Note 323 — Chapter LX

Zarate thus describes this coast road of the Yncas. “Through all the valleys of the coast which are refreshed by rivers and trees (which are generally about a league in breadth) they made a road almost forty feet broad, with very thick embankments on either side. After leaving the valleys the same road was continued over the sandy deserts, posts being driven in and fastened by cords, so that the traveller might not lose his way, neither turning to one side nor to the other. The road, like that in the Sierra, is five hundred leagues long. Although the posts in the desert are now broken in many parts, because the Spaniards, both in time of war and peace, used them for lighting fires, yet the embankments in the valleys are still for the most part entire.” Historia del Peru, lib. i, cap. x. Garcilasso de la Vega, in his account of the Ynca roads, merely copies from Zarate and Cieza de Leon (i, lib. ix, cap. 13). See also Gomara (cap. 194).