History of the Conquest of Peru Part 5

Prim., Ms.]

But this is the dark side of the picture. If no man could become rich in Peru, no man could become poor. No spendthrift could waste his substance in riotous luxury. No adventurous schemer could impoverish his family by the spirit of speculation. The law was constantly directed to enforce a steady industry and a sober management of his affairs. No mendicant was tolerated in Peru. When a man was reduced by poverty or misfortune, (it could hardly be by fault,) the arm of the law was stretched out to minister relief; not the stinted relief of private charity, nor that which is doled out, drop by drop, as it were, from the frozen reservoirs of "the parish," but in generous measure, bringing no humiliation to the object of it, and placing him on a level with the rest of his countrymen. *39

[Footnote 39: "Era tanta la orden que tenia en todos sus Reinos y provincias, que no consentia haver ningun Indio pobre ni menesteroso, porque havia orden i formas para ello sin que los pueblos reciviesen vexacion ni molestia, porque el Inga lo suplia de sus tributos." (Conq. i Pob. del Piru, Ms.) The Licentiate Ondegardo sees only a device of Satan in these provisions of the Peruvian law, by which the old, the infirm, and the poor were rendered, in a manner, independent of their children, and those nearest of kin, on whom they would naturally have leaned for support; no surer way to harden the heart, he considers, than by thus disengaging it from the sympathies of humanity; and no circ.u.mstance has done more, he concludes, to counteract the influence and spread of Christianity among the natives. (Rel.

Seg., Ms.) The views are ingenious, but, in a country where the people had no property, as in Peru, there would seem to be no alternative for the supernumeraries, but to receive support from government or to starve.]

No man could be rich, no man could be poor, in Peru; but all might enjoy, and did enjoy, a competence. Ambition, avarice, the love of change, the morbid spirit of discontent, those pa.s.sions which most agitate the minds of men, found no place in the bosom of the Peruvian. The very condition of his being seemed to be at war with change. He moved on in the same unbroken circle in which his fathers had moved before him, and in which his children were to follow. It was the object of the Incas to infuse into their subjects a spirit of pa.s.sive obedience and tranquillity, - a perfect acquiescence in the established order of things. In this they fully succeeded. The Spaniards who first visited the country are emphatic in their testimony, that no government could have been better suited to the genius of the people; and no people could have appeared more contented with their lot, or more devoted to their government. *40

[Footnote 40: Acosta, lib. 6, cap. 12, 15. - Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 10]

Those who may distrust the accounts of Peruvian industry will find their doubts removed on a visit to the country. The traveller still meets, especially in the central regions of the table-land, with memorials of the past, remains of temples, palaces, fortresses, terraced mountains, great military roads, aqueducts, and other public works, which, whatever degree of science they may display in their execution, astonish him by their number, the ma.s.sive character of the materials, and the grandeur of the design. Among them, perhaps the most remarkable are the great roads, the broken remains of which are still in sufficient preservation to attest their former magnificence.

There were many of these roads, traversing different parts of the kingdom; but the most considerable were the two which extended from Quito to Cuzco, and, again diverging from the capital, continued in a southern direction towards Chili.

One of these roads pa.s.sed over the grand plateau, and the other along the lowlands on the borders of the ocean. The former was much the more difficult achievement, from the character of the country. It was conducted over pathless sierras buried in snow; galleries were cut for leagues through the living rock; rivers were crossed by means of bridges that swung suspended in the air; precipices were scaled by stairways hewn out of the native bed; ravines of hideous depth were filled up with solid masonry; in short, all the difficulties that beset a wild and mountainous region, and which might appall the most courageous engineer of modern times, were encountered and successfully overcome. The length of the road, of which scattered fragments only remain, is variously estimated, from fifteen hundred to two thousand miles; and stone pillars, in the manner of European milestones, were erected at stated intervals of somewhat more than a league, all along the route. Its breadth scarcely exceeded twenty feet. *41 It was built of heavy flags of freestone, and in some parts, at least, covered with a bituminous cement, which time has made harder than the stone itself. In some places, where the ravines had been filled up with masonry, the mountain torrents, wearing on it for ages, have gradually eaten a way through the base, and left the superinc.u.mbent ma.s.s - such is the cohesion of the materials - still spanning the valley like an arch! *42

[Footnote 41: Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms.

