1 8 PERRY, Terraced Cultivation and Irrigation 



& 



Our survey has thus led us right across the Pacific, 

 and has established a chain from Britain to Easter Island, 

 hardly any of the links of which are missing. It will now 

 be our task to examine the American continent, for there 

 terraced irrigation has been practised on an immense 

 scale. 



Irrigation and terraced cultivation were very widely 

 practised in Peru. Mr. Enoch speaking of the terraces in 

 the xAndes says : — " These andenes, or one time cultivated 

 terraces, are a striking feature of the Andes. ... I have 

 journeyed among these interminable slopes in so many 

 parts of Peru, and marked the vestiges of cultivation on 

 the sides of these profound and interminable valleys, 

 where only scattered Indian hamlets and mouldering 

 ruins exist to-day. . . . Nothing has more strongly im- 

 pressed me in the long periods spent in those elevated 

 regions than the evidences of the intensive way in which 

 the soil was cultivated by the early Peruvians. Sitting 

 astride our mules on some high ridge as the sunset 

 shadows fall athwart those little known valleys of the 

 great Cordilleras, we may mark how the declining light 

 touches the irregularities of the slopes, giving a singular 

 rippled or chequered appearance. This effect is caused by 

 the innumerable terraces or andenes, the small fields, one 

 above the other up the precipitous hill sides, fashioned in 

 a way such as must be seen to be believed. 



" The andenes are formed by the method of excavating 

 the soil on the upper side and embanking it on the lower, 

 the earthwork thus levelled being surrounded on three 

 sides by rough retaining walls, slightly battered, as is the 

 case of all stone work of the Inca periods. i\bove the 

 first anden a second was made, followed by another, and 

 so on until the whole mountain side was covered, like a 

 gigantic flight of stairs. In some districts every hill-top 



