Antonio de Espejo
In February 1583, Espejo arrived at the territory of the Piros, the most southerly of the Pueblo villagers. From there the Spanish continued up the Rio Grande. Espejo described the Pueblo villages as "clean and tidy". The houses were multi-storied and made of adode bricks. "They make very fine tortillas," Espejo commented, and the Pueblos also served the Spanish turkeys, beans, corns, and pumpkins. The people "did not seem to be bellicose". The southernmost Pueblos had only clubs for weapons plus a few "poor Turkish bows and poorer arrows". Further north, the Indians were better armed and more aggressive. Some of the Pueblo towns were large, Espejo described Zia as having 1,000 houses and 4,000 men and boys. In their farming, the Pueblos used irrigation "with canals and dams, built as if by Spaniards". The only Spanish influence that Espejo noted among the Pueblos was their desire for iron. They would steal any iron article they could find.
Irrigation in Brazil
Brazil has always been considered a country rich in water. However, Brazil's hydro-climatic regions and irrigation systems vary widely. In the South, frosty conditions in winter have limited irrigation mainly to summer flooding of lowlands for rice production. In the milder Southeast, irrigation in winter has made double-cropping possible. Winter wheat, peas, or beans are rotated with rainfed summer crops, including cotton. Local water shortage occurs in some small watersheds in the Southeast and South where irrigation development and water consumption for industry and municipal use have been relatively uncontrolled. The large size and level terrain of farms in the vast cerrado areas of the Center-West are well suited to center-pivot and self-propelled irrigation systems, which have expanded rapidly in the last few years.