' 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 canals
and subterraneous aqueducts, executed on a noble 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 passed. 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 passage 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.
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