stratum was taken off from as much as an acre at a place for the purpose of getting a productive field. Fertilizers, including fish and guano, were used, and the latter was brought to the mainland in large quantities from the Chincha islands.*

The principal objects of cultivation were maize, potato, quinoa, plantain, manide, cotton, tobacco, coca, agave, and bamboo. Some of these thrive in the cool, and others in the hot districts. The goose, the dog, an animal similar to the guinea-pig, and the llama were bred for food; and the last was shorn for its wool, and used as a beast of burden. In adaptation to the rocky declivities, stunted herbage, and frequent snows of the high Andes, it is as wonderful as is the camel to the sandy deserts of Arabia. The llama "carries a load of little more than a hundred pounds, and cannot travel above three or four leagues in a day. But all this is compensated by the little care and cost required for its management and its maintenance. It picks up an easy subsistence from the moss and stunted herbage that grow scantily along the withered sides and steeps of the Cordilleras. The structure of its stomach, like that of the camel, is such as to enable it to dispense with any supply of water for weeks, nay, months together. Its spongy hoof, armed with a claw or pointed talon to enable it to take secure hold on the ice, never requires to be shod; and the load laid upon its back rests securely in its bed of wool, without the aid of girth or saddle. The llamas move in troops of five hundred or even a thousand, and thus, though each individual carries but little, the aggregate is considerable. The whole caravan travels on at regular pace, passing the night in the open air without suffering from the coldest temperature, and marching in perfect order,

and in obedience to the voice of the driver. It is only when overloaded that the spirited little animal refuses to stir, and neither blows nor caresses can induce him to rise from the ground. He is as sturdy in asserting his rights on this occasion as he is usually docile and unresisting." To prevent any decrease in the stock of these useful animals, a law provided that none should be slain without permission from the government.

Maize was the staff of life, and was ordinarily eaten in bread or porridge. Fish was often eaten raw. Much of the flesh of the vicuñas and huanacos was used in a dry state. The llama, being larger than the goat, might presumably have been bred to yield much milk, but the idea of obtaining that fluid from their herds does not seem to have occurred to the Quichuans. They made fermented drinks with maize, manioc, and other vegetables; they used tobacco only in the form of snuff,' and the nobles chewed the leaves of the coca, which were forbidden to the common people.R

The crops of grain, cotton, and wool, and the manufactures of cloth and arms, exceeded the requirements of the population in ordinary years; and the surplus was collected in public store-houses, which often contained a stock sufficient for the consumption of ten years. From these stores, any want among the people was supplied, and a tribute was taken by the provincial governor to the imperial capital at every spring equinox.

SEC. 185. Various Arts.-Like other work, weaving was done under official supervision. All the wool, cotton, and agave fiber were collected in public storehouses, and thence distributed among families, with orders to produce specified quantities and qualities of cord and cloth. The garments of the common people were

coarse and warm; those of the sovereign, priests, and other nobles, were, in many cases, very fine, and were dyed with brilliant colors, some of which were more beautiful than any known, at the time, in Europe.' The women did the spinning, weaving, and dyeing.

Their garments were pieces of cotton or woolen cloth, worn, without sewing, as waist-cloths, skirts, or mantles. They had sandals, but no shoes; bands or turbans on the head, but no hats. The people of every department, whether in military service or not, always wore a distinctive color or combination of colors in their clothing; and even if transferred permanently to another department, they and their descendants were required to adhere to their hereditary costume.

The Quichuans dressed skins so as to make them soft, but did not tan with astringent material. Having few trees near navigable water, they built no boats, but they made rafts of logs or reeds, sometimes rendered more buoyant with inflated skins; and they had both paddles and sails for propulsion on the water. Such rafts they used for fishing and for transporting guano from the Chincha Islands to the mainland.

Along the sea-coast, fish were caught in large quantities with net and hook. In the mountains, the wild vicuña and huanaco, animals similar to the llama, were hunted by parties under official supervision. As many as 60,000 men, distributed around a district, gradually approached a common center, where the game was to be caught or killed. At such a hunt 40,000 vicuñas might be captured. All were sheared, and many slaughtered; and then the young females and some of the young males were turned loose. The meat not needed Each game

for immediate consumption was dried.

district had one such circular hunt in a period of four years.

The Quichuan Empire had no foreign commerce by sea or by land. To the east were savages who had nothing of exchangable value; and with those northern or southern neighbors who might have some products valuable for traffic, there was almost continuous warfare. There was no coined money. All the necessaries of life which they could not produce in their families were supplied to them by the government; all the accumulated surplus of their toil went into the hands of the officials.

Public roads connected all the towns with one another. Two main roads parallel with the coast line, each about two thousand miles long, extended through the empire from north to south, one near the level of the sea, the other high up in the Andes. These roads, which impressed Humboldt as among "the most useful and most gigantic works of human enterprise," were twelve or fifteen feet wide, with a paving of flat stones or of small broken stone laid in cement, which is in some places so hard that it stands as an arch after the soil beneath has been

washed away by cross currents of water. Wheeled vehicles being unknown, steep grades and steps were not considered objectionable. Tunnels, bridges, embankments and side-cuts into steep cliffs were used. In crossing streams, the suspension plan of construction was sometimes adopted. For wide streams, cables of osier were twisted to a thickness of ten inches and a length of seventy yards. Such a bridge, the origin of which is attributed by Squier to Quichuan enterprise, crosses the Apurimac at a height of more than a hundred feet above the water, with a span of one hundred and forty-eight feet. On one side it is reached by a

tunnel several hundred yards in length. These roads were intended to facilitate the marching of troops, the journeys of officials, and the transportation of supplies.

At intervals of four or five miles on the main road were huts for runners, who carried official messages or packages at high speed, with a fresh man to take up the burden at every station. In this manner, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles was traversed in twenty-four hours. At distances of eleven miles there were large houses for the accommodation of high officials on their journeys.'

SEC. 186. Buildings.-Houses were built of adobe, stone, and wattle, and roofs were of thatch. Adobe was used in dwellings and temples, and in size and durability was unequaled elsewhere. In Egypt, the thickness never exceeded six inches; in Peru it was often a foot;1 and if we may trust an engraving in Squier, and it seems to be taken from a photograph, some of the Quichuan adobes were five feet in each of the three dimensions." Adobes of such magnitude made of the material used in Egypt and Mexico would be very troublesome to make and to handle. Perhaps the wall was built solid with adobe mortar deposited in a frame, the lines of separation now visible being the limits of each new lot of mortar. Not less remarkable than the size is the tenacity. In other countries, where there are twenty inches or more of rain annually, adobe walls, if left uncovered, within a few years sink down into a mere heap of dirt; but in Peruvian districts, where the rain sometimes comes in torrents, adobe walls thirty feet high* have stood for more than three centuries without a roof, and have not only stood, but have also preserved their cornices and their sharp corners, and their decorations,

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