[272] Barley is cultivated successfully in Peru, at heights from 700 to 13,200 feet above the sea. It was introduced by the Spaniards. Von Tschudi, p. 177.
[273] The different tribes of the empire of the Yncas were distinguished by their head-dresses, the people of each province wearing one of a distinct colour. This was not a custom introduced by the Yncas, but, being the usage of the different tribes, those sovereigns decreed that it should be continued, in order that the tribes might not be confounded one with another, when serving in the army or at Cuzco. G. de la Vega, i, lib. vii, cap. 9.
[274] Some kind of aloe.
[275] All these names of parts of the dress are correct Quichua words. The dress here described by Cieza de Leon is exactly the same as those represented in pictures still preserved at Cuzco, which are almost contemporaneous with the conquest.
[276] “The stone made use of for the house of Huayna Ccapac, mentioned by Cieza de Leon under the name of Mulahalo, is a rock of volcanic origin, a burnt and spongy porphyry with basaltic basis. It was probably ejected by the mouth of the volcano of Cotopaxi. As this monument appears to have been constructed in the beginning of the sixteenth century, the materials employed in it prove that it is a mistake to consider as the first eruption of Cotopaxi that which took place in 1533, when Sebastian de Belalcazar made the conquest of the kingdom of Quito.” Humboldt’s Researches, i, p. 6.
[277] These are the ruins called Callo, near Latacunga (Llacta-cunga). In Ulloa’s time they served as a house for the Augustine monks at Quito. As Humboldt says that Ulloa’s description of Callo is very inaccurate, it will be preferable to refer to the account given of the ruins by the great Prussian traveller.
The Yncas Tupas Yupanqui and Huayna Ccapac, when they had completed the conquest of Quito, caused magnificent roads to be formed, and tampus (inns), storehouses, and magazines to be built for the reception of the sovereign and his armies. Travellers have called the ruins of these buildings palaces. The most celebrated of these ruins are those near Latacunga, ten leagues south of Quito, and three leagues from the volcano of Cotopaxi. The edifice forms a square, each side of which is thirty-five yards long. Four great outer doors are still distinguishable, and eight apartments, three of which are in good preservation. The walls are nearly five yards and a half high, and a yard thick. The doors are similar to those in the Egyptian temples, and there are eighteen niches in each apartment, distributed with the greatest symmetry. Humboldt’s Researches.
[278] Cieza de Leon gives the best account of these Mitimaes or Colonists. Indeed, Garcilasso de la Vega quotes from him. (i, lib. vii, cap. 1; and i, lib. iii, cap. 19.) It is curious that the descendants of Mitimaes on the coast of Peru still retain the tradition concerning the villages in the Andes, whence their ancestors were transported. Thus the Indians of Arequipa are descended from Mitimaes who were sent from a village called Cavanilla, near Puno; those of Moquegua, from Mitimaes who were natives of Acora and Ilave, on the shores of Lake Titicaca; and those of Tacna, from natives of Juli and Pisacoma, near the same lake.
[279] I am doubtful about the etymology of this word, but incline to believe that it is derived from the Quichua word Mita (time or turn), whence come other cognate words. From labourers or soldiers taking their turn at work, it came to mean service generally—hence Mitta-runa (a man required to perform forced service) and Mitta-chanacuy (a law of the Yncas regulating the division of labor).
[280] A fermented liquor made from maize, called acca in the Quichua language, and universally drunk by the Indians, in all parts of Peru.