[205] This word, as well as the word huaca, at the end of the last chapter, are Quichua: and Cieza de Leon must, I think, have confused them in his mind, in applying them to the language of the Indians of the Cauca valley.

[206] The wealth of the cacique Dabaybe is the theme of many old chroniclers. He seems to have ruled a country near the river Atrato, where gold ornaments are frequently found at the present day. Vasco NuÑez de Balboa went in search of the Dabaybe.

[207] The province of Antioquia, in New Granada, including the lower part of the course of the great river Cauca, is still the least known part of Spanish South America. Even now the account of this region given by Cieza de Leon in this and the following chapters, is the best that has been published. Humboldt was never there, nor is this country described in such modern books of travels as those of Captain Cochrane, Mollien, or Holton. Some of these travellers, as well as General Mosquera in his pamphlet, give accounts of Cartago, Cali, and other places in the upper part of the valley of the Cauca: but none of them visited or described the lower part of the course of that river nor the province of Antioquia. Besides that of Cieza de Leon, I only know of one account of this province, namely that written in 1809 by Don JosÉ Manuel Restrepo, the colleague of the illustrious Caldas, which was published in the “Semanario de la Nueva Granada,” pp. 194-228.

Restrepo says that the province of Antioquia, one of the richest and most fertile in New Granada, was entirely unknown to geographers up to the time when he wrote. No astronomical or other observation had ever been taken in it, and its rivers and other features were either not marked at all, or put down in false positions on the maps. The first map of Antioquia, a copy of which is in the map room of the Royal Geographical Society, was made by Restrepo in 1807. He triangulated the whole province, corrected his bearings by sun’s azimuths, took meridian altitudes of stars for his latitudes, and deeply regretted that he had no instruments to enable him to get his longitudes by observing the eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites. In the Semanario Restrepo gives a long and detailed geographical description of the valley of the Cauca.

[208] In latitude 6° 36´ N. according to Restrepo.

[209] It will be as well here to give, in a few lines, the fate of Vadillo’s expedition. He led his men up the left bank of the Cauca, suffering terribly from want of proper food, the difficulties of the road, and the constant attacks of the Indians. At last his gallant lieutenant Francisco Cesar died. His death filled the soldiers with consternation, and they clamoured for a retreat to the coast. This, however, did not at all suit the views of Vadillo, who knew that imprisonment was awaiting him at Carthagena; and, when the discontent of his men became formidable, he drew his sword and rushed alone into the woods, crying out that, let who would go back, he should press on till he met with better fortune. The men were ashamed and followed him, and eventually reached Cali. Here at last Vadillo was deserted by most of his people, he went on nearly alone to Popayan, was sent by sea to Panama, and thence to Spain for trial. He died in poverty at Seville, before the termination of his trial. This soldierlike lawyer thus completed the discovery of the course of the river Cauca. Though harsh and obstinate, he was a brave commander, and cheerfully shared all privations with his men.

Meanwhile the licentiate Santa Cruz, who had arrived at Carthagena with orders to arrest Vadillo, sent two officers in chase of him in 1538. It is of one of these officers, named Juan Greciano, that a story is told at p. 42. Their troops met those of the captain Don Jorge Robledo, who had advanced down the Cauca from Cali, and joined them.

The expeditions of Cesar and Vadillo, the first discoverers of the valley of the Cauca, thus came to an end without a foot of ground having been permanently conquered. The same fate did not attend the next invader, Don Jorge Robledo. He had accompanied Belalcazar from Quito to Popayan, and in 1541 set out from Cali with one hundred and thirty men, for the conquest of Antioquia. Our young author, on the breaking up of Vadillo’s expedition, seems to have joined that of Robledo, whose fortunes he followed for some time; and he witnessed the conquest of many Indian tribes, and the foundation and settlement of several Spanish towns in this valley of the Cauca.

[210] The river Cauca is still noted for its gold washings, and mines. Boritica, the very place alluded to by our author, is also mentioned by Restrepo as having once yielded great treasure, though now exhausted. The gold of the Cauca valley is mentioned as one of the resources of New Granada in a letter to the Committee of Spanish American Bondholders (New Granada and its Internal Resources, p. 27.) In the beginning of the present century, the Viceroyalty of New Granada yielded 20,505 marcs of gold, worth 2,990,00 dollars, according to Humboldt. In 1850 the produce of gold in New Granada was worth £252,407.

[211] Cui, according to Velasco, is the smallest kind of rabbit in the country. From most ancient times the Indians have bred great quantities of these Cuis or Ccoys (guinea pigs) in their houses. He describes them as under five or six dedos, but very broad and thick, with round ears, great variety in colour, and very fat delicate flesh. Hist. de Quito, i. p. 89.

[212] The Atrato.

[213] Cieza de Leon calls the Canea, the river of Santa Martha. In this part of its course it flows between two chains of mountains, which only leave a space of one hundred or two hundred yards between them and the river. The stream is full of huge blocks of rock causing numerous rapids, and impeding navigation.

[214] Probably the Ceroxylon andicola.

[215] A repartimiento was a grant of Indians, who were bound to pay tribute and to render personal service.

[216] Or Pitajaya (Cereus Pitajaya, De Cand.), a cactus used for making fences.

[217] Vanilla?

[218] Or carats, a small weight used for gold and silver. It was the twenty-fourth part of a marc, so that nineteen carats would mean nineteen parts of pure gold and five of alloy, in the marc.

[219] Encomiendas were estates granted to the Spanish conquerors, the inhabitants of which were bound to pay tribute and to render personal service to the holders of the grants. Pizarro was empowered to grant encomiendas to his followers in 1529, and in 1536 these grants were extended to two lives; but by the “New Laws,” enacted in 1542, the encomiendas were to pass immediately to the crown after the death of the actual holders, and a fixed sum was to be settled as tribute to be paid by the Indians. All forced labour was also absolutely forbidden. The conquerors were furious at the promulgation of these humane laws, and, it being considered unsafe to enforce them, they were revoked in 1545. The president Gasca redistributed the encomiendas in Peru in 1550, and they were granted for three lives in 1629. For further information on this subject see my Travels in Peru and India, chap. viii.

[220] Jatropha Manihot, Lin., an excellent edible root.

[221] Psidium Guayava Raddi.

[222] Persea gratissima. R. P.

[223] That is, “As the Indians themselves have no greed after gold, it behoves the Spaniards to show them that avarice is not the only motive which influences the conduct of their conquerors.”

[224] Francisco Hernandez Giron was afterwards famous as the leader of the final rebellion in Peru. The anger of the Spanish soldiers at a law prohibiting the use of Indians as beasts of burden enabled him to assemble a number of discontented spirits at Cuzco in November 1553. He routed the royal army at Chuquinga, but was finally defeated at Pucara, and publicly beheaded in the great square of Lima. His head was hung up in an iron cage, besides those of Gonzalo Pizarro and Carbajal.

[225] When Vadillo’s expedition came to an end, our young author transferred his services to Don Jorge Robledo.

Robledo was one of the followers of Sebastian de Belalcazar, the discoverer of Quito and Popayan, and was detached by him for the conquest of the Cauca valley. After Robledo had founded the city of Antioquia in 1541, he determined to go to Spain by way of Carthagena, and solicit the formation of a separate government for himself, to be carved out of the grant formerly made to Belalcazar. On arriving at San Sebastian de Uraba, he was arrested by Don Pedro de Heredia, who had returned from Spain with renewed titles and privileges, accused of an attempt to upset his government, and sent to Spain for trial. In 1546 Robledo returned from Spain with the title of marshal, and, landing at San Sebastian, marched once more up the valley of the Cauca. Belalcazar demanded that he should retire from the territory which he had invaded, and, by forced marches, surprised him on the 1st of October 1546, and took him prisoner. The unfortunate Robledo was reviled by his captor as a deserter, traitor, and usurper, and finally hung, although he entreated to be beheaded as became a knight.

[226] Muchos tienen con la una mano la vasija con que estan bebiendo, y con la otra el miembro con que orinan.

[227] The tendency to the partial adoption of the rule of female succession amongst these Indians is worthy of note. When a chief had no son, the son of his sister succeeded, to the exclusion of brothers’ sons. It appears that this was the general practice amongst the Indians of the valley of the Cauca. The Indians of Anzerma (see p. 64), of Arma (see p. 73), and of Carrapa, all adopted it; and Velasco says that the same custom prevailed in the family of the Scyris or ancient kings of Quito. (Hist. de Quito, i, p. 8.) It is well known that with the Nairs of Malabar the rule of female succession is absolute, and that the son of a sister succeeds to the exclusion of the possessor’s son. The heirs apparent in these South American tribes seem to have had sufficient influence to ensure their own succession, although the sister’s son came next, even to the exclusion, as Velasco tells us, of daughters. Friar Jordanus gives us the reason for this rule amongst the people of Malabar:—“Whatever man may be the father of their sister they are certain that the offspring is from the womb of their sister, and is consequently thus truly of their blood.” Colonel Yule, in a note to his edition of Friar Jordanus (Hakluyt Society’s volume for 1863, p. 32), has given a list of all the people amongst whom this custom of female succession has prevailed. They are the Nairs of Malabar, the people of Canara, the aborigines of Hispaniola, the tribes of New Granada, the royal family of Quito, the negro tribes of the Niger, certain sections of the Malays of Sumatra, the royal family of Tipura, the Kasias of the Sylhet mountains, the people of a district in Ceylon adjoining Bintenne, in Madagascar, the Fiji Islanders, and the Hurons and Natchez Indians of North America.

[228] About half a gallon.

[229] The estolica, used by South American Indians, consists of flattened pieces of wood about a yard long, in the upper end of which a bone is fixed. A long dart is fastened on the bone, and hurled with tremendous force and sure aim.

[230] Truly! so long ago that it is the merest waste of time to make conjectures or surmises as to whence they came. The testimony given by Cieza de Leon that, even in his time, there was evidence of the country having once been far more densely peopled, is very interesting.

[231] Half a gallon.

[232] One arroba = 25 lbs.

[233] Chrysophyllum Caimito, Linn., or star apple.

[234] Alligator pear. Persea gratissima R. P.

[235] Inga spectabilis.

[236] Psidium Guayava, Raddi.

[237] Velasco says that the chucha, tututu, or guanchaca, is a sort of domestic fox, rather larger than a cat, with a very long tail, generally without hair; it is very cunning, is seldom seen in the daytime, and carries its young in a bag which opens and shuts on its belly, within which are the two nipples of its teats. Hist. de Quito, i, p. 92. Probably this is the small opossum of the genus Didelphys.

[238] Velasco describes the guadaquinaje as about the size of a hare, with no tail, and very good for food. Found in the warm parts of the province of Popayan. i, p. 89.

[239] The Magdalena.

[240] The Atrato.

[241] Psidium Guayava Raddi.

[242] Inga spectabilis Willd.

[243] Anona muricata Linn.

[244] Persea gratissima R. P. In other places he calls it Aguacate. Palta is the Quichua word.

[245] See note at page 72.

[246] The fruit of the passion flower.

[247] The licentiate Pascual de Andagoya came to the Indies in the train of Pedrarias, governor of Panama, and was appointed governor of San Juan, including the coast of the Pacific between the gulf of San Miguel and the river of San Juan, in 1539. He landed at the mouth of the river Dagua, and marched inland until he came to the town of Cali, which he claimed as coming within the limits of his jurisdiction. At this time Belalcazar was in Spain, petitioning for the government of Popayan. When he received it, with the title of Adelantado, he came out by way of Panama, landed at Buenaventura, and marched to Cali. Here the people received him as their governor, and he arrested Andagoya as an intruder, and sent him prisoner to Spain. Andagoya was a learned man, and wrote a Relacion of his expedition, which occupies sixty pages of Navarrete’s work.

[248] Mollien describes Buenaventura as consisting of a dozen huts inhabited by negroes, a barrack with eleven soldiers, a battery of three guns, and the residence of the governor built of straw and bamboo, on an island called Kascakral, covered with grass, brambles, mud, serpents and toads. Travels in Colombia, 1824, p. 299.

[249] Or Jamondi.

[250] See note to page 72.

[251] Grange or farm.

[252] After the fall of Robledo, our author attached his fortunes to those of Belalcazar.

Sebastian de Belalcazar was born in a village called Belalcazar, on the borders of Estremadura and Andalucia. He was the child of a peasant, and one day, having killed the only donkey possessed by his family because it was slow in getting over a miry road, the ill-conditioned young rascal run away, fearing to return home, and reached Seville in 1514. At that time Pedrarias was enlisting men for his expedition to the isthmus of Darien, and the fugitive took service as a soldier in one of the ships. He knew not of any other name by which he was called, save Sebastian, and to it was added the name of his birthplace. It is said that his father’s name was Moyano. On one occasion his sagacity saved the governor Pedrarias when he was nearly lost in the woods near Darien, and from that time his fortune was made. Pedrarias sent him in the expedition to Nicaragua, where he assisted in the founding of the city of Leon, and he afterwards followed Pizarro to Peru. Pizarro appointed him governor of San Miguel, whence he marched, with a force of one hundred and forty well-armed soldiers, to the city of Quito in 1533. In 1536 he set out from Quito, discovered Popayan and Pasto, and the valley of the Cauca, and reached Bogota in 1538. Thence he descended the Magdalena and returned to Spain, where, to check the ambition of the Pizarros, Charles V granted him the government of Popayan, with the title of adelantado. He went out again by way of Panama, landed at Buenaventura on the Pacific coast, and marched to Cali, where he seized Andagoya and established his own authority. Afterwards he was wounded fighting on the side of the Viceroy Vela against Gonzalo Pizarro at AÑaquito, he treated Robledo with harsh cruelty, and he marched to the assistance of the President Gasca against Gonzalo Pizarro, on which occasion he was accompanied by our author. BriceÑo, a judge, who had married the widow of Robledo, was sent to examine into the conduct of Belalcazar, and, urged by his wife, was not very favourably disposed towards him. Indeed he condemned him to death for the murder of Robledo. Belalcazar appealed, and set out for Spain with a heavy heart. He died at Carthagena on his way home in the year 1550.

[253] The Magdalena. By the two branches he means the Magdalena and the Cauca.

[254] Manatus Americanus. They are also called by the Spaniards Vaca Marina, and by the Portuguese Pegebuey, and they abound in the great South American rivers, especially in the Amazon. The manatee is a sort of porpoise, often eight feet long. See the very interesting account of it given by AcuÑa, at page 68 of my translation of that author. (Hakluyt Society’s Vol. for 1859.)

[255] I cannot make out what this can be. It may possibly mean the grain called quinoa (Chenopodium Quinoa), which is cultivated in the loftier parts of the Andes.

[256] The fruit of the passion-flower.

[257] Literally “Blue river.”

[258] Paramo is the name given, in the Quito provinces, to the elevated plateaux of the Andes. In Peru they are called Punas.

