d it at times
impossible to discover their way; and perhaps, when searching for it,
another storm arises, and once more spreads the mounds over the level
plain.

In some places the whole soil is covered with a thick crust of salt,
white and hard, giving the country the appearance of being covered with
snow. For months and months together, in many parts not a drop of rain
falls. At length a shower descends, and, as if by magic, the grass
springs up in spots where not a blade was before visible; and for a
short time the whole country puts on a green mantle, soon, however, to
be withered up by the burning heat.

Northward of this desert region, the land on the shores of the Gulf of
Guayaquil and its neighbourhood is covered with the richest vegetation,
supported by the numerous streams which descend from the Andes of Quito
and Columbia.

PART THREE, CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE INDIANS OF THE CORDILLERAS.

Leaving the burning sand-coast, we will ascend once more the steep sides
of the Cordilleras to those fertile tracts found at an elevation of many
thousand feet above the ocean; but, before describing the brute creation
and the vegetable products of this interesting region, we should
properly take a glance at the human beings inhabiting it.

When, in 1524, the Spaniards first reached the western coast of South
America, of which they were soon to become the conquerors, they found a
people greatly advanced in civilisation. They consisted of two distinct
races; the one, known as the Incas, showing a decided superiority in
intellectual power over the other. Whence they came is unknown; but a
tradition existed, that two persons--husband and wife--had appeared some
four hundred years before that period in the neighbourhood of Lake
Titicaca, announcing themselves as the Children of the Sun. The
husband, Manco Capac, taught the men the arts of agriculture; and his
wife, Mama Oello (_mama_, meaning mother), initiating her own sex in the
mysteries of weaving and spinning. The wise policy which regulated the
conduct of the first Incas (kings, or lords), was followed by their
successors, and under their mild sceptre a community gradually extended
itself along the surface of the broad table-land, which asserted its
superiority over the surrounding tribes.

Fine cities sprang up in different parts of their kingdom, connected by
well-formed roads, suited to the nature of the country. Their capital
was Cuzco, at some distance