34 MEMOIR ON 



that, so soon as the Indians had news of the invasion 

 of the Spaniards, and were informed that their object 

 was to despoil them of their treasures, they demolished 

 their temple, and threw all the fragments and the im- 

 mense wealth appertaining thereto, into the great 

 lake. 



Those Incas, besides the riches they bestowed, and 

 the encouragement they gave for the adornment of this 

 temple, did much to improve the sterile land of this 

 isle, so as to render it more fertile, and fit to produce 

 fruit ; and, in gratitude to the place, on which they 

 believed their ancestors to have descended from heaven, 

 they ennobled it by bringing it into the highest state 

 of fertility and the best of husbandry. To this end 

 they levelled and cleared it of rocks and stones, made 

 gardens and covered them over with good earth and 

 manure brought from afar, and thereby made the 

 ground capable of producing maize, which, by reason 

 of its elevation and its consequent coldness of climate, 

 would not grow in the country adjacent. This grain, 

 with flax and other seeds, they sowed in the gardens 

 they had made, which yielded good increase, the fruits 

 of which they sent as sacred presents to the temple of 

 the sun, and to the select virgins, at Cuzco, with orders 

 to distribute them in all other sacred places throughout 

 the dominions. One year they sent presents to Cuzco, 

 the next to another place, and the third year some- 

 where else, which were held in high esteem, as sacred 

 relics, sowing some in the gardens belonging to the 

 temples, and other public houses, and others they 

 divided among the people. A portion of the grain they 

 cast into the public granaries, and those of the sun 

 and of the king, believing that some divine virtue was 

 contained in it, and that it would bless and increase 

 the corn with which it was mixed, preserve it from cor- 

 ruption, and render it more wholesome for human 

 sustenance ; and that Indian who was so happy as to 

 be able to get but one grain of this maize, to throw into 

 his heap, was possessed with the belief that he should 

 never be in want for bread in the course of his life. 