[259] Lorenzo de Aldana came to Peru with the Adelantado Pedro de Alvarado. He was appointed lieutenant-governor of Quito by Pizarro, and it was then that he founded the town of Pasto. During the subsequent civil wars he acted a very conspicuous part, especially in the battle of Chupas, when the younger Almagro was defeated. When Gonzalo Pizarro determined to send an embassy to Spain to obtain a confirmation of his authority, Aldana was selected as his envoy in 1546; but he was won over to the side of Gasca at Panama, by the persuasions of that wily ecclesiastic. He was then sent to cruise off Callao, and receive all those on board who wished to join the royal cause; and during the remainder of the struggle he took an active part against his old commander. Aldana died at Arequipa in 1556, unmarried and leaving no children. In his will he left all his property to the Indians whom he had received in repartimiento, for the payment of their tribute in future years. He seems to have been a noble minded man, and superior to the common run of Spanish conquistadores. Aldana was not the only conquistador whose conscience smote him on his death bed, when too late, for his treatment of the Indians. The curious dying confession of Marcio Serra de Lejesama, addressed to Philip II in 1589, is another instance of these stony-hearted men being moved at last. (Calancha, i, cap. 15. p. 98.). After telling the simple truth concerning the poor Indians, their former happy state, and the desolate misery to which the Spaniards had reduced them, the guilty wretch thus concludes: “I pray to God that he will pardon me, for I am the last to die of all the conquerors and discoverers; it is notorious that there are none surviving except I alone, in all this kingdom nor out of it; and I now do what I can to relieve my conscience.”

[260] Prosopis horrida. Willd.

[261] Bricks of immense size, baked in the sun.

[262] See note at page 143.

[263] Rumi (a stone) and chaca (a bridge) in Quichua.

[264] Yahuar (blood) and Cocha (a lake) in Quichua.

[265] After the conquest of Quito by Huayna Ccapac, the cacique of Carangue was the first to submit to his authority, and, while he lulled the Ynca and his captains into security, he meditated their destruction by a sudden and secret blow. Suspecting nothing, they were encamped in his country, when his Indians made a furious attack upon them in the dead of night, many of the nobles of the guard were killed, and the Ynca himself narrowly escaped with his life. Huayna Ccapac resolved to give these people of Carangue a terrible and memorable lesson. He put every man in the province, who was capable of bearing arms, to death, and ordered their bodies to be thrown into the lake, which to this day is called “the lake of blood.” Garcilasso de la Vega considers that the number stated by Cieza de Leon to have been put to death on this occasion is an exaggeration, and that two thousand would be nearer the truth than twenty thousand. G. de la Vega, i, lib. ix, cap. ii; Velasco, i, p. 18.

[266] Huayna (a youth) and cuna (the plural) in Quichua.

[267] Before the country of Quito was conquered by the Yncas, it was governed by native kings called Scyris. The Ynca Tupac Yupanqui first extended his dominion beyond the frontiers of Quito, and Huayna Ccapac completed the conquest in 1487. Cacha, the last Scyri, was killed in battle, and Paccha, his only daughter, was married to Huayna Ccapac and became the mother of Atahualpa.

[268] The Amazon.

[269] It seems to be generally allowed, even by Velasco, that all the ruins in the kingdom of Quito date from the time of the Yncas, and that none can be referred to the Scyris, or native kings.

[270] It was partly in search of this spice, that Gonzalo Pizarro undertook his famous expedition into Quijos. The dried calyx alone is used as a spice, and its flavour resembles a mixture of cinnamon and cloves. The tree is a species of Lauracea. Herrera describes it as resembling an olive, with large pods. Velasco declares that the cinnamon of his country exceeds that of Ceylon in fragrance and sweetness. Garcilasso de la Vega says that the cinnamon tree of Quijos, a province of Quito, is very tall, with large leaves, and fruit growing in clusters like acorns. He adds that many grow wild in the forests, but that they are not so good as those which the Indians get from trees which they plant and cultivate for their own use, but not for the people of Peru, who care for nothing but their own condiment called uchu (aji, pepper). When I was in the forests of Caravaya, in Southern Peru, I met with trees of great height which my guide called canela (cinnamon). The inner bark had a strong taste of that spice, and the natives use it to scent and flavour their huarapu or fermented juice of the sugar cane. G. de la Vega, ii, lib. iii, cap. 2; Velasco, i, p. 51; Markham’s Travels in Peru and India, p. 264.

[271] The quinua (Chenopodium Quinua L.) is cultivated in the higher parts of the Andes of Quito and Peru, and is probably the hardiest cereal in the world, growing at the greatest elevation above the level of the sea. Velasco mentions two kinds, the white and red. The former is a small white round grain, extensively raised on the cold lofty mountains, and yielding good food; the latter, a very small round red grain, only eaten toasted. Garcilasso de la Vega mentions quinua as having been extensively cultivated by the ancient Peruvians, both for the sake of the grain, and for the leaves, which they use in soup. He sent some seeds of it to Spain in the year 1590, but they did not come up. In Quichua the cultivated plant is called quinua; the green leaves, lliccha; the plant growing wild, azar; a pudding made of quinua grains, pisque; and boiled quinua grains, dried in the sun and ground into a coarse powder for food on a journey, quispiÑa. At harvest time the stalks are cut and tied up in bundles, and the grain is then beaten out with sticks. It is an insipid and not very nutritious grain.

Ulloa gives the following account of the quinoa. It resembles a lentil in shape, but is much smaller and very white. When boiled it opens, and out of it comes a spiral fibre, which appears like a small worm, but whiter than the husk of the grain. It is an annual plant, being sown every year. The stem is about three or four feet in height, and has a large pointed leaf. The flower is of a deep red, and five or six inches long, and in it are contained the grains or seeds. The quinoa is eaten boiled like rice, and has a very pleasant taste. It is used in external applications, ground and boiled to a proper consistency, and applied to the part affected, from which it soon extracts all corrupt humours occasioned by a contusion. Ulloa’s Voyage, i, p. 290.

[272] Barley is cultivated successfully in Peru, at heights from 700 to 13,200 feet above the sea. It was introduced by the Spaniards. Von Tschudi, p. 177.

[273] The different tribes of the empire of the Yncas were distinguished by their head-dresses, the people of each province wearing one of a distinct colour. This was not a custom introduced by the Yncas, but, being the usage of the different tribes, those sovereigns decreed that it should be continued, in order that the tribes might not be confounded one with another, when serving in the army or at Cuzco. G. de la Vega, i, lib. vii, cap. 9.

[274] Some kind of aloe.

[275] All these names of parts of the dress are correct Quichua words. The dress here described by Cieza de Leon is exactly the same as those represented in pictures still preserved at Cuzco, which are almost contemporaneous with the conquest.

[276] “The stone made use of for the house of Huayna Ccapac, mentioned by Cieza de Leon under the name of Mulahalo, is a rock of volcanic origin, a burnt and spongy porphyry with basaltic basis. It was probably ejected by the mouth of the volcano of Cotopaxi. As this monument appears to have been constructed in the beginning of the sixteenth century, the materials employed in it prove that it is a mistake to consider as the first eruption of Cotopaxi that which took place in 1533, when Sebastian de Belalcazar made the conquest of the kingdom of Quito.” Humboldt’s Researches, i, p. 6.

[277] These are the ruins called Callo, near Latacunga (Llacta-cunga). In Ulloa’s time they served as a house for the Augustine monks at Quito. As Humboldt says that Ulloa’s description of Callo is very inaccurate, it will be preferable to refer to the account given of the ruins by the great Prussian traveller.

The Yncas Tupas Yupanqui and Huayna Ccapac, when they had completed the conquest of Quito, caused magnificent roads to be formed, and tampus (inns), storehouses, and magazines to be built for the reception of the sovereign and his armies. Travellers have called the ruins of these buildings palaces. The most celebrated of these ruins are those near Latacunga, ten leagues south of Quito, and three leagues from the volcano of Cotopaxi. The edifice forms a square, each side of which is thirty-five yards long. Four great outer doors are still distinguishable, and eight apartments, three of which are in good preservation. The walls are nearly five yards and a half high, and a yard thick. The doors are similar to those in the Egyptian temples, and there are eighteen niches in each apartment, distributed with the greatest symmetry. Humboldt’s Researches.

[278] Cieza de Leon gives the best account of these Mitimaes or Colonists. Indeed, Garcilasso de la Vega quotes from him. (i, lib. vii, cap. 1; and i, lib. iii, cap. 19.) It is curious that the descendants of Mitimaes on the coast of Peru still retain the tradition concerning the villages in the Andes, whence their ancestors were transported. Thus the Indians of Arequipa are descended from Mitimaes who were sent from a village called Cavanilla, near Puno; those of Moquegua, from Mitimaes who were natives of Acora and Ilave, on the shores of Lake Titicaca; and those of Tacna, from natives of Juli and Pisacoma, near the same lake.

[279] I am doubtful about the etymology of this word, but incline to believe that it is derived from the Quichua word Mita (time or turn), whence come other cognate words. From labourers or soldiers taking their turn at work, it came to mean service generally—hence Mitta-runa (a man required to perform forced service) and Mitta-chanacuy (a law of the Yncas regulating the division of labor).

[280] A fermented liquor made from maize, called acca in the Quichua language, and universally drunk by the Indians, in all parts of Peru.

[281] “Y como estan sin sentido, algunos toman las mugeres que quieren, y llevadas a alguna casa, usan con ellas sus luxurias, sin tenerlo por cosa fea; porque ni entienden el don que esta debaxo de la verguenÇa, ni miran mucho en la honra, ni tienen mucha cuenta con el mundo.”

[282] This account of the great Ynca road from Quito to Cuzco is quoted at length by Garcilasso de la Vega (i, lib. ix, cap. 13).

Zarate, the Accountant, was equally impressed with the grandeur of this work. He says that “the road was made over the mountains for a distance of five hundred leagues. It was broad and level, rocks were broken up and levelled where it was necessary, and ravines were filled up. When the road was finished it was so level that carts might have passed along it. The difficulty of this road will be understood when it is considered how great the cost and labour has been in levelling two leagues of hilly country in Spain, between Espinar de Segovia and Guadarramar, which has never yet been completely done, although it is the route by which the Kings of Castille continually pass, with their households and their court, every time they go to or come from Andalusia.” Zarate was Comptroller of Accounts for Castille from 1528 to 1543, and in 1544 he went to Peru to hold the same office. He was an educated man and an eye-witness, so that his testimony is valuable. Historia del Peru, lib. i, cap. 10.

Velasco, who was a native of Riobamba, near Quito, measured the breadth of the great road of the Yncas, and found it to be about six yards in one place, and seven in another. He says that the parts cut through the living rock were covered with a cement to make the surface smooth, while the loose places were paved with stones and covered with the same cement, in which he observed very small stones, not much larger than grains of sand. To cross ravines the road was raised with great pieces of rock united together by cement; and he adds that this cement was so strong that, where torrents had worked their way through the embankments, the road still spanned the ravines in the form of bridges. Hist. de Quito, i, p. 59.

[284] These Cavalleros played a very conspicuous part in the conquests and civil wars of Peru. For an account of Alonzo de Alvarado, see my Life of Enriquez de Guzman, p. 109 (note); of Diego de Alvarado, Ibid., p. 124 (note).

[285] Garcilasso de la Vega was born, of noble parentage, in the city of Badajos, in Estremadmura. His great-grandfather was Gomez Suarez de Figueroa, the first Count of Feria, by Elvira Lasso de la Vega. This lady was a sister of the famous Marquis of Santillana, the charming poet, and founder of the great family of Mendoza. She was a maternal granddaughter of that Garcilasso who in 1372 received the surname of “de la Vega,” in memory of a famous duel fought with a Moorish giant before the walls of Granada:—

The lady’s paternal grandfather was Don Diego de Mendoza, the knight who, in the battle of Aljubarrota with the Portuguese in 1385, saved the life of King John I by giving him his horse, when his own was killed under him, a loyal act which is commemorated in an old ballad:—

The subject of this note was a second cousin twice removed of Garcilasso de la Vega the poet, whose poems were published with those of his friend Boscan in 1544.

So much for Garcilasso’s descent, which was sufficiently noble and distinguished. He was a young man of twenty-five years of age, tall, handsome, polished, generous, and well practised in the use of arms, when in 1531 he set out for the New World as a captain of infantry in company with Alonzo de Alvarado, who was returning to resume his government of Guatemala. That famous chief, on hearing of the riches of Peru, set out with a large fleet from Nicaragua, and landed in the bay of Caragues in March 1534. Garcilasso de la Vega accompanied him, and shared in all the terrible hardships and sufferings of the subsequent march to Riobamba. After the convention with Almagro, and the dispersion of Alvarado’s forces, Garcilasso was sent to complete the conquest of the country round the port of Buenaventura. He and his small band of followers forced their way for many days through dense uninhabited forests, enduring almost incredible hardships, and finding nothing to repay their labours. He displayed much constancy and endurance and persevered during a whole year, but, having lost eighty of his men from hunger and fever, he was at last obliged to retreat. He was nearly drowned in crossing the river Quiximies, and after many other strange adventures and narrow escapes, he reached the Spanish settlement of Puerto Viejo, and went thence to Lima, where Pizarro was closely besieged by the insurgent Indians. He then marched to the relief of Cuzco, and afterwards accompanied Gonzalo Pizarro in his expedition to the Collao and Charcas. On the arrival of Vaca de Castro in Peru, Garcilasso de la Vega joined him, and was wounded in the battle of Chupas. When Gonzalo Pizarro rose in rebellion against the viceroy Blasco NuÑez de Vela, Garcilasso and several other loyal knights fled from Cuzco to Arequipa, and thence up by the deserts of the coast to Lima, in order to share the fortunes of the viceroy. But when they arrived at Lima, that ill-fated and wrong-headed knight was gone, and the whole country was in favour of Gonzalo. The fugitives, therefore, concealed themselves as best they could. Garcilasso was lodged in the house of a friend, and afterwards hid himself in the convent of San Francisco. Through the intercession of friends Gonzalo Pizarro granted him a pardon, but detained him as a prisoner until he escaped to the army of Gasca on the morning of the battle of Xaquixaguana, galloping across the space between the two camps at early dawn, on his good horse Salinillas. He afterwards resided at his house in Cuzco until the rebellion of Giron broke out in 1554, when he once more showed his loyalty by escaping in the night, and joining the royal camp. After the fall of Giron, Garcilasso de la Vega was appointed corregidor and governor of Cuzco, where he appears to have devoted himself to the duties of his office, and, amongst other good deeds, restored the aqueduct which brought a supply of water from the lake of Chinchiru for a distance of two leagues, to irrigate the valley of Cuzco. His house was a centre of hospitality and kindness, where the conquerors fought their battles over again in the evenings, while Garcilasso’s wife, the Ynca princess, and her friends dispensed their numerous charities. Both he and his wife were engaged in acts of benevolence, and in collecting subscriptions for charitable purposes during the time that he held office. It is said that in one night they raised 34,500 ducats for a hospital for Indians. When Garcilasso was relieved of his charge, the Juez de Residencia, who came to review his administration, honourably acquitted him of the charges which were brought against him, and he retired into private life. He died at Cuzco in the year 1559, after a long illness.

