The greatest care was taken that every occupant of the land
through which these streams passed should enjoy the benefit of
them. The quantity of water allotted to each was prescribed by
law; and royal overseers superintended the distribution, and saw
that it was faithfully applied to the irrigation of the ground.
*20
[Footnote 20: Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms. - Memoirs of
Gen-Miller, vol II p. 220.]
The Peruvians showed a similar spirit of enterprise in their
schemes for introducing cultivation into the mountainous parts of
their domain. Many of the hills, though covered with a strong
soil, were too precipitous to be tilled. These they cut into
terraces, faced with rough stone, diminishing in regular
gradation towards the summit; so that, while the lower strip, or
anden, as it was called by the Spaniards, that belted round the
base of the mountain, might comprehend hundreds of acres, the
uppermost was only large enough to accommodate a few rows of
Indian corn. *21 Some of the eminences presented such a mass of
solid rock, that, after being hewn into terraces, they were
obliged to be covered deep with earth, before they could serve
the purpose of the husbandman. With such patient toil did the
Peruvians combat the formidable obstacles presented by the face
of their country! Without the use of the tools or the machinery
familiar to the European, each individual could have done little;
but acting in large masses, and under a common direction, they
were enabled by indefatigable perseverance to achieve results, to
have attempted which might have filled even the European with
dismay.
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