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34 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 immense 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 somewhere 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 corruption, 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.