Garcilasso de la Vega was married to a Ñusta or Ynca princess, who was baptised under the name of Isabella in 1539. She was a daughter of Hualpa Tupac, a younger brother of the great Ynca Huayna Ccapac. By this lady he had a son, the well known historian, who was born at Cuzco in 1540. After his father’s death the young Garcilasso Ynca de la Vega, who had received his early education at a school in Cuzco, went to Spain. This was in 1560, when he was just twenty years of age. He fought against the rebel Moriscos under the banner of Don John of Austria, and afterwards settling at Cordova, devoted himself to literary pursuits. He wrote a history of the conquest of Florida, and the two parts of his Commentarios Reales were published in 1609 and 1616. An excellent second edition appeared at Madrid in 1722. His memory was well stored with the recollections of his youth, when he had learnt the history of the Yncas from his mother’s relations, and of the conquest from his father’s old companions in arms. He also quotes largely from Cieza de Leon, Gomara, Zarate, Fernandez, and Acosta, as well as from the manuscript of the missionary Blas Valera, a most important work which was destroyed when Lord Essex sacked the city of Cadiz. No man, therefore, could be better qualified to write a history of the early civilisation of the Yncas, and of the conquest of Peru by the Spaniards. He has been invaluable to me in explaining and illustrating the text of Cieza de Leon; and in gratitude I have therefore devoted a long note to an account of his father. The Ynca Garcilasso died in 1616 at the advanced age of seventy-six, and was buried at Cordova.

[286] Juan de Saavedra was a native of Seville. He afterwards accompanied Almagro in his expedition into Chile, and, when Hernando Pizarro was in his commander’s power, he persuaded the old marshal not to put his enemy to death. In the battle of Chupas he fought against the younger Almagro. When Gonzalo Pizarro and his unscrupulous old lieutenant Carbajal entered Lima and wreaked vengeance on those who had opposed them, Juan de Saavedra, with two other knights, were hung under circumstances of great barbarity.

[287] A castellano, in those days, was worth about £2:12 of our money; so that Alvarado was bought off by Pizarro for the sum of £260,00.

[288] Ulloa describes the ruins at Hatun-caÑari as the largest and best built in the province of Quito. In the rear the building terminates in a high thick wall on the slope of a mountain. In the centre there is an oval tower containing two chambers. The walls are full of niches with stone pegs in them. The outer walls are very thick, with ramparts round the inner sides.

[289] Literally “Foam of the lake.” It was the name of one of the Yncas.

[290] The first Quichua grammar was composed by Father Santo Tomas, and printed at Valladolid in 1560, with a vocabulary as an appendix. This friar, a Dominican, was the first doctor who graduated in the University of Lima.

[291] Velasco says there were few traces left of the buildings at Tumebamba in his time. This was the favourite residence of the Ynca Huayna Ccapac.

[292] Garcilasso de la Vega quotes this statement from Cieza de Leon (i, lib. viii, cap. 5).

[293] I can testify to the truth of this statement, having carefully examined a thatch roof at Azangaro in Peru, which undoubtedly dates from the time of the Yncas. It is over the ancient circular building in that town, known as the Sondor-huasi. The outside coating consists of a layer of grass (Stypa Ychu: Kunth) two feet thick, placed in very regular rows, and most carefully finished, so as to present a smooth surface to the weather. Next there is a thick layer of the same grass placed horizontally and netted together with reeds, and finally an inner perpendicular layer:—the whole thatch being five feet thick, and finished with most admirable neatness. It has been said that the colossal and highly finished masonry of the Yncas, such as that of the palace at Tumebamba, formed a barbaric contrast with the poor thatched roof, but the Sondor-huasi proves that the roofs made by the Peruvians rivalled the walls in the exquisite art and neatness of their finish. See my Travels in Peru and India, p. 194.

[294] The CaÑaris wore their hair long, and rolled it up in a knot on the top of their heads. On the knot of hair they fastened a wooden hoop, from which hung a fringe of various colours. The commoner sort, in place of this hoop, wore a small calabash over their hair, and hence the whole tribe was nicknamed by the other Indians Mathe-uma (Mathe in Quichua is a calabash, and Uma, head). G. de la Vega, i, lib. viii, cap. 4.

[295] Prickly pears.

[296] This name is not given by Velasco.

[297] The turkey buzzard, a carrion bird which acts as a scavenger in the streets of South American towns.

[298] The word used in Mexico.

[299] The chaquiras were very minute beads, which were so skilfully worked that the best silversmiths in Seville asked Garcilasso how they were made. He took some to Spain with him, where they were looked upon as great curiosities. G. de la Vega, i, lib. viii, cap. 5.

[300] The quipus, or system of recording events by means of knots.

[301] See also Garcilasso de la Vega, i, lib. ix, p. 311; and Acosta, lib. iv, cap. 14, p. 233. Acosta says that emeralds were found most abundantly in New Granada, and in Peru, near Manta and Puerto Viejo. The country round Manta, he adds, is called Esmeraldas, from the reported abundance of emeralds in it.

According to Ulloa the emerald mines of Manta, which were known to the Indians, were never discovered by the Spaniards. The skill of the Indians in working these precious stones is very remarkable. They are found in the tombs of the Indians of Manta and Atacames: and are, in beauty, size, and hardness, superior to those of New Granada. They were worked by the Indians into spherical, cylindrical, conical, and other shapes, and it is difficult to explain how this could have been done without a knowledge of steel or iron. They also pierced the emeralds with a skill equal to that of modern jewellers. Ulloa’s Voyage, i, lib. vi, cap. 11.

Velasco says that an emerald was among the insignia of the Scyris or kings of Quito, and that the Indians of Manta worshipped a great emerald under the name of UmiÑa. Historia del Quito, i, p. 29. There are also some interesting remarks on the emeralds of Manta in Bollaert’s Antiquarian and other Researches in New Granada, Ecuador, Peru, etc., p. 84.

[302] Inhabitants of the mountains inland.

[303] Pedro de Puelles, a native of Seville, was left as governor of Quito when Gonzalo Pizarro went on his famous expedition to the land of cinnamon in 1539. He was appointed to the command of the cavalry of Vaca de Castro’s army, served in the battle of Chupas when the younger Almagro was defeated, and was afterwards sent as governor to Huanuco. He was confirmed in this command by Blasco NuÑez de Vela, the viceroy; but he went over to the party of Gonzalo Pizarro, and commanded his cavalry at the battle of AÑaquito, when the viceroy was killed. After the battle he urged Gonzalo to assume the title of king, believing that no terms could possibly be obtained from Charles V, and that they were committed too far to hope for forgiveness. Gonzalo left Puelles in Quito as his governor, and he afterwards seems to have intended to desert his old master and hand over his troops to the president Gasca, on condition of full pardon. But he was surrounded by greater traitors than himself, and one Rodrigo de Salazar headed a conspiracy of five, who murdered Puelles in his own house, and led his troops to join Gasca, in order to get all the credit for their loyalty.

[304] The Quichua word for chicha or fermented liquor.

[305] This account of the tradition concerning giants at Point Santa Elene, is the fullest that is given by any of the old writers, and it is quoted as such by Garcilasso de la Vega (i, lib. ix, cap. 9).

Zarate’s version of the tradition differs but slightly from that of Cieza de Leon. He adds that little credit was given to the story until 1543, when a native of Truxillo, named Juan de Holmos, caused excavations to be made, and found huge ribs and other bones, and enormous teeth. From that time the native tradition was believed. (Historia del Peru, lib. i, cap. iv.) Acosta also mentions the bones of giants of huge greatness, found about Manta. (Acosta, lib. i, cap. 19.) Mr. Ranking, a fantastic theorist, who published his Researches on the Conquest of Peru and Mexico by the Mongols, accompanied with Elephants, in 1827, founds his theory on this tradition of giants having landed at Point Sta. Elena. (p. 51.)

It appears that fossil bones of huge mammals have been found on this part of the coast, where pieces of cliff are constantly breaking away, and they doubtless gave rise to this story about giants. Mr. Spruce tells me that a French naturalist took a quantity of these fossils home with him not long since. Ulloa calls these fossils the bones of giants, and Humboldt thinks they belonged to cetaceous animals. Stevenson says he saw a grinder which weighed more than three pounds, with enamel spotted like female tortoise shell, in the possession of Don Jose Merino of Guayaquil. (Travels, ii, p. 235.)

[306] In the second edition of Cieza de Leon the chapters are incorrectly numbered. Two chapters are numbered liv, and chapters liii and lv are omitted altogether. Two chapters are also numbered lix. It is necessary to retain the incorrect numbering, because all modern writers have quoted from the second edition.

[307] Ynca nobles, so called by the Spaniards from the large gold ornaments worn in their ears.

[308] Pedro de Candia was a Greek, and one of the heroic thirteen who crossed the line drawn on the sand by Pizarro, at the island of Gallo. He was a very tall stout man. When the ship arrived at Tumbez, in Peru, there was some hesitation as to landing amongst a hostile people, and Pedro de Candia volunteered to go first. Putting on a coat of mail reaching to the knees, with a sword by his side and a cross in his hand, he walked towards the town with an air as if he had been lord of the whole province. The Indians were astonished at his appearance, and, to find out what manner of man he was, they let loose a lion and a tiger upon him, but the animals crouched at his feet. Pedro de Candia gave the Indians to understand that the virtue of the cross he held in his hand had been the cause of this miracle. The Indians, believing that he must be a child of the sun, showed him the temple and palace of Tumbez, and so he returned to the ship, which sailed back to Panama. He accompanied Pizarro to Spain and was rewarded by Charles V. This Greek captain fought by the side of Pizarro during the conquest of Peru, and when it was completed, he led an expedition into the forests of Moxos, east of Cuzco, but was obliged to return. After the murder of Pizarro he joined the younger Almagro, and superintended the casting of cannon for him at Cuzco; but afterwards entered into correspondence with the royal army under Vaca de Castro, and at the battle of Chupas he purposely pointed the guns at such an angle as to send the balls over the heads of the enemy. Young Almagro, observing this treachery, ran him through the body, and he fell dead.

Garcilasso de la Vega says that he was at school with Pedro de Candia’s son, at Cuzco, who inherited his father’s stature; for being only twelve years old he had a body large enough for one twice his age.

[309] The large island at the mouth of the river of Guayaquil.

[310] G. de la Vega, in relating these events, copies largely from Cieza de Leon (i, lib. ix, caps. 1, 2, and 3).

[311] Macaws.

[312] Sarsa, a bramble, and parilla, a vine.

[313] Smilax officinalis H. B. K. The root of sarsaparilla was brought to Europe in about 1530. The stem is twining, shrubby, and prickly. Acosta says that the water on the island of Puna, flowing past the sarsaparilla roots, has healing virtues (lib. iii, cap. 17). There is a great trade in sarsaparilla down all the Peruvian tributaries of the Amazon.

[314] This is the officer who afterwards deserted Gonzalo Pizarro, and was the first to sail down the Amazon.

[315] A Quichua word.

[316] Inns.

[317] More correctly Paca-muru.

[318] Loxa afterwards became famous for its forests of Chinchona trees yielding Peruvian bark; the healing virtues of which were not made known to the Spaniards until fifty years after the time of Cieza de Leon. M. Jussieu tells us that the first fever cured by means of Chinchona bark was that of a Jesuit at Malacotas, some leagues south of Loxa, in the year 1600. The countess of Chinchon, wife of the viceroy of Peru, was cured of a fever by a dose of Loxa bark, in the year 1638.

[319] He explored the course of the MaraÑon as far as the pongo or rapid of Manseriche, in 1548.

[320] Now better known as Piura.

[321] Inhabitants of the warm valleys on the coast.

[322] Nearly all travellers, from Cieza de Leon downwards, who have been on the west coast of South America, have had something to say concerning the rainless region of Peru: but “the natural reasons for these things,” for which our author asks, are given in the most agreeable form in Captain Maury’s charming book. “Though the Peruvian shores are on the verge of the great South Sea boiler, yet it never rains there. The reason is plain. The south-east trade winds in the Atlantic ocean strike the water on the coast of Africa. They blow obliquely across the ocean until they reach the coast of Brazil. By this time they are heavily laden with vapour, which they continue to bear along across the continent, depositing it as they go, and supplying with it the sources of the Rio de la Plata and the southern tributaries of the Amazon. Finally they reach the snow capped Andes, and here is wrung from them the last particle of moisture that the very low temperature can extract. Reaching the summit of that range, they now tumble down as cool and dry winds on the Pacific slopes beyond. Meeting with no evaporating surface, and with no temperature colder than that to which they are subjected on the mountain tops, they reach the ocean before they again become charged with fresh vapour, and before, therefore, they have any which the Peruvian climate can extract. The last they had to spare was deposited as snow on the tops of the Cordilleras, to feed mountain streams under the heat of the sun, and irrigate the valleys on the western slopes.” Physical Geography of the Sea, para. 195. See also Acosta’s way of accounting for the absence of rain on the Peruvian coast, in his Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias, A.D. 1608, lib. iii, cap. 23.

[323] Zarate thus describes this coast road of the Yncas. “Through all the valleys of the coast which are refreshed by rivers and trees (which are generally about a league in breadth) they made a road almost forty feet broad, with very thick embankments on either side. After leaving the valleys the same road was continued over the sandy deserts, posts being driven in and fastened by cords, so that the traveller might not lose his way, neither turning to one side nor to the other. The road, like that in the Sierra, is five hundred leagues long. Although the posts in the desert are now broken in many parts, because the Spaniards, both in time of war and peace, used them for lighting fires, yet the embankments in the valleys are still for the most part entire.” Historia del Peru, lib. i, cap. x. Garcilasso de la Vega, in his account of the Ynca roads, merely copies from Zarate and Cieza de Leon (i, lib. ix, cap. 13). See also Gomara (cap. 194).

[324] Fray Domingo de Santo Tomas was the author of the first Quichua grammar, which was printed at Valladolid in 1560 with a vocabulary.

