Part 10 (1/2)
But, if less successful in exploring the heavens, the Incas must be admitted to have surpa.s.sed every other American race in their dominion over the earth. Husbandry was pursued by them on principles that may be truly called scientific. It was the basis of their political inst.i.tutions. Having no foreign commerce, it was agriculture that furnished them with the means of their internal exchanges, their subsistence, and their revenues. We have seen their remarkable provisions for distributing the land in equal shares among the people, while they required every man, except the privileged orders, to a.s.sist in its cultivation. The Inca himself did not disdain to set the example. On one of the great annual festivals, he proceeded to the environs of Cuzco, attended by his Court, and, in the presence of all the people, turned up the earth with a golden plough, - or an instrument that served as such, - thus consecrating the occupation of the husbandman as one worthy to be followed by the Children of the Sun. *18
[Footnote 18: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 16.
The n.o.bles, also, it seems, at this high festival, imitated the example of their master. ”Pasadas todas las fiestas, en la ultima llevavan muchos arados de manos, los quales antiguamente heran de oro; i echos los oficios, tomava el Inga an arado i comenzava con el a romper la tierra, i lo mismo los demas senores, para que de alli adelante en todo su senorio hiciesen lo mismo, i sin que el Inga hiciese esto no avia Indio que osase romper la tierra, ni pensavan que produjese si el Inga no la rompia primero i esto vaste quanto a las fiestas.' Conq. i. Pob.
del Piru, Ms.]
The patronage of the government did not stop with this cheap display of royal condescension, but was shown in the most efficient measures for facilitating the labors of the husbandman.
Much of the country along the sea-coast suffered from want of water, as little or no rain fell there, and the few streams, in their short and hurried course from the mountains, exerted only a very limited influence on the wide extent of territory. The soil, it is true, was, for the most part, sandy and sterile; but many places were capable of being reclaimed, and, indeed, needed only to be properly irrigated to be susceptible of extraordinary production. To these spots water was conveyed by means of ca.n.a.ls and subterraneous aqueducts, executed on a n.o.ble scale. They consisted of large slabs of freestone nicely fitted together without cement, and discharged a volume of water sufficient, by means of latent ducts or sluices, to moisten the lands in the lower level, through which they pa.s.sed. Some of these aqueducts were of great length. One that traversed the district of Condesuyu measured between four and five hundred miles. They were brought from some elevated lake or natural reservoir in the heart of the mountains, and were fed at intervals by other basins which lay in their route along the slopes of the sierra. In this descent, a pa.s.sage was sometimes to be opened through rocks, - and this without the aid of iron tools; impracticable mountains were to be turned; rivers and marshes to be crossed; in short, the same obstacles were to be encountered as in the construction of their mighty roads. But the Peruvians seemed to take pleasure in wrestling with the difficulties of nature. Near Caxamarca, a tunnel is still visible, which they excavated in the mountains, to give an outlet to the waters of a lake, when these rose to a height in the rainy seasons that threatened the country with inundation. *19
[Footnote 19: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 21. - Garcila.s.so, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 24. - Stevenson, Narrative of a Twenty Years' Residence in S. America, (London, 1829,) vol. I. p.
412; II. pp. 173, 174.
”Sacauan acequias en cabos y por partes que es cosa estrana afirmar lo: porque las echauan por lugares altos y baxos: y por laderas de los cabecos y haldas de sierras q estan en los valles: y por ellos mismos atrauiessan muchas: unas por una parte, y otras por otra, que es gran delectacio caminar por aquellos valles: porque parece que se anda entre huertas y florestas llenas de frescuras.” Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap. 66.]
Most of these beneficent works of the Incas were suffered to go to decay by their Spanish conquerors. In some spots, the waters are still left to flow in their silent, subterraneous channels, whose windings and whose sources have been alike unexplored.
Others, though partially dilapidated, and closed up with rubbish and the rank vegetation of the soil, still betray their course by occasional patches of fertility. Such are the remains in the valley of Nasca, a fruitful spot that lies between long tracts of desert; where the ancient water-courses of the Incas, measuring four or five feet in depth by three in width, and formed of large blocks of uncemented masonry, are conducted from an unknown distance.
The greatest care was taken that every occupant of the land through which these streams pa.s.sed should enjoy the benefit of them. The quant.i.ty of water allotted to each was prescribed by law; and royal overseers superintended the distribution, and saw that it was faithfully applied to the irrigation of the ground.
*20
[Footnote 20: Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms. - Memoirs of Gen-Miller, vol II p. 220.]
