that for a daughter. The division of the soil was renewed every year, and
the possessions of the tenant were increased or diminished according to
the numbers in his family.14 The same arrangement was observed with
reference to the curacas, except only that a domain was assigned to them
corresponding with the superior dignity of their stations.15

A more thorough and effectual agrarian law than this cannot be
imagined. In other countries where such a law has been introduced, its
operation, after a time, has given way to the natural order of events, and,
under the superior intelligence and thrift of some and the prodigality of
others, the usual vicissitudes of fortune have been allowed to take their
course, and restore things to their natural inequality. Even the iron law
of Lycurgus ceased to operate after a time, and melted away before the
spirit of luxury and avarice. The nearest approach to the Peruvian
constitution was probably in Judea, where, on the recurrence of the great
national jubilee, at the close of every half-century, estates reverted to
their original proprietors. There was this important difference in Peru;
that not only did the lease, if we may so call it, terminate with the year,
but during that period the tenant had no power to alienate or to add to his
possessions. The end of the brief term found him in precisely the same
condition that he was in at the beginning. Such a state of things might be
supposed to be fatal to any thing like attachment to the soil, or to that
desire of improving it, which is natural to the permanent proprietor, and
hardly less so to the holder of a long lease. But the practical operation of
the law seems to have been otherwise; and it is probable, that, under the
influence of that love of order and aversion to change which marked the
Peruvian institutions, each new partition of the soil usually confirmed the
occupant in his possession, and the tenant for a year was converted into a
proprietor for life.