Peru were brought into intimate relations with each
other.  And while the capitals of Christendom, but a few hundred miles apart,
remained as far asunder as if seas had rolled between them, the great capitals
Cuzco and Quito were placed by the high roads of the Incas in immediate
correspondence.  Intelligence from the numerous provinces was transmitted on
the wings of the wind to the Peruvian metropolis, the great focus to which all
the lines of communication converged.  Not an insurrectionary movement could
occur, not an invasion on the remotest frontier, before the tidings were
conveyed to the capital, and the imperial armies were on their march across
the magnificent roads of the country to suppress it.  So admirable was the
machinery contrived by the American despots for maintaining tranquillity
throughout their dominions!  It may remind us of the similar institutions of
ancient Rome, when, under the Caesars, she was mistress of half the world.