Page:Native Religions of Mexico and Peru.djvu/171

154 or in other cases cemented or rather macadamized, and often launched over ravines and pierced through hills with remarkable boldness. The Incas had established reservoirs of drinking water for the public use from place to place along these roads, and likewise pavilions for their own accommodation when they were traversing their realms, on which occasions they never travelled more than three or four leagues a day. Bridges were thrown across the rivers, sometimes built of stone, but more often constructed on the method, so frequently described, that consists in uniting the opposing banks by two parallel ropes, along which a great basket is slung. A system of royal courier posts measured the great roads as in Mexico. There were many important cities in Peru, and, according to a contemporary estimate cited by Prescott, the capital, Cuzco, even without including its suburbs, must have embraced at least two hundred thousand inhabitants. Architecture was in a developed stage. We shall have to speak of the temples presently. The Inca's palaces—and