age and infirmity disqualified them for the real business of life.16

The Peruvians had knowledge of one or two constellations, and watched the motions of the planet Venus, to which, as we have seen, they dedicated altars. But their ignorance of the first principles of astronomical science is shown by their ideas of eclipses, which they supposed denoted some great derangement of the planet; and when the moon labored under one of these mysterious infirmities they sounded their instruments, and filled the air with shouts and lamentations, to rouse her from her lethargy. Such puerile conceits as these form a striking contrast with the real knowledge of the Mexicans, as displayed in their hieroglyphical maps, in which the true cause of this phenomenon is plainly depicted."

But, if less successful in exploring the heavens, the Incas must be admitted to have surpassed every other American race in their dominion over the earth. Husbandry was pursued by them on principles that may be truly called scientific. It was the basis of their political institutions. Having no foreign commerce, it was agriculture that furnished them with the means of their internal exchanges, their subsistence, and their revenues. We have seen their remarkable provisions for

16 "Ansi mismo les hicieron señalar gente para hechizeros que tambien es entre ellos, oficio publico y conoscido en todos, . . los diputados para ello no lo tenian por travajo, por que ninguno podia tener semejante oficio como los dichos sino fuesen viejos é viejas, y personas inaviles para travajar, como mancos, cojos ó contrechos, y gente asi á quien faltava las fuerzas para ello." Ondegardo, Rel. Seg., MS.

17 See Codex Tel.-Remensis, Part 4, Pl. 22, ap. Antiquities of Mexico, vol. i., London, 1829.

distributing the land in equal shares among the people, while they required every man, except the privileged orders, to assist in its cultivation. The Inca himself did not disdain to set the example. On one of the great annual festivals he proceeded to the environs of Cuzco, attended by his court, and, in the presence of all the people, turned up the earth with a golden plough, —or an instrument that served as such,-thus consecrating the occupation of the husbandman as one worthy to be followed by the Children of the Sun. 18

The patronage of the government did not stop with this cheap display of royal condescension, but was shown in the most efficient measures for facilitating the labors of the husbandman. Much of the country along the sea-coast suffered from want of water, as little or no rain fell there, and the few streams, in their short and hurried course from the mountains, exerted only a very limited influence on the wide extent of territory. The soil, it is true, was for the most part sandy and sterile; but many places were capable of being reclaimed, and, indeed, needed only to be properly irrigated to be susceptible of extraordinary production. To these spots water was conveyed by means of canals and subterraneous aqueducts executed on a noble scale.

18 Sarmiento, Relacion, MS., cap. 16.-The nobles, also it seems, at this high festival, imitated the example of their master. Pasadas todas las fiestas, en la ultima llevavan muchos arados de manos, los quales antiguamente heran de oro; i échos los oficios, tomava el Inga un arado i comenzava con el a romper la tierra, i lo mismo los demas señores, para que de alli adelante en todo su señorio hiciesen lo mismo, i sin que el Inga hiciese esto no avia Indio que osase romper la tierra, ni pensavan que produjese si el Inga no la rompia primero i esto vaste quanto á las fiestas." Conq. i Pob. del Piru, MS.

They

They consisted of large slabs of freestone nicely fitted together without cement, and discharged a volume of water sufficient, by means of latent ducts or sluices, to moisten the lands in the lower level, through which they passed. Some of these aqueducts were of great length. One that traversed the district of Condesuyu measured between four and five hundred miles. were brought from some elevated lake or natural reservoir in the heart of the mountains, and were fed at intervals by other basins which lay in their route along the slopes of the sierra. In this descent a passage was sometimes to be opened through rocks,-and this without the aid of iron tools; impracticable mountains were to be turned, rivers and marshes to be crossed; in short, the same obstacles were to be encountered as in the construction of their mighty roads. But the Peruvians seemed to take pleasure in wrestling with the difficulties of nature. Near Caxamarca a tunnel is still visible which they excavated in the mountains to give an outlet to the waters of a lake when these rose to a height in the rainy seasons that threatened the country with inundation. 19

Most of these beneficent works of the Incas were suffered to go to decay by their Spanish conquerors.

19 Sarmiento, Relacion, MS., cap. 21.-Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 24.-Stevenson, Narrative of a Twenty Years' Residence in South America (London, 1829), vol. i. p. 412; ii. pp. 173, 174.-"Sacauan acequias en cabos y por partes que es cosa estraña afirmar lo: porque las echauan por lugares altos y baxos: y por laderas de los cabeços y haldas de sierras q estan en los valles: y por ellos mismos atrauiessan muchas: unas por una parte, y otras por otra, que es gran delectació caminar por aquellos valles: porque parece que se anda entre huertas y florestas llenas de frescuras." Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap. 66.

In some spots the waters are still left to flow in their silent, subterraneous channels, whose windings and whose sources have been alike unexplored. Others, though partially dilapidated, and closed up with rubbish and the rank vegetation of the soil, still betray their course by occasional patches of fertility. Such are the remains in the valley of Nasca, a fruitful spot that lies between long tracts of desert; where the ancient water-courses of the Incas, measuring four or five feet in depth by three in width, and formed of large blocks of uncemented masonry, are conducted from an unknown distance.

The greatest care was taken that every occupant of the land through which these streams passed should enjoy the benefit of them. The quantity of water allotted to each was prescribed by law; and royal overseers superintended the distribution and saw that it was faithfully applied to the irrigation of the ground."

The Peruvians showed a similar spirit of enterprise in their schemes for introducing cultivation into the mountainous parts of their domain. Many of the hills, though covered with a strong soil, were too precipitous to be tilled. These they cut into terraces, faced with rough stone, diminishing in regular gradation towards the summit; so that, while the lower strip, or anden, as it was called by the Spaniards, that belted round the base of the mountain, might comprehend hundreds of acres, the uppermost was only large enough to accommodate a few rows of Indian corn." Some of the

20 Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., MS.-Memoirs of Gen. Miller, vol. ii. p. 220.

■ Miller supposes that it was from these andenes that the Spaniards

eminences presented such a mass of solid rock that after being hewn into terraces they were obliged to be covered deep with earth before they could serve the purpose of the husbandman. With such patient toil did the Peruvians combat the formidable obstacles presented by the face of their country! Without the use of the tools or the machinery familiar to the European, each individual could have done little; but acting in large masses, and under a common direction, they were enabled by indefatigable perseverance to achieve results to have attempted which might have filled even the European with dismay."

In the same spirit of economical husbandry which redeemed the rocky sierra from the curse of sterility, they dug below the arid soil of the valleys and sought for a stratum where some natural moisture might be found. These excavations, called by the Spaniards hoyas, or "pits," were made on a great scale, comprehending frequently more than an acre, sunk to the depth of fifteen or twenty feet, and fenced round within by a wall of adobes, or bricks baked in the sun. The bottom of the excavation, well prepared by a rich manure of the sardines,—a small fish obtained in vast

gave the name of Andes to the South American Cordilleras. (Memoirs of Gen. Miller, vol. ii. p. 219.) But the name is older than the Conquest, according to Garcilasso, who traces it to Anti, the name of a province that lay east of Cuzco. (Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 2, cap. 11.) Anta, the word for copper, which was found abundant in certain quarters of the country, may have suggested the name of the province, if not immediately that of the mountains.

22 Memoirs of Gen. Miller, ubi supra.-Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. I.