[Footnote 26: Garcilasso, Com. Real. Parte 1, lib. 2, cap. 14.]
[Footnote 27: Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms. - Sarmiento, Rel., Ms., cap. 15.
"Presupuesta y entendida la dicha division que el Inga tenia hecha de su gente, y orden que tenia puesta en el govierno de ella, era muy facil haverla en la division y cobranza de los dichos tributos; porque era claro y cierto lo que a cada uno cabia sin que hubiese desigualdad ni engano." Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms.]
The different provinces of the country furnished persons peculiarly suited to different employments, which, as we shall see hereafter, usually descended from father to son. Thus, one district supplied those most skilled in working the mines, another the most curious workers in metals, or in wood, and so on. *28 The artisan was provided by government with the materials; and no one was required to give more than a stipulated portion of his time to the public service. He was then succeeded by another for the like term; and it should be observed, that all who were engaged in the employment of the government - and the remark applies equally to agricultural labor - were maintained, for the time, at the public expense. *29 By this constant rotation of labor, it was intended that no one should be overburdened, and that each man should have time to provide for the demands of his own household. It was impossible - in the judgment of a high Spanish authority - to improve on the system of distribution, so carefully was it accommodated to the condition and comfort of the artisan. *30 The security of the working classes seems to have been ever kept in view in the regulations of the government; and these were so discreetly arranged, that the most wearing and unwholesome labors, as those of the mines, occasioned no detriment to the health of the laborer; a striking contrast to his subsequent condition under the Spanish rule. *31
[Footnote 28: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 15. - Ondegardo,
Rel. Seg., Ms.]
[Footnote 29: Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms. - Garcilasso, Com.
Real., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 5.]
[Footnote 30: "Y tambien se tenia cuenta que el trabajo que pasavan fuese moderado, y con el menos riesgo que fuese posible. . . . . . . Era tanta la orden que tuvieron estos Indios, que a mi parecer aunque mucho se piense en ello Seria dificultoso mejorarla conocida su condicion y costumbres." Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms.]
[Footnote 31: "The working of the mines," says the President of the Council of the Indies, "was so regulated that no one felt it a hardship, much less was his life shortened by it." (Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 15) It is a frank admission for a Spaniard.]
A part of the agricultural produce and manufactures was transported to Cuzco, to minister to the immediate demands of the Inca and his Court. But far the greater part was stored in magazines scattered over the different provinces. These spacious buildings, constructed of stone, were divided between the Sun and the Inca, though the greater share seems to have been appropriated by the monarch. By a wise regulation, any deficiency in the contributions of the Inca might be supplied from the granaries of the Sun. *32 But such a necessity could rarely have happened; and the providence of the government usually left a large surplus in the royal depositories, which was removed to a third class of magazines, whose design was to supply the people in seasons of scarcity, and, occasionally, to furnish relief to individuals, whom sickness or misfortune had reduced to poverty; thus, in a manner, justifying the assertion of a Castilian document, that a large portion of the revenues of the Inca found its way back again, through one channel or another, into the hands of the people. *33 These magazines were found by the Spaniards, on their arrival, stored with all the various products and manufactures of the country, - with maize, coca, quinua, woollen and cotton stuffs of the finest quality, with vases and utensils of gold, silver, and copper, in short, with every article of luxury or use within the compass of Peruvian skill. *34 The magazines of grain, in particular, would frequently have sufficed for the consumption of the adjoining district for several years. *35 An inventory of the various products of the country, and the quarters whence they were obtained, was every year taken by the royal officers, and recorded by the quipucamayus on their registers, with surprising regularity and precision. These registers were transmitted to the capital, and submitted to the Inca, who could thus at a glance, as it were, embrace the whole results of the national industry, and see how far they corresponded with the requisitions of government. *36
[Footnote 32: Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 34. -
Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., Ms.