The quarters
whence this motley population came were indicated by their
peculiar dress, and especially their head-gear, so rarely found
at all on the American Indian, which, with its variegated colors,
gave a picturesque effect to the groups and masses in the
streets. The habitual order and decorum maintained in this
multifarious assembly showed the excellent police of the capital,
where the only sounds that disturbed the repose of the Spaniards
were the noises of feasting and dancing, which the natives, with
happy insensibility, constantly prolonged to a late hour of the
night. *31
[Footnote 30: "Esta ciudad era muy grande i mui populosa de
grandes edificios i comarcas, quando los Eespanoles entraron la
primera vex en ella havia gran cantidad de gente, seria pueblo de
mas de 40 mill. vecinos solamente lo que tomaba la ciudad, que
arravalles i comarca en deredor del Cuzco a 10 o 12 leguas creo
yo que havia docientos mill. Indios porque esto era lo mas
poblado de todos estos reinos." (Conq. i Pob. del Peru, Ms.) The
vecino or "householder" is computed, usually, as representing
five individuals. - Yet Father Valverde, in a letter written a
few years after tis, speaks of the city as having only three or
four thousand houses at the time of its occupation, and the
suburbs as having nineteen or twenty thousand. (Cart al
Emperador, Ms., 20 de Marzo, 1539.) It is possible that he took
into the account only the better kind of houses, not considering
the mud huts, or rather hovels, which made so large a part of a
Peruvian town, as deserving notice.
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