"Este camino hecho por valles ondos y por sierras altas, por montes de nieve, por tremedales de agua y por pena viva y junto a rios furiosos por estas partes y ballano y empedrado por las laderas, bien sacado por las sierras, deshechado, por las penas socavado, por junto a los Rios sus paredes, entre nieves con escalones y descanso, por todas partes limpio barrido des...o...b..ado, lleno de aposentos, de depositos de tesoros, de Templos del Sol, de Postas que havia en este camino." Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 60.]

[Footnote 42: "On avait comble les vides et les ravins par de grandes ma.s.ses de maconnerie. Les torrents qui descendent des hauteurs apres des pluies abondantes, avaient creuse les endroits les moins solides, et s'etaient fraye une voie sous le chemin, le laissant ainsi suspendu en l'air comme un pont fait d'une seule piece." (Velasco, Hist. de Quito, tom. l. p. 206.) This writer speaks from personal observation, having examined and measured different parts of the road, in the latter part of the road, in the latter part of the last century. The Spanish scholar will find in Appendix, No. 2., an animated description of this magnificent work, and of the obstacles encountered in the execution of it, in a pa.s.sage borrowed from Sarmiento, who saw it in the days of the Incas.]

Over some of the boldest streams it was necessary to construct suspension bridges, as they are termed, made of the tough fibres of the maguey, or of the osier of the country, which has an extraordinary degree of tenacity and strength. These osiers were woven into cables of the thickness of a man's body. The huge ropes, then stretched across the water, were conducted through rings or holes cut in immense b.u.t.tresses 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, formed a bridge, which, covered with planks, well secured and defended by a railing of the same osier materials on the sides, afforded a safe pa.s.sage for the traveller. The length of this aerial bridge, sometimes exceeding two hundred feet, caused it, confined, as it was, only at the extremities, to dip with an alarming inclination towards the centre, while the motion given to it by the pa.s.senger occasioned an oscillation still more frightful, as his eye wandered over the dark abyss of waters that foamed and tumbled many a fathom beneath. Yet these light and fragile fabrics were crossed without fear by the Peruvians, and are still retained by the Spaniards over those streams which, from the depth or impetuosity of the current, would seem impracticable for the usual modes of conveyance. The wider and more tranquil waters were crossed on balsas - a kind of raft still much used by the natives - to which sails were attached, furnishing the only instance of this higher kind of navigation among the American Indians. *43

[Footnote 43: Garcila.s.so, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 3, cap. 7.

A particular account of these bridges, as they are still to be seen in different parts of Peru, may be found in Humboldt. (Vues des Cordilleres, p. 230, et seq.) The balsas are described with equal minuteness by Stevenson. Residence in America, vol. II. p.

222. et seq.]

The other great road of the Incas lay through the level country between the Andes and the ocean. It was constructed in a different manner, as demanded by the nature of the ground, which was for the most part low, and much of it sandy. The causeway was raised on a high embankment of earth, and defended on either side by a parapet or wall of clay; and trees and odoriferous shrubs were planted along the margin, regaling the sense of the traveller with their perfumes, and refreshing him by their shades, so grateful under the burning sky of the tropics. In the strips of sandy waste, which occasionally intervened, where the light and volatile soil was incapable of sustaining a road, huge piles, many of them to be seen at this day, were driven into the ground to indicate the route to the traveller. *44

[Footnote 44: Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap. 60. - Relacion del Primer Descubrimiento de la Costa y Mar del Sur, Ms.

This anonymous doc.u.ment of one of the early Conquerors contains a minute and probably trustworthy account of both the high roads, which the writer saw in their glory, and which he ranks among the greatest wonders of the world.]

All along these highways, caravansaries, or tambos, as they were called, were erected, at the distance of ten or twelve miles from each other, for the accommodation, more particularly, of the Inca and his suite, and those who journeyed on the public business.

