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 of chañar and algarrobo that filled the lower valley, started irrigation, founded communal granaries, and distributed the population in orderly fashion along the valley in the linear manner of the Peruvian coast valleys. Between the dis- tribution in the northern and southern valleys, however, an important difference obtained. In the Chilean valleys climate and topography restrict cultivation to lower altitudes: in the Copiapó valley cultivation stops a little above 4000 feet, The development of the Chilean valleys differed also in respect of external relations. Here the valley roads lead to no broad pla- teau, seat of a comparatively numerous population after the manner of the valleys of Arequipa and Arica that give access to the Titicaca basin. A little huanaco and vicutia wool came down from the cordillera, but the lower valleys were as self- contained and independent as the oases farther north.

On their arrival the Spaniards put into service both the des- ert route and that over the cordillera, especially the former, for the road of the cordillera presented greater difficulties and was closed for part of the year. The road through the desert was made possible by the existence of the line of springs and oases that closely define its course. Traces of the Inca road are still extant. Between Tilomonte and Copiap6, a distance of nearly 300 miles, it is described as running in a straight line and as being a band of cleared earth, about four feet wide and concave in section. On either hand in certain portions of the road are ancient pircas, or stone walls, probably the remains of tam- berias, or rest huts. On the passes traversed by the road are piles of stone, apachetas (p. 23), accumulated as the offering of the Indians to the guardian of the road, in much the same way as the Arab adds a stone “‘for good luck’’ to the piles near the oases.

The journey by sea in the early colonial period consumed an inordinate amount of time. The voyage from Callao to Chile, hugging the shore, usually took a twelvemonth or more, It was not until the early eighteenth century that a bold and ob- servant mariner, noting the regular direction of winds and cur-