en into competent hands, the different
employments generally descending from father to son. All over the
country stood spacious stone storehouses, divided between the Sun and
the Inca, in which were laid up maize, coca, woollen and cotton stuffs,
gold, silver, and copper, and beside these were yet others designed to
supply the wants of the people in times of dearth. Thus in Peru, though
no man who was not an Inca could become rich, all had enough to eat and
to wear.

To this day the ruins of temples, palaces, aqueducts, and, above all,
the great roads, remain to bear witness to the industry of the
Peruvians. Of these roads the most remarkable were two which ran from
Quito to Cuzco, diverging again thence in the direction of Chili. One
ran through the low lands by the sea, the other over the great plateau,
through galleries cut for leagues from the living rock, over pathless
sierras buried in snow. Rivers were crossed by filling up the ravines
through which they flowed with solid masses of masonry which remain to
this day, though the mountain torrents have in the course of ages worn
themselves a passage through, leaving solid arches to span the valleys.
Over some of the streams they constructed frail swinging bridges of
osiers, which were woven into cables the thickness of a man's body.
Several of these laid side by side were secured at either end to huge
stone buttresses, and covered with planks. As these bridges were
sometimes over two hundred feet long they dipped and oscillated
frightfully over the rapidly-flowing stream far below, but the Peruvians
crossed them fearlessly, and they are still used by the Spaniards. The
wider and smoother rivers were crossed on 'balsas,' or rafts with sails.
The whole length of this road was about two thousand miles, its breadth
did not exceed twenty feet, and it was paved with heavy flags of
freestone, in parts covered with a cement which time has made harder
than stone itself. The construction of the lower road must have
presented other difficulties. For the most part the causeway was raised
on a high embankment of earth, with a wall of clay on either side. Trees
and sweet-smelling shrubs were planted along the margin, and where the
soil was so light and sandy as to prevent the road from being continued,
huge piles were driven into the ground to mark the way. All along these
highways the 'tambos,' or inns, were erected at a distance of ten or
twelve miles from each other, and some o