There were few other travellers in Peru. Some of these buildings were on an extensive scale, consisting of a fortress, barracks, and other military works, surrounded by a parapet of stone, and covering a large tract of ground. These were evidently destined for the accommodation of the imperial armies, when on their march across the country. - The care of the great roads was committed to the districts through which they pa.s.sed, and a large number of hands was constantly employed under the Incas to keep them in repair. This was the more easily done in a country where the mode of travelling was altogether on foot; though the roads are said to have been so nicely constructed, that a carriage might have rolled over them as securely as on any of the great roads of Europe. *45 Still, in a region where the elements of fire and water are both actively at work in the business of destruction, they must, without constant supervision, have gradually gone to decay. Such has been their fate under the Spanish conquerors, who took no care to enforce the admirable system for their preservation adopted by the Incas. Yet the broken portions that still survive, here and there, like the fragments of the great Roman roads scattered over Europe, bear evidence to their primitive grandeur, and have drawn forth the eulogium from a discriminating traveller, usually not too profuse in his panegyric, that "the roads of the Incas were among the most useful and stupendous works ever executed by man." *46

[Footnote 45: Relacion del Primer Descub., Ms. - Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap. 37. - Zarate, Conq. del Peru, lib. 1, cap. 11. - Garcila.s.so, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 9, cap. 13.]

[Footnote 46: "Cette chaussee, bordee de grandes pierres de taille, puet etre comparee aux plus belles routes des Romains que j'aie vues en Italie, en France et en Espagne . . . . . . Le grand chemin de l'Inca, un des ouvrages les plus utiles, et en meme temps des plus gigantesques que les hommes aient execute."

Humboldt, Vues des Cordilleres, p. 294.]

The system of communication through their dominions was still further improved by the Peruvian sovereigns, by the introduction of posts, in the same manner as was done by the Aztecs. The Peruvian posts, however, established on all the great routes that conducted to the capital, were on a much more extended plan than those in Mexico. All along these routes, small buildings were erected, at the distance of less than five miles asunder, *47 in each of which a number of runners, or chasquis, as they were called, were stationed to carry forward the despatches of government. *48 These despatches were either verbal, or conveyed by means of quipus, and sometimes accompanied by a thread of the crimson fringe worn round the temples of the Inca, which was regarded with the same implicit deference as the signet ring of an Oriental despot. *49

[Footnote 47: The distance between the posthouses is variously stated; most writers not estimating it at more than three fourths of a league. I have preferred the authority of Ondegardo, who usually writes with more conscientiousness and knowledge of his ground than most of his contemporaries.]

[Footnote 48: The term chasqui, according to Montesinos, signifies "one that receives a thing." (Me. Antiguas, Ms., cap.

7) But Garcila.s.so, a better authority for his own tongue, says it meant "one who makes an exchange." Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 6, cap. 8.]

[Footnote 49: "Con vn hilo de esta Borla, entregado a uno de aquellos Orejones, governaban la Tierra, i proveian lo que querian con maior obediencia, que en ninguna Provincia del Mundo se ha visto tener a las Provissiones de su Rei." Zarate, Conq.

del Peru, lib. 1, cap. 9.]

The chasquis were dressed in a peculiar livery, intimating their profession. They were all trained to the employment, and selected for their speed and fidelity. As the distance each courier had to perform was small, and as he had ample time to refresh himself at the stations, they ran over the ground with great swiftness, and messages were carried through the whole extent of the long routes, at the rate of a hundred and fifty miles a day. The office of the chasquis was not limited to carrying despatches. They frequently brought various articles for the use of the Court; and in this way, fish from the distant ocean, fruits, game, and different commodities from the hot regions on the coast, were taken to the capital in good condition, and served fresh at the royal table. *50 It is remarkable that this important inst.i.tution should have been known to both the Mexicans and the Peruvians without any correspondence with one another; and that it should have been found among two barbarian nations of the New World, long before it was introduced among the civilized nations of Europe. *51

[Footnote 50: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 18. - Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms.

If we may trust Montesinos, the royal table was served with fish, taken a hundred leagues from the capital, in twenty-four hours after it was drawn from the ocean! (Men. Antiguas, Ms., lib. 2, cap. 7.) This is rather too expeditious for any thing but rail-cars.]

[Footnote 51: The inst.i.tution of the Peruvian posts seems to have made a great impression on the minds of the Spaniards who first visited the country; and ample notices of it may be found in Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 15. - Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms. - Fernandez, Hist. del Peru, Parte 2, lib. 3, cap. 5. - Conq. i Pob. del Piru, Ms., et auct. plurimis.

