nsympathetic laughter at the predicament of their unfortunate sister.

After leaving Lampa we found ourselves on the best road that we
had seen in a long time. Its excellence was undoubtedly due to the
enterprise and energy of the people of this pleasant town. One might
expect that citizens who kept their town so clean and neat and were
engaged in the unusual act of constructing new irrigation works would
have a comfortable road in the direction toward which they usually
would wish to go, namely, toward the coast.

As we climbed out of the Huancahuanca Valley we noticed no evidences
of ancient agricultural terraces, either on the sides of the valley
or on the alluvial plain which has given rise to the town of Lampa
and whose products have made its people well fed and energetic. The
town itself seems to be of modern origin. One wonders why there are so
few, if any, evidences of the ancient regime when there are so many
a short distance away in Colta and the valley around it. One cannot
believe that the Incas would have overlooked such a fine agricultural
opportunity as an extensive alluvial terrace in a region where there
is so little arable land. Possibly the very excellence of the land
and its relative flatness rendered artificial terracing unnecessary
in the minds of the ancient people who lived here. On the other hand,
it may have been occupied until late Inca times by one of the coast
tribes. Whatever the cause, certainly the deep canyon of Huancahuanca
divides two very different regions. To come in a few hours, from
thickly terraced Colta to unterraced Lampa was so striking as to give
us cause for thought and speculation. It is well known that in the
early days before the Inca conquest of Peru, not so very long before
the Spanish Conquest, there were marked differences between the tribes
who inhabited the high plateau and those who lived along the shore
of the Pacific. Their pottery is as different as possible in design
and ornamentation; the architecture of their cities and temples is
absolutely distinct. Relative abundance of flat lands never led them
to develop terracing to the same extent that the mountain people had
done. Perhaps on this alluvial terrace there lived a remnant of the
coastal peoples. Excavation would show.

Scarcely had we climbed out of the valley of Huancahuanca and
surmounted the ridge when we came in sight of more artificial
terraces. Beyond a broad, deep valley rose the extinct volcanic