The Peruvians showed a similar spirit of enterprise in their schemes for introducing cultivation into the mountainous parts of their domain. Many of the hills, though covered with a strong soil, were too precipitous to be tilled. These they cut into terraces, faced with rough stone, diminis.h.i.+ng in regular gradation towards the summit; so that, while the lower strip, or anden, as it was called by the Spaniards, that belted round the base of the mountain, might comprehend hundreds of acres, the uppermost was only large enough to accommodate a few rows of Indian corn. *21 Some of the eminences presented such a ma.s.s of solid rock, that, after being hewn into terraces, they were obliged to be covered deep with earth, before they could serve the purpose of the husbandman. With such patient toil did the Peruvians combat the formidable obstacles presented by the face of their country! Without the use of the tools or the machinery familiar to the European, each individual could have done little; but acting in large ma.s.ses, and under a common direction, they were enabled by indefatigable perseverance to achieve results, to have attempted which might have filled even the European with dismay. *22
[Footnote 21: Miller supposes that it was from these andenes that the Spaniards gave the name of Andes to the South American Cordilleras. (Memoirs of Gen. Miller, vol II. p. 219.) But the name is older than the Conquest, according to Garcila.s.so, who traces it to Anti, the name of a province that lay east of Cuzco.
(Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 2, cap. 11.) Anta, the word for copper, which was found abundant in certain quarters of the country, may have suggested the name of the province, if not immediately that of the mountains.]
[Footnote 22: Memoirs of Gen. Miller, ubi supra. - Garcila.s.so, Com. Real. Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 1.]
In the same spirit of economical husbandry which redeemed the rocky sierra from the curse of sterility, they dug below the arid soil of the valleys, and sought for a stratum where some natural moisture might be found. These excavations, called by the Spaniards hoyas, or ”pits,” were made on a great scale, comprehending frequently more than an acre, sunk to the depth of fifteen or twenty feet, and fenced round within by a wall of adobes, or bricks baked in the sun. The bottom of the excavation, well prepared by a rich manure of the sardines, - a small fish obtained in vast quant.i.ties along the coast, - was planted with some kind of grain or vegetable. *23
[Footnote 23: Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap. 73.
The remains of these ancient excavations still excite the wonder of the modern traveller. See Stevenson, Residence in S. America, vol. I. p. 359. - Also McCulloh, Researches, p. 358.]
The Peruvian farmers were well acquainted with the different kinds of manures, and made large use of them; a circ.u.mstance rare in the rich lands of the tropics, and probably not elsewhere practised by the rude tribes of America. They made great use of guano, the valuable deposit of sea-fowl, that has attracted so much attention, of late, from the agriculturists both of Europe and of our own country, and the stimulating and nutritious properties of which the Indians perfectly appreciated. This was found in such immense quant.i.ties on many of the little islands along the coast, as to have the appearance of lofty hills, which, covered with a white saline incrustation, led the Conquerors to give them the name of the sierra nevada, or ”snowy mountains.”
The Incas took their usual precautions for securing the benefits of this important article to the husbandman. They a.s.signed the small islands on the coast to the use of the respective districts which lay adjacent to them. When the island was large, it was distributed among several districts, and the boundaries for each were clearly defined. All encroachment on the rights of another was severely punished. And they secured the preservation of the fowl by penalties as stern as those by which the Norman tyrants of England protected their own game. No one was allowed to set foot on the island during the season for breeding, under pain of death; and to kill the birds at any time was punished in the like manner. *24
[Footnote 24: Acosta, lib. 4, cap. 36. - Garcila.s.so, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 3.]
With this advancement in agricultural science, the Peruvians might be supposed to have had some knowledge of the plough, in such general use among the primitive nations of the eastern continent. But they had neither the iron ploughshare of the Old World, nor had they animals for draught, which, indeed, were nowhere found in the New. The instrument which they used was a strong, sharp-pointed stake, traversed by a horizontal piece, ten or twelve inches from the point, on which the ploughman might set his foot and force it into the ground. Six or eight strong men were attached by ropes to the stake, and dragged it forcibly along, - pulling together, and keeping time as they moved by chanting their national songs, in which they were accompanied by the women who followed in their train, to break up the sods with their rakes. The mellow soil offered slight resistance; and the laborer, by long practice, acquired a dexterity which enabled him to turn up the ground to the requisite depth with astonis.h.i.+ng facility. This subst.i.tute for the plough was but a clumsy contrivance; yet it is curious as the only specimen of the kind among the American aborigines, and was perhaps not much inferior to the wooden instrument introduced in its stead by the European conquerors. *25
[Footnote 25: Ibid., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 2.]
It was frequently the policy of the Incas, after providing a deserted tract with the means for irrigation, and thus fitting it for the labors of the husbandman, to transplant there a colony of mitimaes, who brought it under cultivation by raising the crops best suited to the soil. While the peculiar character and capacity of the lands were thus consulted, a means of exchange of the different products was afforded to the neighbouring provinces, which, from the formation of the country, varied much more than usual within the same limits. To facilitate these agricultural exchanges, fairs were inst.i.tuted, which took place three times a month in some of the most populous places, where, as money was unknown, a rude kind of commerce was kept up by the barter of their respective products. These fairs afforded so many holidays for the relaxation of the industrious laborer. *26
[Footnote 26: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 19. - Garcila.s.so, Com. Real, Parte 1, lib. 6, cap. 36; lib. 7, cap. 1. - Herrera, Hist. General. dec. 5, lib. 4, cap. 3.]