runs from Tumbes as far as Xauxa, and from Xauxa as far as the city of Cuzco. It is stony and rough; if there were not roads made by hand it would not be possible to travel on foot, still less on horseback, and for the roads there are many houses full of materials for repairing the pavement, and in this matter the lords had so much firmness that there was nothing to do but keep it in order.[100] All the mountain fields[101] are made in the guise of stairways of stone, and the rest of the road has no great width because of some mountains that hem it in on both sides, and on one side they had made a buttress of stone so that one day it should not slide down [the mountain], and there are, likewise, other places, in which the road has a breadth of four or five human bodies, all made and paved with stone. One of the greatest works the conquerors saw in this land was these roads. All or most of the people on these slopes of the mountains live on high hills and mountains; their houses are of stone and earth; there are many dwellings in each village. Along the road each league or two or nearer, are found the dwellings built for the purpose of allowing the lords to rest when they were out visiting and inspecting their land; and every twenty leagues there are important cities, heads of provinces, to which the smaller cities brought their tribute of maize, clothes and other things. All these large cities have storehouses full of the things which are in the land, and, because it is very cold but little maize is harvested except in specially assigned places; but [there is plenty of] all the many vegetables and roots with which the people sustained themselves, and also good grass like that of Spain. There are also wild turnips which are bitter. There is a sufficiency of herds of sheep[102] which go about in flocks with their shepherds who keep them away from the sown fields, and they have a certain part of [each] province set apart for them to winter in. The people, as I have said, are very polished and intelligent, and go always clad and shod; they eat maize both cooked and raw, and drink much chicha, which is a beverage made from maize after the fashion of beer. The people are very tractable and very obedient and yet warlike. They have many arms of diverse sorts, as has been told in the relation of the imprisonment of Atabalipa which was sent from Caxamalca, as was said above.[103] CHAPTER XVII Description of the city of Cuzco and of its wonderful fortress, and of the customs of its inhabitants.