[325] Juan de la Torre was one of the famous thirteen who crossed the line which Pizarro drew on the sandy shore of the isle of Gallo, and resolved to face any hardships rather than abandon the enterprise. He afterwards became a staunch adherent of Pizarro’s younger brother Gonzalo, to whom he deserted, when serving under the ill-fated Blasco NuÑez de Vela, and he carried his ferocious enmity to the viceroy so far as to insult the dead body, and, pulling the hairs out of the beard, to stick them in his hat band. He married the daughter of an Indian chief in the province of Puerto Viejo, and gained so much influence among the followers of his father-in-law that they revealed to him a tomb containing, as Cieza de Leon says, more than fifty thousand dollars worth of gold and emeralds. Thus enriched, he meditated a retreat to Spain, where he might enjoy his wealth, but the fear of punishment for his treason to the viceroy, and other considerations, deterred him. He first proposed to Vela NuÑez, the viceroy’s brother, that they should seize a ship and escape from Peru; and, afterwards, hearing a false report that Gonzalo Pizarro had been appointed governor by the king, he changed his mind in the hope of receiving great favours from his old commander. But Vela NuÑez knew of his earlier project to desert, so, mindful of the adage that “dead men tell no tales,” La Torre invented such a story against the viceroy’s brother as induced Gonzalo to cut off his head. The villain was appointed captain of arquebusiers in the army of Gonzalo Pizarro, and acted a conspicuous and cruel part in the subsequent war down to the final overthrow of Gonzalo by Pedro de la Gasca in 1548. Then at last he received a reward more in accordance with his deserts. After hiding for four months in an Indian’s hut near Cuzco, he was at last accidentally found out by a Spaniard, and met the fate which he so richly deserved. He was hung by order of La Gasca.

[326] Supay is the Quichua word for the evil spirit in which the ancient Peruvians believed.

[327] Paullu was a son of the great Ynca Huayna Ccapac. He escaped from his half-brother Atahualpa, when many of the royal family were killed by that usurper, and, soon after the arrival of the Spaniards, was baptized under the name of Christoval. He accompanied Almagro in his expedition to Chile, and his services on that occasion were of the utmost importance to the Spaniards. While in Chile he received tidings from his brother Manco of his resolution to rise in arms and expel the invaders; but Paullu deemed it most prudent to dissimulate until the expedition, in which he was serving, returned to Peru. He afterwards lived for many years at Cuzco, in the palace built by Manco Ccapac, the founder of his house, on a hill called the Colcampata. The ruins of this edifice are still very perfect. After the death of his brother Manco, Paullu was looked upon by the Indians as their legitimate Ynca. His son, named Carlos, was a schoolfellow of the historian Garcilasso de la Vega, and afterwards married a Spanish lady whose parents were settled at Cuzco; and his grandson Don Melchior Carlos Ynca went to Spain in 1602, and became a knight of Santiago.

[328] Unfit for translation.

[329] The Collao is the great plateau of the Andes, including the basin of lake Titicaca, between two chains, the maritime cordillera, and the eastern range, out of which rise the lofty peaks of Illimani and Yllampu (Sorata).

[330] The obsequies of the Yncas at Cuzco were celebrated with great pomp. The bodies were embalmed with such extraordinary skill that they appeared to be alive, and were seated on thrones within the great temple of the sun. The bowels were deposited in golden vases, and preserved in a temple at Tampu (twelve miles from the capital); just as the Emperors of Austria have their bodies buried in one church at Vienna, their hearts kept in silver pots in another, and their bowels deposited in St. Stephen’s. The corregidor Polo de Ondegardo found five bodies of Yncas at Cuzco, three of men and two of women, said to have been those of the Ynca Huira-ccocha, with hair white as snow, of the great Tupac Ynca Yupanqui, of Huayna Ccapac, of Huira-ccocha’s queen Mama Runtu, and of Ccoya Mama Ocllo, the mother of Huayna Ccapac. These bodies were so well preserved that all the hair, eyebrows, and even eyelashes remained intact. They were dressed in royal robes, with the llautu, or royal fringe round their foreheads. They seem to have excited much curiosity, were conveyed by order of the viceroy Marquis of CaÑete to Lima, and finally buried in the courtyard of the hospital of San Andres in that city.

The chiefs were buried in tombs of stone masonry on the mountain heights round Cuzco. A very peculiar kind of maize is often found in the tombs, now little cultivated, called Zea rostrata. The bodies, which are in a squatting posture with the knees forced up to the head, are found enveloped in many folds of cloth, over which is placed a mat of reeds, secured by a strong net. The covering next the body is generally of fine cotton; round the neck there is almost invariably a small household god, called Conopa in Quichua, made of clay, stone, silver, or gold; and a piece of copper, gold, or silver is often found in the mouth. The hair is, in most instances, well preserved, but the skin is withered up. None of the thousands of bodies that have been examined, show any signs of having been embalmed. It seems clear that this operation was only resorted to in the case of the Yncas themselves. G. de la Vega; Rivero, Antiq. Per.; Personal Observation.

[331] Fray Geronimo Loayza was appointed bishop of Lima in 1540, and was the first archbishop from 1548 to 1575. When Gonzalo Pizarro rebelled, he sent the archbishop as his envoy to Spain, but, meeting La Gasca at Panama on his way, that prelate returned with him, and accompanied him throughout the campaign, which ended in the overthrow of Gonzalo Pizarro in 1548. This Friar Loayza was a cruel fanatic. The inquisition was not introduced into Peru until 1569, but the archbishop had previously held three autos de fÉ at Lima on his own account, at one of which, John Millar, a Fleming, was burnt as a Lutheran heretic. The first auto de fÉ held by the inquisition at Lima took place in 1573, two years before the death of Loayza, when a Frenchman was burnt as a heretic. Loayza presided over two provincial councils, one in 1552 and the other in 1567. There have been twenty-two archbishops of Lima since the death of Loayza. The present one, Dr. Don Sebastian de Goyeneche, who succeeded in 1860, is probably the oldest bishop in Christendom, having been consecrated bishop of Arequipa in 1817, and is also one of the richest men in South America. He is now seventy-nine years of age.

[332] The nation of the Chinchas, and others on the coast, buried their dead on the surface of the ground, covered with a light coat of sand, so that the place is only indicated by a very slight inequality. Rivero, p. 199.

[333] Now corrupted into Luna-huana; near the rich sugar estates of CaÑete, between Lima and Pisco.

[334] Huaca is a word of many significations in Quichua (e.g., idol, temple, sacred place, tomb, figures of men, animals, etc., hill), but its most ordinary meaning is a tomb. Cieza de Leon probably calls it a “mournful name,” partly from its being the word for a tomb, and partly from his having confused it with the nearly similar word huaccani, “I mourn.” The mummy or dead body was called malqui. There were holes in the tombs, leading from the exterior sides to the vases placed round the bodies, through which the Indians poured liquor, on the days when festivals were held in honour of the malquis. Rivero.

[335] This chapter is unfit for translation.

[336] The children were weaned at two years of age, when their heads were shaved, and they received a name. On these occasions all the relations assembled, and one was selected as godfather, who cut off the first lock of hair with an instrument made of stone. Each relation followed, according to his age or rank, and cut off a few hairs. The name was then given, and the relations presented gifts, such as cloth, llamas, arms, or drinking vessels. Then followed singing, dancing, and drinking until nightfall, and these festivities were continued for three or four days. G. de la Vega, lib. iv, cap. 11; Rivero, p. 177.

[337] Urco is a word denoting masculine gender, in Quichua, when applied to animals, and china is female. For mankind the words denoting gender are ccari (male) and huarmi (female).

[338] Garcilasso de la Vega says that, as they had no domestic fowls in Peru before the Spanish conquest, so there was no word for them, and that hualpa was not originally the name for a fowl, but a corruption of Atahualpa, the name of the usurping Ynca. It seems, however, that domestic fowls were the first things that the Spaniards introduced into Peru; and the Indians, finding some resemblance between the crowing of the cocks and the sound of Atahualpa, gave them that name, which was afterwards corrupted into hualpa. Garcilasso adds, “I confess that many of my schoolfellows at Cuzco, the sons of Spaniards by Indian mothers, and myself amongst them, imitated this sound in the streets, together with the little Indians.”

The names of the Yncas, and those of their wives, have a meaning in the Quichua language; with the exception, however, of Manco, Mayta, and Rocca, which seem to have been borrowed from some other source. Ccapac means “rich, grand, illustrious.” Sinchi signifies “strong.” Lloque is “left-handed.” Yupanqui is “virtuous.” It is the second person singular, future, indicative of Yupani, and means literally, “you will count,” that is—“he who bears this title will count as one who is excellent for his virtue, clemency, and piety.” Yahuar-huaccac signifies “weeping tears:” it was the name of an Ynca whose reign was unfortunate. Huira-ccocha means “foam of a lake,” and Garcilasso gives the legend from which the name is said to have originated. Pacha-cutec means “overturning the world,” a name given to one of the Yncas who was a great reformer. Tupac is anything royal, resplendent, honourable. Huayna means a “youth,” a name given to the great Ynca Huayna Ccapac, possibly from his youthful appearance. Huascar is a “chain,” from the golden chain which was made to celebrate his birth. Cusi is “joy.” Titu is “liberal, magnanimous.” Sayri, a “tobacco plant.” Amaru, a “serpent,” etc.

[339] Twins, called chuchu, and children born feet first, called chacpa, were offered up to the huacas, in some districts. Rivero, p. 173.

[340] Aji or uchu, a Chile pepper with a very peculiar flavour (Capsicum frutescens, Lin.), is the favourite condiment of the Peruvian Indians, sometimes eaten green, and sometimes dried and pounded. The consumption of aji is greater than that of salt; for with two-thirds of the dishes, more of the former than of the latter is used. The aji pepper was introduced into India by Mrs. Clements Markham in 1861.

[341] Before the death of Huayna Ccapac, fearful comets appeared in the air, one of them very large and of a green colour, and a thunder-bolt fell on the house of the Ynca. The amautas or learned men prognosticated that these awful signs were the forerunners, not only of the death of Huayna Ccapac, but of the destruction of the empire. G. de la Vega, i, lib. ix, cap. 15.

[342] Or mountainous region.

[343] Zea Mais Lin.: called sara in Quichua.

[344] Jatropha Manihot Lin.: called asipa or rumu in Quichua. The yuca is still the edible root most used in the coast valleys of Peru. It grows to a great size, and is excellent when roasted.

[345] Batatas edulis, Chois.: called apichu in Quichua, and cumar in the Quito dialect. Dr. Seemann has pointed out to me the curious and interesting fact that kumara is also the word for sweet potatoe in Tahiti, the Fiji Islands, and New Zealand.

[347] Psidium guayava Raddi.

[348] Inga spectabilis Willd.

[349] Persea gratissima R. P. See note at p. 16.

[350] The guanavana is called sour sop in the West Indies (Anona muricata Lin.), where Cieza de Leon must have seen it. It has long been naturalized in India, as well as the A. squamosa (custard apple) and A. reticulata (sweet sop), and on occasions of famine these fruits have literally proved the staff of life to the natives in some parts of the country. (Drury’s Useful Plants of India, p. 41.)

But the fruit which Cieza de Leon here mistakes for the guanavana or sour sop is, no doubt, the delicious chirimoya (Anona cherimolia Mill.) Von Tschudi says of it: “It would certainly be difficult to name any fruit possessing a more exquisite flavour. The fruit is of a roundish form, somewhat pyramidal or heart-shaped, the broad base uniting with the stem. Externally it is green, covered with small knobs and scales. The skin is rather thick and tough. Internally the fruit is snow-white and juicy, and provided with a number of black seeds. The taste is incomparable. Both the fruit and flowers of the chirimoya emit a fine fragrance. The tree which bears this finest of all fruits is from fifteen to twenty feet high.” Mrs. Clements Markham introduced the cultivation of this delicious fruit into Southern India in 1861.

[351] Chrysophillum Caimito Lin., or star apple.

[352] The name for the ordinary Peruvian dog, in Quichua, is allco (Canis IngÆ).

[353] The algaroba or guaranga (Prosopis horrida, Willd). A tree the bean of which furnishes food for mules, donkeys, and goats.

[354] The dulces or preserves of Peru are still the most delicious in the world, especially those made at Cuzco. No confectionary in London or Paris can be compared with them.

[355] The vineyards of the Peruvian coast valleys have become famous for the delicious grape spirits called italia and pisco. In 1860 the valleys of Yca and Pisco alone yielded seventy thousand botijas or jars of spirits, and ten thousand barrels of excellent wine.

[356] Next to the wonderful roads, these irrigating channels are the most convincing proofs of the advanced civilisation of the Yncas. Once nearly all the coast valleys were supplied with them, and thousands of acres were reclaimed from the desert; but, owing to the barbarism or neglect of the Spaniards, they nearly all went to ruin very soon after the conquest. In one valley alone, that of Nasca (or, more properly, Nanasca, “pain”), the irrigating works of the Yncas are still in working order, and from them an idea may be formed of the extent and grandeur of the public works of the Yncas throughout the coast region of Peru.

The valley of Nasca descends from the Andes by an easy and gradual slope, widening as it descends, and is hemmed in by lofty mountains on either side. It is covered with cultivation, consisting of vineyards, cotton plantations, fields of aji, maize, wheat, pumpkins, melons, and other vegetables, and fruit gardens. In 1853 I examined the irrigation channels of this valley very carefully. All that nature has supplied, in the way of water, is a small water course, which is frequently dry for six years together; and, at the best, only a little streamlet trickles down during the month of February. The engineering skill displayed by the Yncas, in remedying this defect, is astonishing. Deep trenches were cut along the whole length of the valley, and so far into the mountains that the present inhabitants have no knowledge of the place where they commence. High up the valley the main trenches or puquios are some four feet in height, with the floor, sides, and roof lined with stones. Lower down they are separated into smaller puquios, which ramify in every direction over the valley, and supply all the estates with delicious water throughout the year, feeding the little streams which irrigate the fields. The larger puquios are several feet below the surface, and at intervals of about two hundred yards there are man-holes, called ojos, by which workmen can get down into the channels, and clear away any obstructions.

Further on Cieza de Leon describes other works of irrigation in the valley of Yca, on the same magnificent scale, which, even when he wrote, had already been destroyed by the barbarian Spaniards.

The subterranean channels were called huirca in Quichua, and those flowing along on the surface rarca. In all parts of the Sierra of Peru the remains of irrigating channels are met with, which the Spaniards destroyed and neglected, and thus allowed the once fertile fields to return to their natural sterility. The principal remains of works of irrigation, in the Sierra, are to be found at Caxamarca and at Cerro Pasco. Garcilasso de la Vega relates how the Ynca Huira-ccocha caused an aqueduct to be constructed, twelve feet in depth, and more than one hundred and twenty leagues in length. Another aqueduct was made in the province of Condesuyos (Cunti-suyu), which was more than fifty-five leagues long. The Ynca historian justly exclaims: “These are works worthy of the grandeur of such princes. They are equal to the finest works of the kind in the world, considering the enormous rocks which were cut through to form them, without iron or steel tools. When a deep ravine crossed the intended course of the aqueduct, it was led round to the head. The channels were cut out of the living rock in many places, the outer side being formed of a stone wall of large six-sided slabs, fitting exactly into each other, and banked up with earth.”

[357] There is a fox (Canis AzarÆ, Pr. Max.) which abounds in the coast valleys, where it preys on the lambs.

[358] Prosopis horrida, Willd. This tree grows to a large size. The wood is very hard, the leaf small, and the branches bear an abundance of clusters of pods, which form excellent food for mules and cattle, and for immense herds of goats.

