Before going any further, it seems well that I should say what I have learnt in the matter of there being no rain. In the mountains summer commences in April, and lasts during May, June, July, August, and September. In October winter begins, and lasts during November, December, January, February, and March, so that there is little difference in the seasons between this land and our Spain. The fields are ploughed in the proper seasons, and the days and nights are almost equal. The time when the days increase a little and are longest, is during the month of November. But in the coast valleys bordering on the South Sea, the seasons are opposite to what I have here described; for when it is summer in the mountains it is winter on the coast, where we begin the summer in October, lasting till April, and then the winter commences. It is truly a strange thing to consider this great difference in the same country. What is still more worthy of note is, that you may start in the morning from a country where it is raining, and, before vespers, you will find yourself in another where it never rains. From the beginning of October it never rains in any of the coast valleys, except in such small showers as scarcely to lay the dust. For this reason the inhabitants are dependent upon irrigation, and do not cultivate more land than what the rivers can irrigate, for everywhere else (by reason of the sterility) not even a blade of grass will grow, but all is an intensely dry, stony, or sandy waste, where nothing is seen but a tree with few leaves and no fruit. In some parts there are thorn bushes and cacti, in others nothing but sand. What they call winter on the coast is nothing more than the season when clouds arise, which look as if they were charged with plenty of rain, but nothing comes of it save a drizzle so light that it barely damps the ground. It is a strange thing that though, as I have said, the heavens are well charged with clouds, yet it does not rain more than these slight showers. At the same time, some days pass during which the sun is not seen, being concealed by the thickness of the clouds. As the mountains are so high, and the coast valleys so low, it would appear that the former attract the clouds to themselves without allowing them to abide in the low lands. And when it is the natural time for rain, it falls in the mountains, while there is none in the plains, but, on the contrary, great heat. On the other hand, the light showers fall on the coast when the region of the mountains is clear and rainless.
There is another curious thing, which is that there is only one wind on this coast, and that is from the south; and although the wind from that quarter is moist and attracts rain in other countries, it is not so here, and this wind prevails continually along the coast as far as Tumbez. Further up the coast, as there are other winds, it rains, and the winds are accompanied by heavy showers. I do not know the natural reason for these things, but it is clear that this sterile rainless region extends from 4° south of the equinoctial line to beyond the tropic of capricorn.
Another thing, very worthy of note, is, that on the equinoctial line in some parts it is hot and moist, and in others cold and dry; but this land of the coast of Peru is hot and dry, while on either side it rains. I have gathered all this from what I have myself seen, and he who can assign natural reasons for these things, let him do so. As for me, I have said what I saw, and can do no more.[322]
CHAPTER LX.
Concerning the road which the Yncas ordered to be made along these coast valleys, with buildings and depôts like those in the mountains; and why these Indians are called Yuncas.
THAT my writings may be conducted with all possible regularity, I wish, before returning, to conclude what there is to be said about the provinces in the mountains, and to relate what is worthy of remark on the coast, which, as I have said in other parts, is important. In this place I will give an account of the grand road which the Yncas ordered to be made along the coast valleys, which, although now it is in ruins in many places, still shows how grand a work it once was, and how great was the power of those who ordered it to be made.
Huayna Ccapac, and Tupac Ynca Yupanqui, his father, were those who, according to the Indians, descended to the coast and visited all the valleys and provinces of the Yuncas, although some say that Ynca Yupanqui, the grandfather of Huayna Ccapac and father of Tupac Ynca, was the first who saw the coast and traversed its deserts. The Caciques and officers, by order of the Yncas, made a road fifteen feet wide through these coast valleys, with a strong wall on each side. The whole space of this road was smooth and shaded by trees. These trees, in many places, spread their branches laden with fruit over the road, and many birds fluttered amongst the leaves. In every valley there was a principal station for the Yncas, with depôts of provisions for the troops. If anything was not ready, a severe punishment was inflicted, and if any of those whose duty it was to traverse the road, entered the fields or dwellings of the Indians, although the damage they did was small, they were ordered to be put to death. The walls on each side extended from one place to another, except where the sand drifted so high that the Indians could not pave the road with cement, when huge posts, like beams, were driven in at regular intervals to point out the way. Care was taken to keep the road clean, to renew any part of the walls that was out of repair, and to replace any of the posts which might be displaced by the wind in the deserts. This coast road was certainly a great work, though not so difficult as that over the mountains.[323] There were some fortresses and temples of the sun, which I shall mention in their proper places. As, in many parts of the work, I shall have to use the words Ynca and Yunca, I will satisfy the reader as to the meaning of Yunca, as I have already done with regard to Ynca. He will understand, then, that the towns and provinces of Peru are situated in the manner I have already described, many of them in the openings formed by the snowy mountains of the Andes.
All those who live in these mountains are called Serranos, and those who inhabit the coast are called Yuncas; and in many parts of the mountains where the rivers flow, as the mountains are very high, the plains are sheltered and warm, and in some of them there is as much heat as there is on the coast. The inhabitants who live in these warm valleys and plains, although they are strictly in the mountains, are also called Yuncas. Throughout Peru, when they speak of these warm and sheltered places between the mountains, they call them Yuncas, and the inhabitants have no other name, though they may have in their own districts. Thus, those who live in the parts already mentioned, and all who live in the coast valleys of Peru, are called Yuncas, because they live in a warm land.
CHAPTER LXI.
How these Yuncas were very superstitious, and how they were divided into nations and lineages.