The establishment of posts is of old date among the Chinese, and, probably, still older among the Persians. (See Herodotus, Hist., Urania, sec. 98.) It is singular, that an invention designed for the uses of a despotic government should have received its full application only under a free one. For in it we have the germ of that beautiful system of intercommunication, which binds all the nations of Christendom together as one vast commonwealth.]

By these wise contrivances of the Incas, the most distant parts of the long-extended empire of Peru were brought into intimate relations with each other. And while the capitals of Christendom, but a few hundred miles apart, remained as far asunder as if seas had rolled between them, the great capitals Cuzco and Quito were placed by the high roads of the Incas in immediate correspondence. Intelligence from the numerous provinces was transmitted on the wings of the wind to the Peruvian metropolis, the great focus to which all the lines of communication converged. Not an insurrectionary movement could occur, not an invasion on the remotest frontier, before the tidings were conveyed to the capital, and the imperial armies were on their march across the magnificent roads of the country to suppress it. So admirable was the machinery contrived by the American despots for maintaining tranquillity throughout their dominions! It may remind us of the similar inst.i.tutions of ancient Rome, when, under the Caesars, she was mistress of half the world.

A princ.i.p.al design of the great roads was to serve the purposes of military communication. It formed an important item of their military policy, which is quite as well worth studying as their munic.i.p.al.

Notwithstanding the pacific professions of the Incas, and the pacific tendency, indeed, of their domestic inst.i.tutions, they were constantly at war. It was by war that their paltry territory had been gradually enlarged to a powerful empire. When this was achieved, the capital, safe in its central position, was no longer shaken by these military movements, and the country enjoyed, in a great degree, the blessings of tranquillity and order. But, however tranquil at heart, there is not a reign upon record in which the nation was not engaged in war against the barbarous nations on the frontier. Religion furnished a plausible pretext for incessant aggression, and disguised the l.u.s.t of conquest in the Incas, probably, from their own eyes, as well as from those of their subjects. Like the followers of Mahomet, bearing the sword in one hand and the Koran in the other, the Incas of Peru offered no alternative but the worship of the Sun or war.

It is true, their fanaticism - or their policy - showed itself in a milder form than was found in the descendants of the Prophet.

Like the great luminary which they adored, they operated by gentleness more potent than violence. *52 They sought to soften the hearts of the rude tribes around them, and melt them by acts of condescension and kindness. Far from provoking hostilities, they allowed time for the salutary example of their own inst.i.tutions to work its effect, trusting that their less civilized neighbours would submit to their sceptre, from a conviction of the blessings it would secure to them. When this course failed, they employed other measures, but still of a pacific character; and endeavoured by negotiation, by conciliatory treatment, and by presents to the leading men, to win them over to their dominion. In short, they practised all the arts familiar to the most subtle politician of a civilized land to secure the acquisition of empire. When all these expedients failed, they prepared for war.

[Footnote 52: "Mas se hicieron Senores al za." Ondegardo, Rel.

Prim., principio por mana, que por fuer- Ms.]

Their levies were drawn from all the different provinces; though from some, where the character of the people was particularly hardy, more than from others. *53 It seems probable that every Peruvian, who had reached a certain age, might be called to bear arms. But the rotation of military service, and the regular drills, which took place twice or thrice in a month, of the inhabitants of every village, raised the soldiers generally above the rank of a raw militia. The Peruvian army, at first inconsiderable, came, with the increase of population, in the latter days of the empire, to be very large, so that their monarchs could bring into the field, as contemporaries a.s.sure us, a force amounting to two hundred thousand men. They showed the same skill and respect for order in their military organization, as in other things. The troops were divided into bodies corresponding with out battalions and companies, led by officers, that rose, in regular gradation, from the lowest subaltern to the Inca n.o.ble, who was intrusted with the general command. *54

[Footnote 53: Idem, Rel. Prim., Ms. - Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms.]

[Footnote 54: Gomara, Cronica, cap. 195 - Conq. i Pob. del Piru, Ms.]