[359] “Formerly the valley of Chacama was called the granary of Peru, and, until the great earthquake of 1687, the wheat produced its seed two hundred fold. This valley alone harvested two hundred thousand bushels of this grain.” Stevenson, ii, p. 124-5.

[360] “The valleys of Chimu, Chacama, and Viru, may be considered as one, being separated from each other only by the branches of the Chacama river. United they are about twenty-eight leagues long and eleven broad. Their soil, irrigated by the waters of the river, is very fertile.” Stevenson, ii, p. 124.

[361] The ruins in the valley of Chimu or Truxillo are a league and a half from the port of Huanchaco. It is not known when they were built, but in the time of Pachacutec, the ninth Ynca (about A.D. 1340 to 1400), a powerful chief reigned in this valley, called Chimu-Canchu. After a long war with the Ynca’s son Yupanqui, the Chimu consented to worship the sun, and to abandon his own idols, consisting of figures of fish and other animals.

The ruins of the Chimu’s city cover a space of three quarters of a league, exclusive of the great squares. These squares, seven or eight in number, vary from two hundred to two hundred and seventy yards in length, and from one hundred to one hundred and sixty in breadth. They are on the north side of the large edifices or palaces. The walls surrounding the palaces are of great solidity, formed of adobes (bricks baked in the sun) ten or twelve yards long and five or six broad in the lower part of the wall, but gradually diminishing until they terminate in a breadth of one yard at the top. Each palace was completely surrounded by an exterior wall. One of them, built of stone and adobes, is fifty yards high, five yards broad at the bottom, and gradually tapering to one at the top. In the first palace there is an interior court, in which are chambers built of stone, and plastered within. The lintels of the doorways consist of a single stone about two yards long. Some of the walls are adorned with panels and tasteful patterns, and ornaments sculptured on the adobes. There is also a large reservoir, which was formerly supplied with water, by subterranean aqueducts, from the river Moche, about two miles to the north-east. The second palace is one hundred and twenty-five yards east of the first. It contains several courts and chambers, with narrow lanes between them. At one of the extremities is the huaca of Misa, surrounded by a low wall. This huaca is traversed by small passages about a yard wide, and it also contains some large chambers, containing cloths, mummies, pieces of gold and silver, tools, and a stone idol. Besides these palaces there are the ruins of a great number of smaller houses, forming an extensive city. Rivero Antiq. Per.

In 1566 one Garcia Gutierrez de Toledo paid 85,547 castellanos de oro (£222,422) as the fifth or royal share of the treasure found by him in the huacas of the grand Chimu; and in 1592 the royal fifth of further treasure discovered in these tombs amounted to 47,020 castellanos (£122,252). The value of the whole was £1,724,220 of our money. This will give some idea of the wealth concealed in these burial places. There is a tradition that there were two priceless treasures in the form of fishes of gold, known as the great and little peje, in one of the huacas.

The curiosities that have been found in the Chimu ruins are very interesting:—such as mummies in strange postures, one in an attitude as if about to drink, with a monkey on his shoulder, whispering into his ear.

[362] The city of Truxillo stands on a sandy plain, in lat. 8° 6´ 3” S.

[363] See note at p. 72.

[364] The distance is one hundred and eight leagues by the road.

[365] The river of Santa is about eighteen hundred yards across at the mouth, and its current, during the rainy season, sometimes flows at the rate of seven miles an hour. In 1795 a rope bridge was thrown across it, about a league from the mouth, but it was destroyed by a sudden rise of the water in 1806. Stevenson.

[366] Guarmay is a small Indian village, famous for its chicha, which is remarkably strong.

[367] These are the ruins of a fortress defended by the Chimu against the army of the Yncas, the outer walls being three hundred yards long by two hundred. The interior is divided into small houses, separated by lanes. It is partly covered with a kind of plaster, on which Proctor saw the uncouth coloured representations of birds and beasts mentioned in the text. The ruined fortress stands at the extremity of a plain, close to the foot of some rugged mountains, about a league from the sea. Paz Soldan: Proctor, p. 175.

[368] La Barranca. The river is approached by a precipitous descent down a high bank of large pebbles and earth. The breadth of the channel is about a quarter of a mile, and, during the rains in the Andes, it is completely full, running furiously, and carrying along with it trees and even rocks, which render it impassable. In the dry season it merely consists of three separate torrents about as deep as the saddle, but unsafe.

[369] The city of Lima is about two miles long and a mile and a half broad. Its circumference is about ten miles, but many gardens, orchards, and fields of alfalfa are included within the walls. The best and fullest account of Lima is contained in a work called Estadistica de Lima, by Don Manuel A. Fuentes.

[370] Each side of the grand square of Lima is five hundred and ten feet long. It contains the cathedral and palace.

[371] This is the hill of San Cristobal, a rocky height rising abruptly from the plain, on the opposite side of the river Rimac, near the bull-ring. There is still a cross planted on its summit.

[372] One does not always hear such praise from those who have visited the City of the Kings; but at least the feelings of the editor of this work agree with those of the author. Some of the happiest days in the editor’s life were passed on the banks of the Rimac; and he, therefore, will not criticize the enthusiastic and, as some will think, exaggerated praise of Cieza de Leon.

[373] The city of Lima was founded by Pizarro on the 6th of January, 1535. As it was the day of Epiphany, Lima received the title of Ciudad de los Reyes (City of the Kings).

[374] Great numbers of bodies have been dug up at the foot of the temple of Pachacamac, the extreme dryness of the climate having preserved the long hair on the skulls, and even the skin. There are as many as one hundred and four Pachacamac skulls in European museums, which have been carefully examined. “They exhibit a vertically flattened occiput, a narrow and receding forehead, the glabella being slightly prominent. The acrocephalic or sugar-loaf form predominates. The range of skulls from Pachacamac varies from the globular or oval type, with a slightly depressed coronal suture, which Tschudi terms the ‘Chincha’ skulls, to the pyramidal brachycephalic cranium, with a high and vertical occiput, ordinarily termed the ‘Inca cranium.’” C. C. Blake, Esq., On the Cranial Characters of the Peruvian Races. Transactions of the Ethnological Society. Vol. ii. New Series, p. 227. Cieza de Leon states, in the text, that only chiefs and pilgrims were allowed to be buried near the temple of Pachacamac; and, if this was really the case, it would be natural to expect that the fact would be corroborated, to some extent, by an examination of the skulls. Accordingly I am informed by Mr. Carter Blake, that Mr. Clift and others have spoken of Pachacamac as being the depository of more than one type of skull, which may be the remains of pilgrims from various localities. Mr. Clift mentions bodies at Pachacamac with heads depressed like those of the people near lake Titicaca, and others with heads properly formed.

[375] The ruins of Pachacamac are about twenty miles south of Lima, on the sea-coast. The temple was on the summit of a hill about four hundred feet above the sea, and half a mile from the beach. The view from the platform, where the temple once stood, is exceedingly striking. Half the horizon is occupied by the ocean, and the other half is divided into two widely different scenes. One is an arid desert, with no object on which the eye can rest save the ruined city; the other is a lovely valley, covered with fields of maize and sugar cane, and dotted with houses half hidden by the encircling fruit gardens. The little town of Lurin stands in its centre. A narrow stream separates this enchanting valley from the dreary expanse of sand, while the glorious Andes bound the inland view.

The upper part of the temple hill is artificially formed of huge adobes or bricks baked in the sun, rising in three broad terraces, the walls of which are thirty-two feet high. Towards the sea the terraces are supported by buttresses of ordinary sized sun-dried bricks, and the red paint, with which the walls were originally coated, may still be seen in several places. The temple stood on a level platform on the top, facing the sea. The door is said to have been of gold plates, richly inlaid with coral and precious stones, but the interior was rendered filthy by the sacrifices. Garcilasso says that the Yunca Indians had idols in the form of fish and other animals, and that they sacrificed animals, and even the blood of men and women; but that these idols were destroyed by the Yncas.

At the foot of the temple hill are the remains of houses for pilgrims; and it is here that the numerous skulls are found, with long flowing hair, which are to be met with in European museums. Further on are the ruins of an extensive city. The streets are very narrow, and the principal houses or palaces generally consist of halls of grand proportions, with a number of small apartments at each end: all now choked with sand. The foundations are frequently of stone.

It is said by some old writers that this temple was erected for the worship of Pachacamac—the Supreme Being, the “Creator of the world”—by an ancient race, long before the time of the Yncas, and of whom the Yunca Indians were degenerate descendants. Its great antiquity is proved by the fact that, when Hernando Pizarro first arrived at it, a considerable portion of the city was already in ruins.

[376] The plain of Chilca is a broad sandy waste, with a thin line of vegetation running from the Andes to the sea. The village is a collection of cane flat-roofed houses, with a handsome church. It is about two miles from the beach, where there is an abrupt headland called Chilca Point. There are none of the maize fields described by Cieza de Leon, and the land is no longer manured with sardine heads, but there are several palm and fig trees, and holes where crops of reeds, for making matting to cover the house tops, are raised. A little scanty herbage grows on the sand hills, where mules and donkeys graze. The inhabitants of Chilca are all pure Indians, and they allow no whites to reside in their village. They employ themselves in plaiting straw for hats and cigar cases of great beauty. In the time of the Yncas this valley was very populous, as is clear from the numerous ruins in various directions; but Spanish occupation has acted as a blight on every corner of this once happy land.

[377] Here Cieza de Leon shows his strong prejudice against Almagro. It is well known that Pizarro formed a plot to seize him after the interview at Mala, and that he was warned of the meditated treachery by the voice of an old comrade, who sang a couplet in the verandah—

[378] The valley of Mala is six miles from that of Chilca. It is covered with rich vegetation—bananas, figs, oranges, fields of maize, vines, and willow trees, and is well supplied with water by a large river. In the southern part there are extensive pastures, where some of the bulls are bred for the Lima bull fights.

[379] This is the rich modern valley of CaÑeta, containing six very extensive and flourishing sugar estates, and two villages.

[380] What other right had our author’s countrymen? or does he mean more than meets the eye, in writing this sentence. Cieza de Leon was evidently impressed with the excellence of the government of the Yncas, and deplores, in almost every chapter, the destruction and ruin brought upon the country by the Spaniards. Is this a covert thrust at the justice of the Spanish conquest?

[381] The ruins of this great edifice, half fortress half palace, are still to be seen on an elevated point of land overhanging the sea, on the south side of the river of CaÑete. I examined these ruins very carefully in 1853. They are divided into two parts. Those furthest from the sea consist of nine chambers. Entering from a breach in the wall, I passed along a gallery broad enough for two men to walk abreast, with a parapet five feet high on one side, and a wall sixteen feet high on the other. The parapet is on the edge of a hill partly faced with adobes. At the end of about twenty yards the gallery turns at right angles into the centre of the building. Here there is a doorway about ten feet high, three feet across at the base, and narrowing as it ascends, with a lintel of willow beams. It leads into a spacious hall, and, on the opposite side, there is a deep recess corresponding with the door. The walls are sixteen feet high, built of moderate sized adobes, formerly plastered over, and, as Cieza de Leon tells us, painted with figures. At the sides of the hall there are small chambers with recesses in the walls, communicating with each other by passages in the rear. There is a distance of two hundred yards, strewn with ruined walls, between this portion of the ruins and that overhanging the sea. The latter is entered by a doorway, which leads into a large square hall, nearly a hundred feet each way. The sides towards the north and west are smooth, but the eastern wall is pierced by fifteen small recesses. On the south side two doorways lead by passages into smaller chambers, also with recesses in the walls. In the upper part of the walls of the great hall the holes, for the beams which supported the roof, are distinctly visible. The walls throughout are three to four feet thick. The doorways, from the lintel to the ground, are eight feet high. On the whole, this is one of the best preserved ruins in the land of the Yncas. The portions of the fortress which were built of stone, were barbarously destroyed by order of the Spanish viceroy Count of Moncloa, and the materials were used for building the castles at Callao.

[382] From the great gate of the hacienda of Laran, in the valley of Chincha, a broad road leads towards the Andes. This road formed the division between the governments of Pizarro and Almagro on the sea-coast, and the question as to whether Cuzco was on the north or south side of the imaginary line continued east from Laran, was the cause of a quarrel which ended in the defeat and death of Almagro. Laran now belongs to the hospitable Don Antonio Prada, marquis of the towers of Oran.

[383] Another great public work of the Yncas, now utterly destroyed.

[384] The valley of Yca forms a delightful contrast to the surrounding deserts. The traveller, leaving the sandy waste behind him, finds himself riding through vineyards and cotton plantations, with hedges of fig trees, jessamine and roses on either hand. Yca is a large town about two leagues from the foot of the Andes, in the middle of a fertile and beautiful valley; but it has suffered fearfully from earthquakes. The river is crossed by a bridge of ropes and willow branches, and during January and February it dashes impetuously down the valley, but it is dry for the rest of the year, and, as Cieza de Leon says, the people dig holes in its bed, to get water. There are some very extensive woods of guaranga or algaroba trees (Prosopis horrida) in the valley of Yca, generally on the skirts of the deserts.

[385] He includes the rich valleys of Palpa, San Xavier, and Nasca under the same name.

[386] I carefully examined these ruined edifices when I was at Nasca. They are built in terraces up the sides of the mountains, which hem in the valley on the south. The houses contained spacious halls, with niches in the walls. About forty feet higher up the mountain, and immediately overhanging the ruined palaces, there was a fortress with a semicircular wall in front, and a high adobe breastwork in the rear. Its only approach was by a steep ramp leading up from the edifices below. The walls of the buildings are all of stone.

[387] I know of only one modern traveller who has visited and described the coast valleys of Acari, OcoÑa, and Camana; namely, that noble old warrior General Miller, who led his patriot troops from Quilca to Pisco in 1823, a most difficult march over trackless deserts, and through a country then in possession of the Spaniards.

The Camana valley, which in its upper part is called Majes, has a considerable river; and contains olive yards, vineyards, and sugar plantations. It is in 15° 57´ S. The yellow aji or capsicum of Camana is also famous, and guano has been used as manure in its cultivation from time immemorial.

[388] Quilca was the port of Arequipa until the year 1827, when it was supplanted by its present successful rival Islay, some leagues further down the coast.

[389] This account of the use of guano by the ancient Peruvians is exceedingly curious. Garcilasso de la Vega also describes the use made by them of the deposits of guano on the coast. He says: “On the shores of the sea, from below Arequipa to Tarapaca, which is more than two hundred leagues of coast, they use no other manure than that of sea birds, which abound in all the coasts of Peru, and go in such great flocks that it would be incredible to one who had not seen them. They breed on certain uninhabited islands which are on that coast; and the manure which they deposit is in such quantities that it would almost seem incredible. In the time of the kings, who were Yncas, such care was taken to guard these birds in the breeding season, that it was not lawful for any one to land on the isles, on pain of death, that the birds might not be frightened, nor driven from their nests. Neither was it lawful to kill them at any time, either on the island or elsewhere, also on pain of death. Each island was, by the Yncas, set apart for the use of a particular province, and the guano was fairly divided, each village receiving a due portion” (ii, lib. v, cap. iii). See also Antiguedades Peruanas, p. 77.

