]
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 passed, 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.
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