WHOLE VOL. THE WEST INDIES — VAZQUEZ DE ESPINOSA 387 



over the Indian assignments (encomiendas) in those vast and exten- 

 sive kingdoms. Thus he has at his command a huge sum in the peso 

 incomes of the beneficiaries of the encomiendas which fall vacant ; 

 after he confers the favor, it has to be approved by His Majesty 

 and the Supreme Council. So great is this amount that merely in 

 the district of the Circuit Courts of the Charcas, Lima and part of 

 that of Quito, during the incumbency of Viceroy Don Francisco de 

 Toledo, there was assigned in 614 encomiendas and repartimientos, 

 an income of 1,384,228 assay pesos, although there has been a great 

 falling off, there being no set figure, and the Indians having died off 

 and petered out. 



[Chap. 2. In Which Are Described the King's Highways of the 

 Tncas in the Kingdom of Peru.] 



1148. In this great segment of the New World, two Cordilleras 

 run side by side from the Province of Santa Marta to the Strait of 

 Magellan, over 1,500 leagues. Between these Cordilleras runs the 

 King's Highway, named after the Incas, from Pasto to Chile, which 

 is over 1,000 leagues. The paved road is over 20 feet wide and 

 climbs over passes which look impossible ; and along the whole way 

 every 3 leagues there are Royal Apartments, where the Inca kings 

 lodged, and about them many others for the servants and impedimenta, 

 and for storehouses and granaries to contain the corn, potatoes, and 

 other food for their people, both in time of peace and war. These 

 apartments were built of excellent cut stone ; the stone or rock is 

 laid and fitted one piece above another with such elegant and refined 

 skill that you could never guess they had put any mortar or other 

 substance in between to hold them together. 



1149. Most of these Royal Apartments serve at present as inns 

 for travelers ; they are like roadhouses or taverns, at which travelers 

 stop. As for those not in use, their ruins indicate the grandeur and 

 majesty which prevailed in those days. Furthermore, to show the 

 good administration they had : in order to receive from any quarter 

 brief accounts of what was being done or was going on in any part 

 of the kingdom, they had for the entire length of the King's Highways 

 at intervals of a league, cabins with ordinarily one or two Indians 

 who acted as couriers or postmen ; in that kingdom they call them 

 chasques ; every village along the route was under obligation to keep 

 them there for the governor of that province, and when the Inca 

 needed to send word at top speed, the Indian ran that league at his 

 fastest, and before he reached the next chasque, to warn them to get 



