oval shields made of leather, beams for roofing the houses, knives and other tools, sandals and breast-plates for the warriors in such great quantity that the mind does not cease to wonder how so great a tribute of so many kinds of things can have been given. Each dead lord has here his house and all that was paid to him as tribute during his life, for no lord who succeeds another [and this is the law among them] can, after the death of the last one, take possession of his inheritance. Each one has his service of gold and of silver, and his things and clothes for himself, and he who follows takes nothing from him. The caciques and lords maintain their houses of recreation with the corresponding staff of servants and women who sow their fields with maize and place a little of it in their sepulchres. They adore the sun and have built many temples to him, and of all the things which they have, as much of clothes as of maize and other things, they offer some to the sun, of which the warriors later avail themselves. CHAPTER XVIII Of the province of the Collao and of the qualities and customs of its people, and of the rich gold mines that are found there. The two Christians who were sent to see the province of the Collao were forty days upon their journey, and, as soon as they had returned to Cuzco where the governor was, they gave him news and a report of all that they had seen and learned, which is set forth below. The land of the Collao is far off and a long way from the sea, so much so that the natives who inhabit it, have no knowledge of it. The sierra is very high and rather broad, and with all this, it is excessively cold. There are in the region no groves or woods, nor is there any wood for burning, and what little there is in use there comes from trade, in exchange for merchandise, with those who live near the sea and are called Ingres, and also with those who live below near the rivers, for these people have fire-wood and they exchange it for sheep[112] and other animals and vegetables, since, for the most part, the land is sterile, and all the people live on roots, herbs, maize and sometimes flesh, not because there is not, in that province of the Collao, a good quantity of sheep, but because the people are so much the subjects of the lord to whom they are bound to give obedience that, without his licence or that of the chief or governor who, by his command, is in the country, they do not kill one [llama], nor do even the lords and caciques dare to kill any without such permission. The land is well populated because wars have not destroyed it as they have other provinces. The villages are of ordinary size and their houses are small, with walls of stone and adobe mixed and covered with roofs of straw. The grass which grows in this land is short and sparse. There are some rivers, although of small volume. In the middle of the province there is a great lake, in length