Now that an account has been given of the two kinds of bridges which the Yncas ordered to be made for crossing rivers—one of osiers and the other of grass and rushes—it will be well that we should relate other means and contrivances they used for crossing them; for, owing to their great cost and the time lost in constructing them, the bridges were only made on the main lines of road; but, as that land is so long and narrow, and is crossed by so many rivers, the Indians, taught by necessity, invented various modes of crossing them, according to their different circumstances, as well as for navigating the sea, to the small extent to which they ventured. But for navigating the sea they had no knowledge of piraguas, nor of canoes, like the Indians of Florida, of the Windward Islands, and of the Tierra Firme, which are like troughs; for there is no large timber in Peru suitable for making them; and though it is true that there are very tall trees, the wood is as heavy as iron. They, therefore, used another kind of wood, as slight as a man's thigh, as light as wood of the fig tree, the best kind coming from the province of Quitu, whence it was sent, by order of the Yncas, to all the rivers.