Frezier mentions that, when he was on the coast in 1713, guano was brought from Iquique, and other ports along the coast, and landed at Arica and Ylo, for the aji and other crops. Frezier’s South Sea, p. 152.

[390] The desert of Atacama.

[391] The original site was in the rear of the little village of Cayma.

[392] The splendid volcano of Misti rises immediately in the rear of the city of Arequipa, in a perfect cone capped with snow, to a height of 18,00 feet above the level of the sea, or, according to Pentland, 20,300 feet.

[393] The most terrible earthquakes at Arequipa, took place as follows:—

[394] After the armies of Ynca Pachacutec, under the command of his brother, the able general Ccapac Yupanqui, had conquered the Huanca nation, that commander invaded the province of Caxamarca in about 1380 A.D. The natives replied to the usual Yncarial summons, by saying that they had no need for new gods or new laws beyond those which they had received from their ancestors. The Yncarial troops were victorious in the open ground, but the natives of Caxamarca then retreated into their fortified strongholds, and made continual forays. Thus the war lasted for four months, but the Ynca general lost no opportunity of ingratiating himself with the enemy, setting the prisoners at liberty, curing the wounded, and sending messages of peace and amity to the hostile chiefs. At last the people of Caxamarca began to reflect that they might meet a harder fate than that of submitting to rulers who, while they were able to kill, treated their prisoners with so much kindness. The chiefs sent in their submission, and were confirmed in their privileges, while the province of Caxamarca became an integral part of the empire of the Yncas. The general Ccapac Yupanqui was accompanied in this campaign by his youthful nephew the Ynca Yupanqui, who afterwards succeeded his father Pachacutec as tenth Ynca of Peru.

It was by this enlightened policy of conciliation, accompanied by vigorous movements in the field, that most of the conquests of the Yncas were effected. G. de la Vega, i, lib. vi, cap. xv.

[395] The valley of Caxamarca (Ccasa, “frost,” and marca, “tower” or “house” in Quichua) is about five leagues long and three broad. It is intersected with green hedges enclosing hundreds of small plots bearing luxuriant crops, and a river winds from one extremity to the other. Humboldt believed this valley to be the bottom of an ancient lake. The soil is extremely fertile, and the plain is full of gardens and fields, traversed by avenues of daturas, willows, and the beautiful queÑuar tree (Polylepis villosa). In the northern part of the plain, small porphyritic domes break through the sandstone strata, and probably once formed islands in the ancient lake, before its waters had flowed off.

Atahualpa had a palace at the warm sulphur baths of Pultamarca, in this plain, some slight remains of which can still be traced. The large deep basin, forming the baths, appears to have been artificially excavated in the sandstone rock above one of the fissures through which the spring issues. There are also slight remains of the fort and palace of Atahualpa in the town. The palace was situated on a hill of porphyry. The most considerable ruins still visible are only from thirteen to fifteen feet high, and consist of fine cut blocks of stone two or three feet long, and placed upon each other without cement. The cacique Astopilco, a descendant of Atahualpa, resided in a part of these ruins at the time when Humboldt and Stevenson visited Caxamarca. The room was shown them, where the unhappy Atahualpa was kept a prisoner for nine months in 1532-33. Humboldt’s Aspects. Stevenson, ii, cap. v.

Prescott gives the amount of gold collected for Atahualpa’s ransom at Caxamarca at 1,326,539 pesos de oro, besides 51,610 marcs of silver. (From Xeres, in Barcia’s Coll., iii, p. 232. Xeres was Pizarro’s secretary.) The peso or castellano de oro was equal, in commercial value, to £2:12:6; so that the gold alone, of this ransom, was worth £3,500,00. Prescott, i, p. 425.

[396] When Pizarro rudely pulled Atahualpa from his chair, and took him prisoner, a soldier named Miguel Astete tore the crimson fringe, the token of his sovereignty, from his forehead. Astete kept the fringe until 1557, when he gave it to Sayri Tupac, the son of Ynca Manco, who was recognized as Ynca, and received a pension from the viceroy Marquis of CaÑete.

[397] This account differs slightly from that given by Garcilasso de la Vega, which is as follows.

After the death of the Ynca Huayna Ccapac in 1526, his two sons, Huascar and Atahualpa, reigned peaceably for about four or five years, the former at Cuzco, and the latter at Quito. At last the elder brother became jealous of the power of his rival at Quito, and sent an envoy demanding that he should do him homage as sole and sovereign lord. Atahualpa replied that he would most willingly submit to the rule of the Ynca, and announced his intention of making a journey to Cuzco, accompanied by all his vassals, to take an oath of obedience, and to celebrate the obsequies of their common father. Under this feigned submission Atahualpa concealed the treacherous intention of attacking and dethroning his brother. He collected thirty thousand armed Indians under the command of his two generals Challcuchima and Quizquiz, and sent them by different ways towards Cuzco, disguised as ordinary serving men. Huascar had so little suspicion of treachery that he ordered these men to be supplied with clothing and provisions on the road. The passage of so many armed men through the provinces, excited the alarm of several veteran governors, who warned Huascar of his danger; but meanwhile the forces of Atahualpa had crossed the river Apurimac without opposition, and, raising their banners, threw off the mask and advanced as open enemies. Thoroughly alarmed, Huascar summoned the chiefs of the southern, eastern, and western districts, Colla-suyu, Anti-suyu, and Cunti-suyu. Chincha-suyu, the northern province, was already in the power of Atahualpa. Those of Cunti-suyu alone had time to join the Ynca, with thirty thousand undisciplined Indians. The forces of Atahualpa advanced to the attack without delay, in order that there might be no time for more reinforcements to reach Cuzco, and a desperate battle was fought at a place called Quepaypa (literally of my trumpet), a few leagues west of Cuzco. Garcilasso mentions that, as a boy at school in Cuzco, he twice visited this battle field, when out hawking in the neighbourhood. The battle lasted during the whole day. At last the veteran troops of Atahualpa, who had served in all his father’s wars, triumphed over the raw levies of his more peaceful brother, Huascar was taken prisoner after a thousand of his body guard had fallen around him, and most of his faithful curacas or chiefs voluntarily surrendered, in order to share the fate of their beloved lord. This battle took place in 1532. Atahualpa was not present at the battle, but he hurried to Cuzco on hearing of his victory. Knowing that, according to the ancient laws of the empire, he, as an illegitimate son, could not inherit the crown; he resolved to put all the legitimate heirs out of his way by indiscriminate slaughter. Not only did he order all his half-brothers to be put to death, but also his uncles, nephews, and cousins of the blood royal, and most of the faithful nobles of Huascar. One of the Ynca’s wives, named Mama Huarcay, fled with her little daughter Coya Cusi Huarcay, who afterwards married Sayri Tupac, the Ynca who was pensioned by the marquis of CaÑete in 1553. Out of so large a family several other members also escaped from the fate intended for them by the cruel Atahualpa. Among these were the mother of the historian Garcilasso de la Vega, and her brother Hualpa Tupac Ynca Yupanqui; Manco, Paullu, and Titu, legitimate sons of Huayna Ccapac; and several princesses, who were baptised after the conquest. Of these, Beatrix Coya married Don Martin de Mustincia (the royal accountant), and had three sons; Leonora Coya married first Don Juan Balsa, by whom she had a son—a schoolfellow of Garcilasso, and secondly Don Francisco de Villacastin; and there were about a hundred other survivors of Ynca blood. The Ynca Huascar himself was thrown into prison at Xauxa, and murdered by order of Atahualpa, after the latter had been made prisoner by Pizarro. Huascar was a mild and amiable prince, and fell a victim to his guileless and unsuspicious disposition. G. de la Vega, i, lib. ix, caps. 32 to 40.

This is the version given by Garcilasso de la Vega of the war between Huascar and Atahualpa. As a descendant of the Yncas he was of course strongly prejudiced in favour of his maternal ancestors, and his account of Atahualpa’s cruelties after his victory, are probably much exaggerated. At the same time no one could have had better opportunities of obtaining authentic information, and doubtless the principal facts are correct.

Velasco defends the conduct of Atahualpa through thick and thin. As a native of the province of Quito, he naturally takes the part of the last sovereign of his own country, whose subsequent misfortunes throw a veil over his cruelties and treason to the Yncas of Cuzco. Hist. de Quito, ii, p. 76.

[398] Melchor Verdugo was a native of the town of Avila, in Spain. He distinguished himself in the battle of Chupas, fighting against the younger Almago, and, receiving the district of Caxamarca in encomienda, settled himself at Truxillo. As a townsman and partizan of the ill-fated viceroy Blasco NuÑez, he was in bad odour with the party of Gonzalo Pizarro, and was seized by Carbajal, but evaded pursuit, and was concealed by his Indians at Caxamarca until he thought it safe to return to Truxillo. He escaped from Peru by an act of unsurpassed audacity. A vessel arrived at the port of Truxillo, from Callao, and Verdugo resolved to seize her. He, therefore, collected about twenty armed men, upon whom he could depend, and concealed them in his house. He, then, sent for the master and pilot, saying that he wanted to ship some merchandise for Panama, and as soon as he got them into his house he locked them up. Presently the alcaldes of the town walked down the street with a notary, and Verdugo, throwing open a window, called out to them to come in, as he wanted them to witness a deed, and could not come out to them, owing to a disease in his legs. They entered, without suspecting anything, and were immediately put in irons and locked up with the master and pilot of the ship. Returning to his window, Verdugo continued to call up people he saw passing, saying he had something to say to them, until he had more than twenty of the principal people of the town, of Gonzalo Pizarro’s party, safely locked up. He then told them that he would take them all in the ship with him, unless they paid a ransom, and, after thus collecting a large sum of money in gold and silver, he went on board, and sailed for Nicaragua; where his ship was seized by Palomino, an officer serving under Hinojosa, Gonzalo Pizarro’s admiral at Panama. Verdugo then collected three small vessels in the lake of Nicaragua, and, descending the river, entered the sea and sailed to Nombre de Dios, and thence to Carthagena. After the arrival of the president Gasca at Panama, Verdugo returned to Spain, and received the habit of Santiago from the Emperor. Eventually he returned to his estates in Peru. Zarate, lib. vi, cap. vi, etc.

[400] Alonzo de Alvarado, a brother of Cortes’s famous companion, was detached by Pizarro with orders to conquer Chachapoyas; but he was so constantly engaged in the civil wars, until his death, that he had little time to spare in conquering and settling this province; which duty devolved upon his second son.

[401] The Huancas were the inhabitants of the valley of Xauxa, or more properly Sausa. They are described by Garcilasso as living in small villages strongly fortified, and worshipping dogs. The Huancas mentioned by Cieza de Leon, were probably Mitimaes sent into the Chachapoyas district by the Yncas.

[402] Moyobamba is now the chief town of the modern province of Loreto, which includes all the course of the Amazon and its tributaries within the boundaries of Peru. It contains about fourteen thousand inhabitants, and is built near the river Mayo, an affluent of the Huallaga. The ground consists of sandstone, which is easily washed away by the heavy rains, and deep ravines have been formed in the course of time, some of them thirty and forty yards deep, which intersect and break up the town. The inhabitants are employed in making straw hats, which are exported to Brazil. Apuntes, &ca., por Antonio Raimondy, p. 60.

[403] The Chanca Indians originally inhabited the valley of Andahuaylas, between Cuzco and Guamanga. They were invaded by the Ynca Rocca, sixth in descent from Manco Ccapac, and obliged to submit to his yoke. But soon after the accession of Rocca’s son Yahuar-huaccac, the Chancas rose in rebellion under their chief Anco-huallu, a youth of twenty-six years of age. The pusillanimous Ynca not only neglected to march against him, but even abandoned Cuzco, and retreated in an opposite direction. His son Huira-ccocha, however, was a man of different metal. He led an army against the insurgents, and utterly defeated them in a bloody and well-contested battle on the Yahuar-pampa, or “plain of blood.” Anco-huallu received a full pardon, and for ten years he continued to reside in his native valley as a tributary chief. But this dependent position was distasteful to him, and eventually he emigrated with eight thousand followers, and settled in the forests of the Moyobamba district. Garcilasso tells us that the exact position of his new settlement was never exactly known, the report merely stating that he descended a great river, and established his people on the banks of a beautiful lake. Mr. Spruce has suggested that Anco-huallu and his Chancas conquered Moyobamba, and drove the original inhabitants out, who, descending the Huallaga and Amazon, settled between the rivers Ucayali, MaraÑon, and Yavari, and were the progenitors of the fierce and untameable modern tribe of Mayorunas (Mayu, a river, and runa, a man in Quichua). G. de la Vega, i, lib. v, cap. 26.

[404] The word for gold in Quichua is ccuri. In the Tupi language, which was prevalent among the Indians of the river Amazon, the word curÍ means coloured earths, much used in plastering huts, and for other purposes. It is very probable that Spaniards from Peru who descended into the valley of the Amazon, asked for ccuri (gold), and were told there was plenty of curÍ (coloured earth); and that from this mistake the fame of the wealth of Omagua and El Dorado arose.

[405] For an account of this remarkable emigration of Indians from Brazil, see my Introduction to the Expedition of Pedro de Ursua (“Search for El Dorado.” Hakluyt Society’s volume for 1861, p. xxviii, and p. 2 of the text.) Their chief, named Viraratu, was sent to Lima, and it was his report that led to the organisation of the expedition in search of El Dorado and Omagua, which descended the Amazon in 1559, under Pedro de Ursua, and met with so tragic a fate.

[406] The climate of Huanuco is delightful. The thermometer seldom rises above 72° in the shade, nor sinks below 66°, and no place in the world equals it as a retreat for patients suffering from diseases of the lungs—but it is terribly inaccessible. The plain still, as in the days of Cieza de Leon, yields wheat and maize, bananas, figs, coffee, cotton, grapes, pomegranates, oranges, lemons, citrons, and limes. Smith’s Peru As It Is.

[407] The ruins of the Huanuco palace or temple are chiefly interesting from the six portals, one within the other, which are well preserved. There is also a species of look out, which was probably the place where the priests offered their sacrifices to the sun. The architecture of these ruins is very distinct from that of other Ynca edifices, and would appear to be of earlier date. The Indians know these ruins by the name of Auqui Huanuco. The look out is 56 paces long by 36 in width, the height of the wall five yards, and inclined inwards from the base. It rests upon two courses of round stone, about five feet high. The walls are of cut stone and terminate in a cornice, the stones being 4½ feet long and 1½ feet thick. The interior is composed of gravel and clay, and in the centre there is a large cavity, which is said to communicate with the palace by a subterranean passage. The look out is approached by a steep ramp or inclined plane, and two figures of animals are carved on either side of the entrance.

