tranquillity,--a perfect acquiescence in the established order of things. In
this they fully succeeded. The Spaniards who first visited the country are
emphatic in their testimony, that no government could have been better
suited to the genius of the people; and no people could have appeared
more contented with their lot, or more devoted to their government.40

Those who may distrust the accounts of Peruvian industry will find their
doubts removed on a visit to the country. The traveller still meets,
especially in the central regions of the table-land, with memorials of the
past, remains of temples, palaces, fortresses, terraced mountains, great
military roads, aqueducts, and other public works, which, whatever
degree of science they may display in their execution, astonish him by
their number, the massive character of the materials, and the grandeur of
the design. Among them, perhaps the most remarkable are the great
roads, the broken remains of which are still in sufficient preservation to
attest their former magnificence. There were many of these roads,
traversing different parts of the kingdom; but the most considerable were
the two which extended from Quito to Cuzco, and, again diverging from
the capital, continued in a southern direction towards Chili.

One of these roads passed over the grand plateau, and the other along the
lowlands on the borders of the ocean. The former was much the more
difficult achievement, from the character of the country. It was
conducted over pathless sierras buried in snow; galleries were cut for
leagues through the living rock; rivers were crossed by means of bridges
that swung suspended in the air; precipices were scaled by stairways
hewn out of the native bed; ravines of hideous depth were filled up with
solid masonry; in short, all the difficulties that beset a wild and
mountainous region, and which might appall the most courageous
engineer of modern times, were encountered and successfully overcome.