Fig. 35—Climatic cross-section showing the location of various zones of cultivation and pasture in a typical intermont basin in the Peruvian Andes. The thickness of the dark symbols on the right is proportional to the amount of each staple that is produced at the corresponding elevation. See also the regional diagram [Fig. 34].
If a given basin lies at an elevation exceeding 14,000 feet (4,270 m.), there will be no cultivation, only pasture. If at 10,000 or 11,000 feet (3,000 or 3,350 m.), there will be grain fields below and potato fields above (Figs. 34 and 35). If still lower, fruit will come in and finally sugar cane and many other subtropical products, as at Abancay. Much will also depend upon the amount of available water and the extent of the pasture land. Thus the densely populated Cuzco basin has a vast mountain territory tributary to it and is itself within the limits of barley and wheat cultivation. Furthermore there are a number of smaller basins, like the Anta basin on the north, which are dependent upon its better markets and transportation facilities. A dominance of this kind is self-stimulating and at last is out of all proportion to the original differences of nature. Cuzco has also profited as the gateway to the great northeastern valley region of the Urubamba and its big tributaries. All of the varied products of the subtropical valleys find their immediate market at Cuzco.
The effect of this natural conspiracy of conditions has been to place the historic city of Cuzco in a position of extraordinary importance. Hundreds of years before the Spanish Conquest it was a center of far-reaching influence, the home of the powerful Inca kings. From it the strong arm of authority and conquest was extended; to it came tribute of grain, wool, and gold. To one accustomed to look at such great consequences as having at least some ultimate connection with the earth, the situation of Cuzco would be expected to have some unique features. With the glorious past of that city in mind, no one can climb to the surrounding heights and look down upon the fertile mountain-rimmed plain as at an ordinary sight ([Fig. 37]). The secret of those great conquests lies not only in mind but in matter. If the rise of the Incas to power was not related to the topography and climate of the Cuzco basin, at least it is certain that without so broad and noble a stage the scenes would have been enacted on a far different scale.
The first Inca king and the Spanish after the Incas found here no mobile nomadic tribes melting away at the first touch, no savages hiding in forest fastnesses, but a well-rooted agricultural race in whose center a large city had grown up. Without a city and a fertile tributary plain no strong system of government could be maintained or could even arise. It is a great advantage in ruling to have subjects that cannot move. The agricultural Indians of the Andean valleys and basins, in contrast to the mobile shepherd, are as fixed as the soil from which they draw their life.
The full occupation of the pasture lands about the Cuzco basin is in direct relation to the advantages we have already enumerated. Every part of the region feels the pressure of population. Nowhere else in the Peruvian Andes are the limits between cultivation and grazing more definitely drawn than here. Moreover, there is today a marked difference between the types that inhabit highland and basin. The basin Indian is either a debauched city dweller or, as generally, a relatively alert farmer. The shepherds are exceedingly ignorant and live for the most part in a manner almost as primitive as at the time of the Conquest. They are shy and suspicious. Many of them prefer a life of isolation and rarely go down to the town. They live on the fringe of culture. The new elements of their life have come to them solely by accident and by what might be called a process of ethnic seepage. The slight advances that have been made do not happen by design, they merely happen. Put the highland shepherd in the basin and he would starve in competition with the basin type. Undoubtedly he would live in the basin if he could. He has not been driven out of the basin; he is kept out.
And thus it is around the border of the Abancay basin and others like it. Only, the Abancay basin is lower and more varied as to resources. The Indian is here in competition with the capitalistic white planter. He lives on the land by sufferance alone. Farther up the slopes are the farms of the Indians and above them are the pastures of the ignorant shepherds. Whereas the Indian farmer who raises potatoes clings chiefly to the edge of the Cuzco basin where lie the most undesirable agricultural lands, the Indian farmers of Abancay live on broad rolling slopes like those near the pass northward toward Huancarama. They are unusually prosperous, with fields so well cultivated and fenced, so clean and productive, that they remind one somewhat of the beautiful rolling prairies of Iowa.