The great 16th-century Spanish chronicler Pedro Cieza de León recalled that these men were so skilled that “not even a pair of sandals” escaped their annual tallies. The Spaniards, who were no slouches themselves in the bureaucracy department—Pizarro’s landing party included 12 notaries—observed that the Incas were remarkably skilled with numbers. The great 16th-century Spanish chronicler Pedro Cieza de León recalled that these men were so skilled that “not even a pair of sandals” escaped their annual tallies. The Spaniards, who were no slouches themselves in the bureaucracy department—Pizarro’s landing party included 12 notaries—observed that the Incas were remarkably skilled with numbers.