The palace is entered by six portals. On entering the first there are halls, 100 yards long by 14 wide, on either side. The walls are built of round stones mixed with clay, the doorways alone having cut stone. These doorways are 9 feet high and 4½ broad, the lintels being of a single stone, 12 feet long and 1½ thick. The jambs are of a single piece. Three yards further on is the second portal, resembling the first, with two figures carved on the upper part. This leads into a spacious court, at the other end of which are two smaller doorways in a line, leading into a smaller court, and finally there are two other portals, still smaller, and of sculptured stone. Beyond the sixth portal there are rooms with stone walls containing niches, and an aqueduct passes through one of these rooms, which is said to have been the bathing place of the Ynca. In front of the building there is a broad artificial terrace, and underneath a large court, with a receptacle for water in the centre.

The stones of which the ruins are composed were taken from a ridge about half a mile distant, and some are yet to be seen, lying cut in the quarry.

[408] In these days a Peruvian Indian answers No! (Manan canchu) to everything that is asked of him. The change is one of the baneful results of three centuries of Spanish domination.

[409] The Yncas restricted all hunting by their subjects, and the number of animals of all descriptions consequently multiplied prodigiously. At a certain season of the year, after breeding time, the Yncas and governors of provinces held a grand hunt, called Chacu in Quichua. As many as thirty thousand Indians were assembled, who surrounded a space of several square leagues, and gradually drove all the animals into the centre, closing upon them until they were so close as to be easily caught by hand. Very often there were as many as forty thousand head of guanacos and vicuÑas alone. Most of the female guanacos and vicuÑas, and a certain number of males, were then released; but they were shorn of their wool before they were allowed to go free. The rest were killed. The deer were also killed, and the meat was distributed amongst the Indians. An accurate account was kept of the number released, the number killed, and the number shorn, by means of the quipus. The coarse wool of the guanacos was then given to the people, while that of the vicuÑas, as fine as silk, was reserved for the Ynca’s service. These hunts were held in each district every four years, giving three years of rest for the animals to multiply. The Indians dried the meat which was served out to them, and this preserved meat, called charqui in Quichua (hence “jerked beef”), lasted them until another hunting year came round. G. de la Vega. Comm. Real, i, lib. vi, cap. 6.

[410] The Peruvian quipus were of twisted wool, and consisted of a large cord, with finer threads fastened to it by knots. These fringes contained the contents of the quipu, which were denoted either by single knots or by artificial intertwinings. Sometimes the main cord was five or six yards long, at others not more than a foot. The different colours of the threads had different meanings; and not only was the colour and mode of intertwining of the knots to be considered, in reading a quipu, but even the mode of twisting the thread, and the distance of knots from each other, and from the main cord. The registers of tribute; the enrolment of tribes, distinguishing between taxpayers, aged, invalids, women, and children; lists of arms and troops; inventories of the contents of storehouses; all these were the primary uses of the quipus. But they were also made available for recording the most striking events, and thus supplied the place of chronicles. Acosta says that the ancient Peruvians, by their combinations of larger and smaller threads; double and single knots; green, blue, white, black, and red colours; could express meanings and ideas as innumerable, as we can by the different combinations of our twenty-four letters.

All attempts, in modern times, to decipher the quipus found in tombs, have failed; yet there are Indians of noble family, especially in the southern part of Peru, who know the secret of deciphering these intricate memorials, but guard it as a sacred trust transmitted from their ancestors. The quipu records referring to matters of revenue or registration were kept by officers called Quipu-camayoc; while the chronicles of events were recorded by the Amautas or learned men, and the poems and songs by Haravecs or bards. Garcilasso de la Vega distinctly states that the sole specimen of Quichua poesy preserved in his work, was obtained from an ancient quipu record by the missionary Blas Valera. See G. de la Vega, i, lib. vi, cap. 8. Acosta, lib. vi, cap. 8. Antiguedades Peruanas, cap. 5. Markham’s Quichua Dictionary, etc., p. 11.

[411] The name of Francisco de Chaves deserves honourable mention, as that of one of the few Spaniards who protested against the foul and dastardly murder of the Ynca Atahualpa by Pizarro, at Caxamarca. He and his brother Diego, natives of Truxillo, Francisco Moscoso, Pedro de Ayala, Diego de Mora, Hernando de Haro, Pedro de Mendoza, Juan de Herrada, Alonzo de Avila, and Blas de Atienza were the principal officers who raised their voices against that horrible crime. Their names deserve to be remembered far more than do those of the famous thirteen who crossed the line drawn by Pizarro on the sea-shore of the isle of Gallo.

On the march from Caxamarca to Cuzco, Pizarro’s small force was attacked by the Indians led by the Ynca general Quizquiz, and, after a long and well contested battle, the Indians retired, taking several Spanish prisoners with them, among whom was Francisco de Chaves. He was brought before Atahualpa’s brother, the Ynca Titu Atauchi, and was treated with great kindness because he had protested against the perpetration of the murder; while another prisoner named Cuellar, who had acted as notary and been present at the Ynca’s execution, was himself most justly put to death by the Indians. Chaves was cured of his wounds, and set free with many gifts. Pizarro and his other comrades were astonished when he arrived at Cuzco, having mourned him as dead, since the day that he fell into the hands of the Indians.

The remaining part of his history is not so creditable, for he seems to have committed great atrocities in his Conchucos war. The statements of Cieza de Leon are quoted by G. de la Vega (ii, lib. ii, cap. 28), who corroborates the account given by the former, of the cruelties perpetrated by Chaves:—a shameful return for the kindness and forbearance he had himself experienced at the hands of the Indians. He was with Pizarro when the assassins came to murder him. Pizarro called to Chaves to close the door, in order that he and his friends might have time to arm. Instead of obeying, Chaves went out to parley with the intruders, and met them coming up the stairs. He had scarcely asked them their business before he was stabbed to death, and his body hurled down the steps. The assassins then completed their bloody work by the murder of the conqueror of Peru.

[412] Nor, if he would speak out, was our young author without sympathy for the Indians, and their sufferings.

[413] Also called the lake of Chinchaycocha. Near its southern shore the famous cavalry action was fought in 1823 between the Spaniards and Patriots, known as the battle of Junin, in which the gallant old general Miller distinguished himself. The lake is thirty-six miles long in a north-west and south-east direction, with an average breadth of about six miles, and 12,940 feet above the level of the sea. The plain or basin in which it lies, is forty-five miles long and from six to twelve broad, with a gravelly soil producing a short grass. A great number of large and beautiful water-fowl, including the scarlet flamingo and several varieties of snipe, frequent the banks of the lake, which are overgrown by reeds. As the lake loses by various outlets much more water than it receives from its tributary sources, it is evident that it must be fed by subterraneous springs. The Indians entertain a superstitious belief that this lake is haunted by huge fish-like animals, who at certain hours of the night leave their watery abode to prowl about the adjacent pasture lands, where they commit great havoc among the cattle. Von Tschudi, Herndon.

[414] The lake of Bombon or Chinchay-cocha is drained by the river of Xauxa, which flows into the Mantaro, one of the sources of the Ucayali, a principal affluent of the Amazon. The other rivers mentioned above, namely the Vilcas, Abancay, Apurimac, and Yucay, are also tributaries of the Ucayali. The erroneous surmise of Cieza de Leon and his informants, who would carry off all these streams into the Paraguay, is by no means surprising when we remember that maps were published in England not twenty years ago, which conveyed the waters of the Beni right across the line of drainage of the great river Purus, and poured them into the Ucuyali! The mistake of Cieza de Leon possibly arose from his having observed that the Xauxa flows south while in the mountains, and that all other tributaries of the Amazon flow north. The Xauxa does not change its direction until it enters the tropical forests, far beyond the ken of the early conquerors.

[415] No more picturesque view can charm the eye of the weary traveller than is presented by the immense garden which forms the valley of Xauxa, which is forty square leagues in extent. Its two principal towns are Xauxa and Huancayo, in the centre of the valley is the convent of Ocopa, and the remaining population is scattered in small villages surrounded by trees on either side of the river of Xauxa, which flows through the valley. The mighty Andes bound the river on every side.

[416] The Huancas were conquered by Ccapac Yupanqui, the brother and general of the Ynca Pachatutec; and at that time they are said to have numbered thirty thousand souls in the valley of Xauxa. Garcilasso informs us that, before they were subjugated by the Yncas, they worshipped the figure of a dog, and feasted on the flesh of dogs. He surmises that they adored the dog-idol because they were so fond of roast dog. G. de la Vega, i, lib. vi, cap. 10. Huancar (“a drum” in Quichua,) is probably a name given to this nation by the Yncas.

[417] “The temple of Guarivilca, in the valley of Xauxa, was consecrated to the god Ticeviracocha, chief divinity of the Huancas, whose singular worship reminds one of the mythology of the northern countries of Europe. Notwithstanding the most scrupulous investigations, it has been impossible to find any vestiges of the ruins of this temple.” Antiq. Per.

[418] Schinus Molle Lin.

[419] Vincente de Valverde, a Dominican friar, accompanied Pizarro to Peru, and we first hear of him as addressing an intolerably prolix theological discourse to the Ynca Atahualpa, when he came to visit the Spanish camp at Caxamarca. The treacherous friar completed his evil work by calling out to Pizarro and his bloodhounds to attack their guest. Valverde continued to torment the ill-fated Ynca with his theology while in prison, until the poor captive’s sufferings were consummated by his murder on August 29th, 1533. We next find him tormenting the unfortunate general Challcuchina, whom Pizarro burnt alive, disturbing his last moments by officious importunities. He performed mass at the humiliating coronation of Ynca Manco, who received the llautu from the hands of Pizarro. Valverde was soon afterwards confirmed as bishop of Cuzco by the Pope in 1538. He returned to Spain, but came out to Peru again in the following year (1539), and wrote a curious letter to Charles V, still preserved in the archives of Simancas, in which he describes the ruin and devastation caused by the Spaniards in the once flourishing capital of the Yncas. Bishop Valverde protested against the execution of Almagro; and also endeavoured to save Pizarro’s secretary, who was put to death at Lima by the assassins of his master. The assassins allowed the bishop to depart in a vessel from Callao, which touched at the island of Puna, where he was killed by the Indians in 1541.

Valverde was the first bishop of Cuzco, from 1538 to 1541. He was succeeded by friar Juan Solano (1545-62), since whose time twenty-six bishops have filled that episcopal chair.

[420] Schinus Molle Lin., the prevailing tree in this part of the Andes.

[421] Pucara is Quichua for a fortress.

[422] Gaspar Rodriguez de Campo Redondo was brother of a distinguished officer who was killed in the battle of Chupas. Gaspar Rodriguez joined Gonzalo Pizarro in his rebellion against the viceroy Blasco NuÑez de Vela, but afterwards, seeing reason to think that he had chosen the losing side, he sent to the viceroy to ask for a safe conduct. This treachery became known to Pizarro and his ruthless lieutenant Carbajal, who came to the traitor’s tent. The wretched man offered many excuses, but Carbajal never showed mercy, and his head was cut off on the spot.

[423] Diego Gavilan, with his brother Juan, joined Francisco Hernandez Giron in his rebellion at Cuzco in 1553; and the rebel chief appointed Diego to the post of captain of infantry. The municipality of Cuzco was obliged to elect Giron captain-general of Peru, more, says Garcilasso, from fear of one hundred and fifty arquebusiers under the command of Diego Gavilan, who were drawn up in front of the court-house, than from good will. After the overthrow and flight of Giron at Pucara, Diego and Juan Gavilan went over to the royal army and received pardon for their share in the rebellion.

[424] Yllan Suarez de Carbajal was the factor of the royal revenue. After the death of Pizarro he fled from the camp of the younger Almagro, and fought bravely under Vaca de Castro in the battle of Chupas. Carbajal was at Lima when Blasco NuÑez de Vela arrived, and one night the hot-headed viceroy sent for him, accused him of treason, and, during the altercation which followed, stabbed him with a poniard. The attendants dispatched him with their swords, and the body was secretly buried before morning. This foul murder was the immediate cause of the viceroy’s downfall.

[425] Manco Ynca, the second legitimate son of Huayna Ccapac, was invested with the royal llautu at Cuzco by the conqueror Pizarro; but he chafed under the yoke of the invaders, and, on the first opportunity, raised the standard of revolt. Then followed the famous siege of Cuzco, and when the place was relieved by Almagro, and Manco’s last chance of regaining the ancient capital of his ancestors failed, he retreated into the forest fastnesses, continued his hostilities against the Spaniards, and led the romantic life described above by Cieza de Leon. On one occasion Gonzalo Pizarro sent a negro slave to him with presents, to open a negotiation, who was murdered by a party of Indians; upon which Gonzalo perpetrated an act of such devilish cruelty upon a young wife of Manco, whom he had made prisoner, as to be barely credible. The story is related by Prescott, on the authority of Pedro Pizarro’s MS. (ii, p. 136). Manco’s end was very melancholy. He was playing at a game with balls, with one Gomez Perez and some other Spaniards of Almagro’s faction, who had taken refuge in the Ynca’s fastness, when the ill-conditioned ruffian was guilty of some act of disrespect. The Ynca pushed him on one side, upon which Gomez Perez hit him such a blow on the head with a ball that he fell dead. (Gomara, cap. clvi.) This was in the year 1544. The gallant young Ynca left two sons, Sayri Tupac and Tupac Amaru. The former was pensioned by the Spaniards and died at Yucay; the latter perished on the scaffold at Cuzco.

[426] After the assassination of Pizarro, the younger Almagro assembled his partizans and prepared to resist the royal forces under the new governor Vaca de Castro. The two armies met on the heights of Chupas, which overhang the city of Guamanga, on the 16th of September 1542. During my residence at Guamanga I went in search of the battle field, which is about three leagues from the town. The field of Chupas is on a sort of terrace of the Andes, with the mountains rising in the rear, a rapid descent towards Guamanga, and slightly wooded ravines to the right and left. The view from it is magnificent. It is now covered with fields of wheat, with a few huts scattered here and there amidst thickets of chilca (a species of Baccharis). A most furious and bloody encounter was the battle of Chupas. It was long doubtful, but at length Vaca de Castro was victorious, and out of 850 Spaniards brought into the field by young Almagro, 700 were killed. The victors lost about 350 men. Among the slain, on the royal side, was Pedro Alvarez Holguin, one of the first corregidors of Guamanga, and formerly a companion of Hernan Cortez—the same who captured Guatimozin in the lakes of Mexico. He was buried in the little church of San Christoval at Guamanga, which was built by Pizarro and still exists. Several of the prisoners, who were implicated in the murder of Pizarro, were beheaded in the plaza of Guamanga.

