48 THE OASES OF THE NORTH-WEST 



the road from the Peruvian tablelands to Chile avoided 

 the inhospitable desert of the Puna de Atacama, entered 

 the region of the valles to the east, and crossed the 

 Cordillera in the latitude of Tinogasta, or even a little 

 further south. That was the route of the armies of the 

 Incas, which in the fourteenth century came as far as 

 Maule. The pre-Columbian roads, of which Boman 

 has found traces between the Valle de Lerma and the 

 Valle Calchaqui, seem to correspond with this direction 

 of traffic. By this route the long quechua passed 

 amongst the Diaguites populations. The conquerors 

 followed the Indian guides. Almagro, in going from 

 Peru to Chile, passed through the valles at the eastern 

 edge of the Andes. 



Later the valles were incorporated in the many 

 variations of the historic high road, one of the first 

 and busiest of Spanish America, which goes from the 

 Rio de la Plata to Lima : a route both for armies and 

 merchants. The plan proposed by Matienzo (1566) 

 to make a road from the silver mines to the estuary 

 of the Parana, through the Valle de Calchaqui, seems 

 to have been intended merely to improve a line of 

 communication that had already been in use. Buenos 

 Aires for a long time received European goods by this 

 road. About 1880 the Salta route recovered for a time 

 its continental importance, during the Pacific War and 

 the occupation by the Chileans of the maritime provinces 

 of Bolivia. 1 At that time it was the only outlet for 

 Bolivia. 



But of all the forms of traffic that have enlivened 

 the valles the most constant, and the form that has 

 had the most profound influence on their existence, is 

 the movement of cattle. The cattle trade has been of 

 fundamental importance in the history of the colonization 

 of South America. Animals were the only goods that 

 could be conveyed any great distance. At the beginning 



* See Brackebusch, " Viaje a la provincia de Jujuy," Bol. Instit. 

 Geog. Argent., iv. 1883, pp. 9-17. 



