Northward of this desert region, the land on the shores of the Gulf of Guayaquil and its neighbourhood is covered with the richest vegetation, supported by the numerous streams which descend from the Andes of Quito and Columbia.
Part 3—Chapter VII.
The Indians of the Cordilleras.
Leaving the burning sand-coast, we will ascend once more the steep sides of the Cordilleras to those fertile tracts found at an elevation of many thousand feet above the ocean; but, before describing the brute creation and the vegetable products of this interesting region, we should properly take a glance at the human beings inhabiting it.
When, in 1524, the Spaniards first reached the western coast of South America, of which they were soon to become the conquerors, they found a people greatly advanced in civilisation. They consisted of two distinct races; the one, known as the Incas, showing a decided superiority in intellectual power over the other. Whence they came is unknown; but a tradition existed, that two persons—husband and wife—had appeared some four hundred years before that period in the neighbourhood of Lake Titicaca, announcing themselves as the Children of the Sun. The husband, Manco Capac, taught the men the arts of agriculture; and his wife, Mama Oello (mama, meaning mother), initiating her own sex in the mysteries of weaving and spinning. The wise policy which regulated the conduct of the first Incas (kings, or lords), was followed by their successors, and under their mild sceptre a community gradually extended itself along the surface of the broad table-land, which asserted its superiority over the surrounding tribes.
Fine cities sprang up in different parts of their kingdom, connected by well-formed roads, suited to the nature of the country. Their capital was Cuzco, at some distance to the north of the lake, in latitude 14 degrees south; while the city next in importance to it was Quito, in a rich valley, beneath the equator. These cities were connected by two roads; one passing over the grand plateau, and the other along lowlands at the borders of the ocean. The first was conducted over mountain-ridges, frequently buried in snow; galleries were cut through the living rock; rivers crossed by suspension-bridges; precipices scaled by stairways; and deep ravines were filled up with solid masonry.
This road was upwards of fifteen hundred miles long; and stone pillars, to serve the purpose of mile-stones, were erected at intervals of about a league along the route. Its breadth was about twenty feet. In some places it was covered with heavy flagstones; and in others, with a bituminous cement, which time has rendered harder than the stone itself. Where the ravines had been filled with solid masonry, the mountain torrents have eaten a way beneath it, leaving the superincumbent mass still spanning the valley like an arch. The suspension-bridges—instead of which wretchedly inferior ones of wood are now used—were composed of the tough fibres of the maguey; a species of osier, possessing an extraordinary degree of tenacity and strength. The fibres were woven into cables of the thickness of a man’s body, which were then stretched across the water, and conducted through rings or holes cut in immense buttresses of stone raised on the opposite banks of the river, and there secured to heavy pieces of timber. Several of these enormous cables bound together, side by side, formed a bridge—which, covered with planks well secured, and defended on each side by a railing of the same material, afforded a safe passage for the traveller. The length of this aerial bridge, sometimes exceeding 200 feet, caused it—confined as it was only at the extremities—to dip, with an alarming inclination towards the centre; while the motion given it by the passenger created an oscillation frightful to one whose eye glanced down into the dark abyss of waters, that foamed and tumbled many a fathom beneath.
Over these roads a system of communication throughout the country was kept up by running postmen, called chasquis. Along the roads small buildings were erected, within five miles of each other, at which a number of chasquis were stationed. They were trained to the employment, and selected for their speed and fidelity. As the distance each had to perform was small, he ran over the ground with great swiftness, and messages were carried along all the routes at the rate of a hundred and fifty miles a day. The chasquis not only carried despatches, but brought fish from the distant ocean, and fruits, game, and other commodities, from the warm regions on the coast.