The result of all this intelligent labor was fully commensurate with the thought and skill expended. The Incas produced the finest potato crops the world has ever seen. The white maize of Cuzco has never been approached in size or in yield. Coca, now so highly prized, is a product peculiar to Inca agriculture, and its cultivation required extreme care, especially in the picking and drying processes. Ajï, or Chile pepper, furnished a new condiment to the Old World. Peruvian cotton is excelled only by Sea Island and Egyptian in length of fibre, and for strength and length of fibre combined is without an equal. Quinua, oca, aracacha, and several fruits are also peculiar to Peruvian agriculture.[1219]
The vast flocks of llamas[1220] and alpacas supplied meat for the people, dried charqui for soldiers and travellers, and wool for weaving cloth of every degree of fineness. The alpacas, whose unrivalled wool is now in such large demand, may almost be said to have been the creation of the Inca shepherds. They can only be reared by the bestowal on them of the most constant and devoted care. The wild huanacus and vicuñas were also sources of food and wool supply. No man was allowed to kill any wild animal in Peru, but there were periodical hunts, called chacu, in the different provinces, which were ordered by the Inca. On these occasions a wide area was surrounded by thousands of people, who gradually closed in towards the centre. They advanced, shouting and starting the game before them, and closed in, forming in several ranks until a great bag was secured. The females were released, with a few of the best and finest males. The rest were then shorn and also released, a certain proportion being killed for the sake of their flesh. The huanacu wool was divided among the people of the district, while the silky fleeces of the vicuña were reserved for the Inca. The Quipu-camayoc kept a careful record of the number caught, shorn, and killed.
FROM HELPS.
[Cf. Humboldt’s account in Views of Nature, English transl., 393-95, 407-9, 412. Marcoy says the usual descriptions of the ancient roads are exaggerations (vol. i. 206).—Ed.]
The means of communication in so mountainous a country were an important department in the administration of the Incas. Excellent roads for foot passengers radiated from Cuzco to the remotest portions of the empire. The Inca roads were level and well paved, and continued for hundreds of leagues. Rocks were broken up and levelled when it was necessary, ravines were filled, and excavations were made in mountain sides. Velasco measured the width of the Inca roads, and found them to be from six to seven yards, sufficiently wide when only foot passengers used them. Gomara gives them a breadth of twenty-five feet, and says that they were paved with smooth stones. These measurements were confirmed by Humboldt as regards the roads in the Andes. The road along the coast was forty feet wide, according to Zarate. The Inca himself travelled in a litter, borne by mountaineers from the districts of Soras and Lucanas. Corpa-huasi, or rest-houses, were erected at intervals, and the government messengers, or chasquis, ran with wonderful celerity from one of these stations to another, where he delivered his message, or quipu, to the next runner. Thus news was brought to the central government from all parts of The empire with extraordinary rapidity, and the Inca ate fresh fish at Cuzco which had been caught in the Pacific, three hundred miles away, on the previous day. Store-houses, with arms, clothing, and provisions for the soldiers, were also built at intervals along the roads, so that an army could be concentrated at any point without previous preparation.
Closely connected with the facilities for communication, which were so admirably established by the Incas, was the system of moving colonies from one part of the empire to another. The evils of minute subdivision were thus avoided, political objects were often secured, and the comfort of the people was increased by the exchange of products. The colonists were called mitimaes. For example, the people of the Collao, round Lake Titicaca, lived in a region where corn would not ripen, and if confined to the products of their native land they must have subsisted solely on potatoes, quinua, and llama flesh. But the Incas established colonies from their villages in the coast valleys of Tacna and Moquegua, and in the forests to the eastward. There was constant intercourse, and while the mother country supplied chuñus or preserved potatoes, charqui or dried meat, and wool to the colonists, there came back in return, corn and fruits and cotton cloth from the coast, and the beloved coca from the forests.
Military colonies were also established on the frontiers, and the armies of the Incas, in their marches and extensive travels, promoted the circulation of knowledge, while this service also gave employment to the surplus agricultural population. Soldiers were brought from all parts of the empire, and each tribe or ayllu was distinguished by its arms, but more especially by its head-dress. The Inca wore the crimson llautu, or fringe; the Apu, or general, wore a yellow llautu. One tribe wore a puma’s head; the Cañaris were adorned with the feathers of macaws, the Huacrachucus with the horns of deer, the Pocras and Huamanchucus with a falcon’s wing feathers. The arms of the Incas and Chancas consisted of a copper axe, called champi; a lance pointed with bronze, called chuqui; and a pole with a bronze or stone head in the shape of a six-pointed star, used as a club, called macana. The Collas and Quichuas came with slings and bolas, the Antis with bows and arrows. Defensive armor consisted of a hualcanca or shield, the umachucu or head-dress, and sometimes a breastplate. The perfect order prevailing in civil life was part of the same system which enforced strict discipline in the army; and ultimately the Inca troops were irresistible against any enemy that could bring an opposing force into the field. Only when the Incas fought against each other, as in the last civil war, could the result be long doubtful.
