for communal, public, and
private edifices, causing them to be built with very excellent masonry.
It is such that we who have seen it, and know that they did not possess
instruments of iron or steel to work with, are struck with admiration on
beholding the equality and precision with which the stones are laid, as
well as the closeness of the points of junction. With the rough stones
it is even more interesting to examine the work and its composition. As
the sight alone satisfies the curious, I will not waste time in a more
detailed description.

Besides this, Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui, considering the small extent of
land round Cuzco suited for cultivation, supplied by art what was
wanting in nature. Along the skirts of the hills near villages, and also
in other parts, he constructed very long terraces of 200 paces more or
less, and 20 to 30 wide, faced with masonry, and filled with earth, much
of it brought from a distance. We call these terraces _andenes_, the
native name being _sucres_. He ordered that they should be sown, and in
this way he made a vast increase in the cultivated land, and in
provision for sustaining the companies and garrisons.

In order that the precise time of sowing and harvesting might be known,
and that nothing might be lost, the Inca caused four poles to be set up
on a high mountain to the east of Cuzco, about two _varas_ apart, on the
heads of which there were holes, by which the sun entered, in the manner
of a watch or astrolabe. Observing where the sun struck the ground
through these holes, at the time of sowing and harvest, marks were made
on the ground. Other poles were set up in the part corresponding to the
west of Cuzco, for the time of harvesting the maize. Having fixed the
positions exactly by these poles, they built columns of stone for
perpetuity in their places, of the height of the poles and with holes in
like places. All round it was ordered that the ground should be paved;
and on the stones certain lines were drawn, conforming to the movements
of the sun entering through the holes in the columns. Thus the whole
became an instrument serving for an annual time-piece, by which the
times of sowing and harvesting were regulated. Persons were appointed to
observe these watches, and to notify to the people the times they
indicated[81].

[Note 81: The pillars at Cuzco to determine the time of the
solstices were called _Sucanca_. The two pillars denoting the beginning
of winter, whenc