Page:The Incas of Peru.djvu/237

but worked with the distinct object of securing advantages for the empire. From their montaña settlements, quite sufficiently supplied with labour, they received gold in large quantities, coca which was almost a necessary of life for their people, timber for building, wood of the chonta palm for lances and other weapons, bamboos, plumes of feathers, fruit, and medicinal herbs, gums, and resins. In return the colonists received meat and potatoes, maize, clothing, salt and other condiments. The forests of the montaña formed a part, and no unimportant part, of the great system of Incarial administration.