Their arms consisted of the usual weapons employed by nations, whether civilized or uncivilized, before the invention of powder, - bows and arrows, lances, darts, a short kind of sword, a battle-axe or partisan, and slings, with which they were very expert. Their spears and arrows were tipped with copper, or, more commonly, with bone, and the weapons of the Inca lords were frequently mounted with gold or silver. Their heads were protected by casques made either of wood or of the skins of wild animals, and sometimes richly decorated with metal and with precious stones, surmounted by the brilliant plumage of the tropical birds. These, of course, were the ornaments only of the higher orders. The great ma.s.s of the soldiery were dressed in the peculiar costume of their provinces, and their heads were wreathed with a sort of turban or roll of different-colored cloths, that produced a gay and animating effect. Their defensive armor consisted of a shield or buckler, and a close tunic of quilted cotton, in the same manner as with the Mexicans.

Each company had its particular banner, and the imperial standard, high above all, displayed the glittering device of the rainbow, - the armorial ensign of the Incas, intimating their claims as children of the skies. *55

[Footnote 55: Gomara, Cronica, ubi supra. - Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 20. - Velasco, Hist. de Quito, tom. I. pp. 176-179.

This last writer gives a minute catalogue of the ancient Peruvian arms, comprehending nearly every thing familiar to the European soldier, except fire-arms. - It was judicious in him to omit these.]

By means of the thorough system of communication established in the country, a short time sufficed to draw the levies together from the most distant quarters. The army was put under the direction of some experienced chief, of the blood royal, or, more frequently, headed by the Inca in person. The march was rapidly performed, and with little fatigue to the soldier; for, all along the great routes, quarters were provided for him, at regular distances, where he could find ample accommodations. The country is still covered with the remains of military works, constructed of porphyry or granite, which tradition a.s.sures us were designed to lodge the Inca and his army. *56

[Footnote 56: Zarate, Conq. del Peru, lib. 1, cap. 11. - Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 60.

Condamine speaks of the great number of these fortified places, scattered over the country between Quito and Lima, which he saw in his visit to South America in 1737; some of which he has described with great minuteness. Memoire sur Quelques Anciens Monumens du Perou, du Tems des Incas, ap. Histoire de l'Academie Royale des Sciences et de Belles Lettres, (Berlin, 1748,) tom.

II. p. 438.]

At regular intervals, also, magazines were established, filled with grain, weapons, and the different munitions of war, with which the army was supplied on its march. It was the especial care of the government to see that these magazines, which were furnished from the stores of the Incas, were always well filled.

When the Spaniards invaded the country, they supported their own armies for a long time on the provisions found in them. *57 The Peruvian soldier was forbidden to commit any trespa.s.s on the property of the inhabitants whose territory lay in the line of march. Any violation of this order was punished with death. *58 The soldier was clothed and fed by the industry of the people, and the Incas rightly resolved that he should not repay this by violence. Far from being a tax on the labors of the husbandman, or even a burden on his hospitality, the imperial armies traversed the country, from one extremity to the other, with as little inconvenience to the inhabitants, as would be created by a procession of peaceful burghers, or a muster of holiday soldiers for a review.

[Footnote 57: "E ansi cuando," says Ondegardo, speaking from his own personal knowledge, "el Senor Presidente Gasca pa.s.so con la gente de castigo de Gonzalo Pizarro por el valle de Jauja, estuvo alli siete semanas a lo que me acuerdo, se hallaron en deposito maiz de cuatro y de tres y de dos anos mas de 15 hanegas junto al camino, e alli comio la gente, y se entendio que si fuera menester muchas mas no faltaran en el valle en aquellos depositos, conforme a la orden antigua, porque a mi cargo estubo el repartirlas y hacer la cuenta para pagarlas." Rel. Seg., Ms.]

[Footnote 58: Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms. - Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap. 44. - Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 14.]

From the moment war was proclaimed, the Peruvian monarch used all possible expedition in a.s.sembling his forces, that he might antic.i.p.ate the movements of his enemies, and prevent a combination with their allies. It was, however, from the neglect of such a principle of combination, that the several nations of the country, who might have prevailed by confederated strength, fell one after another under the imperial yoke. Yet, once in the field, the Inca did not usually show any disposition to push his advantages to the utmost, and urge his foe to extremity. In every stage of the war, he was open to propositions for peace; and although he sought to reduce his enemies by carrying off their harvests and distressing them by famine, he allowed his troops to commit no unnecessary outrage on person or property.