[427] The country round Guamanga was inhabited, in ancient times, by the nation of Pocras. They joined the Chancas under Anco-huallu in their war against the Ynca (see note at p. 280), and after the bloody defeat of the allied tribes on the plain of Yahuarpampa, and the emigration of Anco-huallu, they again rose in rebellion. They were finally crushed in a bloody battle at the foot of the heights of Condor-canqui, by the Ynca Huira-ccocha, in a place which has ever since been called Aya-cucho (“the corner of dead men”). Four hundred and fifty years afterwards, on the same spot, the battle was fought between the Spaniards and the Patriots, which finally established the independence of Peru. (December 9th, 1824.)

After the overthrow of the Pocras, the Ynca was serving out rations of llama flesh to his soldiers when a falcon (huaman) came wheeling in circles over his head. He threw up a piece of meat crying Huaman-ca (Take! falcon), and the bird caught it and flew away. “Lo,” cried the soldiers, “even the birds of the air obey him:” and the place was ever afterwards called Huaman-ca, corrupted by the Spaniards into Guamanga. Since the independence, the name of the city has been altered to Ayacucho, in honour of the battle.

Others derive the name from Huaman (falcon) and Ccaca (a rock)—“the Falcon’s Rock.”

[428] The city of Guamanga, now called Ayacucho, is in lat. 12° 59´ S., and long. 73° 59´ W. From the steep mountains which overhang it on the south-west, the city presents to the view a mass of red tiles, with church towers rising here and there, surrounded by gardens of fruit trees, which extend in different directions up the sides of the mountains, while to the north-west is the broad grassy plain called Pampa del Arco, and the view is bounded in that direction by the frowning heights of Condor-canqui, at the feet of which the famous battle of Ayacucho was fought. The streets run at right angles, sloping gradually from north to south, and in the centre is the plaza mayor. On the south side of the plaza are the handsome stone cathedral and the cabildo or court-house. The other three sides are occupied by private houses on handsome arcades, with stone pillars and circular arches. The south part of the town was formerly broken up by a deep ravine, but in 1801 the Spanish intendente, Don Demetrio O’Higgins, spanned it with a number of well built stone bridges. On the west side there is an alameda or avenue of double rows of willow trees, by the side of which a stream of clear water flows down and supplies the city. On either hand the hills rise up abruptly, covered with fruit trees, and hedges of prickly pears. There are more than twenty churches, built of limestone, with well proportioned towers. The climate, as Cieza de Leon says, is delicious, and Ayacucho is one of the pleasantest places in Peru.

[429] In alluding to these ruins, Tschudi and Rivero, in their “Antiguedades Peruanas,” merely refer to the above passage in Cieza de Leon, but do not appear to have identified or examined them.

[430] The country round Guamanga still yields abundant supplies of wheat, and is capable of supporting ten times the present population.

[431] I have been unable to find any other detailed account of the ruins of Vilcas, near Guamanga, where there was evidently a very important station in the time of the Yncas. There is a bare allusion to the above passage of Cieza de Leon in the Antiguedades Peruanas, without a word of further information. I made an endeavour to find the ruins, when I was in this part of the country, but without success. They are mentioned, and nothing more, by Paz Soldan (Geografia del Peru, p. 366); and, indeed, no author tells us so much concerning the once splendid palaces and temples of Vilcas as does Cieza de Leon.

[432] This river is now known as the Pampas. It flows through the very deep valley of Pumacancha, which is covered with dense underwood, and tall stately aloes. The mountains rise up abruptly, in some places quite perpendicularly, on either side. In a place where the river is about twenty paces across, a bridge of sogas, or ropes made of the twisted fibres of the aloe, is stretched from one side to the other. It consists of six sogas, each of about a foot in diameter, set up on either side by a windlass. Across these sogas other smaller ropes are secured, and covered with matting. This rope bridge is considerably lower in the centre than at the two ends, and vibrated to and fro as we passed over it. It has to be renewed several times every year. In Spanish times the Indians of certain villages were excused other service, to repair the bridge. It has been a point of considerable strategical importance, in the frequent intestine wars which Peru has suffered from, as commanding the main road from Cuzco to Lima and the coast. On the side towards Cuzco the valley of Pumacancha is bounded by the mountains of Bombon, up which the road passes through woods of molle, chilca, and other trees, while rugged peaks rise up on either side. One of those glorious views which are seldom equalled out of the Andes, may be enjoyed from the cuesta of Bombon.

[433] Lucanas is one of the provinces of the modern department of Ayacucho.

[434] From the Quichua words anta (copper) and huaylla (pasture), “the copper coloured meadow.”

[435] See ante, note at p. 280.

[436] The original followers and subjects of Manco Ccapac, the first Ynca of Peru, appear to have been called Quichuas, and hence the name of the language. The derivation of the word is doubtful. In Peru the hot tropical valleys are called Yunca, the lofty cold heights Puna, and the intermediate temperate region Quichua. Mossi suggests the following derivation of the word. Quehuani is “to twist” in Quichua, the participle of which is Quehuasca, “twisted;” and Ychu is “straw.” Hence Quehuasca-ychu, “twisted straw,” corrupted into Quichua; from the quantity of straw growing in this temperate region. Thus the Quichuas were the inhabitants of the temperate zone, between the Punas and the Yuncas; and they were the original followers of the first Ynca of Peru. Gramatica de la Lengua General del Peru, con Diccionario, por el R. P. Fray Honorio Mossi (Misionero) Sucre, 1857.

[437] Sonccon is the Quichua word for “heart.”

[438] Diego Maldonado was one of the first conquistadores. He was imprisoned in the fortress of Cuzco by Almagro, after the marshal returned from Chile, with Marcio Serra de Legesamo, and many others. He was afterwards in the battle of Chupas, fighting on the royal side. He became a regidor of Cuzco, where he had several houses, received Andahuaylas in encomienda, and was surnamed “the rich.” When Gonzalo Pizarro rebelled, Maldonado was with the insurgent forces, and, hearing that accusations had been brought against him, he fled from his tent on foot, and hid himself in a field of sugar cane. An Indian found him, and, with the usual kind-heartedness of his race, guided him to the beach, made a balsa out of a bundle of straw, and paddled him to one of La Gasca’s ships, which was lying off and on in Callao bay. He was then sixty-eight years of age; but he still continued to play an important part in public affairs, and was wounded in the rebellion of Giron in 1554. He lived for twelve years afterwards, though he eventually died, in 1566, of wounds received in the battle against that rebel.

[439] The Indians of Andahuaylas, descendants from these Chancas, are a tall and generally handsome race, and many of the women are beautiful. The population of the valley is about six thousand.

[440] The valley of Andahuaylas is one of the most beautiful in the Andes. It contains the three small towns of Talavera, Andahuaylas, and San Geronimo. Through its centre flows a little river, lined on either side by lofty willows, while here and there large fruit gardens slope down to its banks. Every part of the valley is carefully cultivated, and large fields of wheat cover the lower slopes of the surrounding mountains.

[441] From the beginning of January to the end of March 1548. Gasca was here joined by Valdivia, the conqueror of Chile, and when he commenced his march against Gonzalo Pizarro, he was at the head of nearly two thousand well armed men.

[442] This is the river Pachachaca. It is now spanned by a handsome stone bridge of one arch, at a great height above the stream. This bridge is some sixty years old. The Pachachaca is a tributary of the Ucayali.

[443] See my translation of the life of Don Alonzo Enriquez de Guzman, chap. xlviii, and note at p. 114. Hakluyt Society’s volume for 1862.

[444] A few miles beyond the little village of Curahuasi, is the precipitous descent to the bridge over the Apurimac (Apu, “chief,” and rimac, “speaking,” or “a speaker,” in Quichua). A steep zigzag path leads down to the side of the cliff, and at last the precipice becomes so perpendicular that a tunnel has been excavated in the solid rock, about twenty yards long, at the end of which is the bridge. It is made in the same way as that over the river Pampas. The river dashes furiously along between vertical precipices of stupendous height, and a high wind is not uncommon, which blows the frail rope bridge to and fro, rendering the passage very dangerous, and at times impossible.

[445] The empire of the Yncas, as it existed in the time of Manco Ccapac, the founder of his dynasty, only extended from the Apurimac on the west, to the Paucar-tambo on the east, a distance of about fifty miles. In the centre was Cuzco, while on each frontier there was a fortress and a palace—Ollantay-tampu on the north, Paccari-tampu on the south, Paucar-tampu on the east, and Rimac-tampu (corrupted by the Spaniards into Limatambo) on the west, near the river of Apurimac. The ruins of the palace of Lima-tambo are situated in a delightful spot, commanding a fine view. Only two walls, and the face of the stone terrace on which the palace was built, now remain. These walls are twenty and forty paces long respectively, forming an angle, and about fourteen feet high. The stones are beautifully fitted into each other, without cement of any kind, and to this day look angular and fresh. At intervals there are recesses in the walls, about one foot deep and eight feet high. The interior of the palace is now an extensive fruit garden.

[446] These are the andeneria or terraced fields and gardens. They may still be seen on the hills bordering the plain of Xaquixaguana or Surite.

[447] The original name of this plain appears to have been Yahuar-pampa (field of blood), so called in memory of the bloody battle between the army of Ynca Huira-ccocha and the allied tribes led by Anco-hualluc. In the days of the Spanish conquest it was known by the name of Xaquixaguana (Cieza de Leon and Zarate) or Sacsahuana (G. de la Vega); here the Ynca general Challcuchima was cruelly burnt to death by Pizarro, and here the President Gasca defeated and executed Gonzalo Pizarro and Carbajal. It is now generally called the plain of Surite, from a village of that name at its north-western corner.

The plain of Surite is a few leagues west of Cuzco, on the road to Lima, at a sufficient elevation to be within the region of occasional frosts, and is surrounded by mountains, up which the ancient andeneria or terraced fields, now left to ruin, may be seen rising tier above tier. The plain is swampy and covered with rank grass, and would be difficult to cross, if it were not for the causeway, built by order of the Yncas, and accurately described by Cieza de Leon, which is still in good preservation. This causeway is of stone, raised about six feet above the plain, and perfectly straight for a distance of two leagues. At the end of the causeway is the little village of Yscu-chaca.

[448] The ancient city of Cuzco is in lat. 13° 31´ S., and long. 73° 3´ W., at the head of a valley 11,380 feet above the level of the sea. The valley is nine miles long, and from two to three broad, bounded on either side by ranges of bare mountains of considerable elevation. It is covered with fields of barley and lucerne, and, besides many farms and country houses, contains the two small towns of San Sebastian and San Geronimo. On the north side the famous hill of Sacsahuaman rises abruptly over the city, and is divided from the mountains on either side by two deep ravines, through which flow the little rivers of Huatanay and Rodadero. The former stream rushes noisily past the moss-grown walls of the old convent of Santa Teresa, under the houses forming the west side of the great square of Cuzco, down the centre of a broad street, where it is crossed by numerous stone bridges, and eventually unites with the Rodadero. The Huatanay is now but a noisy little mountain torrent confined between banks faced with masonry; but in former times it must have been in the habit of frequently breaking its bounds, as the name implies, which is composed of two words, Huata (a year), and Ananay, an ejaculation of weariness, indicating fatigue from the yearly necessity of renewing its banks. The principal part of the ancient city was built between the two rivers.

[449] “The grandeur of the fortress of Cuzco,” says Garcilasso de la Vega, “is incredible to those who have not seen it, and those who have examined it carefully might well imagine, and even believe, that it was made by some enchantment, and by demons rather than men. The multitude and bigness of the stones in the three lines of fortification (which are more like rocks than stones) cause admiration, and it is wonderful how the Indians could have cut them out of the quarries whence they were brought, for they have neither iron nor steel. How they conveyed them to the building is a still greater difficulty, for they had no bullocks, nor did they know how to make carts which could bear the weight of the stones; so they dragged them with stout ropes by the force of their arms. The roads by which they had to come were not level, but led over very rugged mountains, up and down which the stones were dragged by sheer force. Many of the stones were brought from distances of ten, twelve, and fifteen leagues, particularly the stone, or, to speak more correctly, the rock which the Indians call saycusca (as much as to say ‘tired’), for it never reached the building. It was brought from a distance of fifteen leagues, across the river of Yucay, which is little smaller than the Guadalquivir at Cordova. The nearest quarry was at Muyna, five leagues from Cuzco. But it is still more wonderful to think how they fitted such great stones so closely that the point of a knife will scarcely go between them. Many are so well adjusted that the joining can scarcely be seen, and to attain such nicety it must have been necessary to raise them to their places and lower them very many times; for the Indians had no square, nor had they any rule by which they could know that one stone fitted justly on another. They had no knowledge of cranes nor of pulleys, nor of any machine which would assist them in raising and lowering the stones.” ... Acosta (lib. vi, cap. 14, p. 421, ed. 1608) makes similar remarks on the size of the stones and on the difficulty of raising them. Garcilasso continues: “They built the fortress on a high hill to the north of the city, called Sacsahuaman. This hill rises above the city almost perpendicularly, so that on that side the fortress is safe from an enemy, whether formed in squadron or in any other way. Owing to its natural advantages this side was only fortified with a stout wall, more than two hundred fathoms long. But on the other side there is a wide plain approaching the hill by a gentle incline, so that an enemy might march up in squadrons. Here they made three walls, one in front of the other, each wall being more than two hundred fathoms long. They are in the form of a half moon, and unite with the wall facing the city. The first wall contains the largest stones. I hold that they were not taken from any quarry, because they bear no marks of having been worked, but that they were huge boulders (tormos) or loose rocks which were found on the hills, adapted for building. Nearly in the centre of each line of wall there was a doorway, each with a stone of the same height and breadth, which closed it. The first of these doorways was called Ttiu-puncu (Sand gate); the second, Acahuana-puncu, so called after the chief architect; and the third, Huira-ccocha-puncu. There is a space of twenty-five or thirty feet between the walls, which is made level, so that the summit of one wall is on a line with the foot of the next. Each wall had its parapet or breastwork, behind which the defenders could fight with more security. Above these lines of defence there is a long narrow platform, on which were three strong towers. The principal one was in the centre, and was called Moyoc-marca or ‘the round tower.’ In it there was a fountain of excellent water, brought from a distance underground, the Indians know not whence. The kings lodged in this tower when they went up to the fortress for amusement, and all the walls were adorned with gold and silver, and animals, birds, and plants imitated from nature, which served as tapestry. The second tower was called Paucar-marca, and the third, Sacllac-marca. They were both square, and they contained lodgings for many soldiers. The foundations were as deep as the towers were high, and the vaults passed from one to the other. These vaults were cunningly made, with so many lanes and streets that they crossed each other with their turns and doublings.” Garcilasso complains that the Spaniards, instead of preserving this wonderful monument, have taken away many stones, from the vaults and towers, with which to build their new houses in Cuzco; but they left the three great walls, because the stones were so enormous that they could not move them. He adds that the fortress took fifty years in building.

The ruins of the fortress of Cuzco are the most interesting in Peru, and I made a very minute examination of them in 1853. On the side of the hill immediately above the city there are three stone terraces. The first wall, 14 feet high, extends in a semicircular form round this end of the hill, for 180 paces. Between the first and second walls there is a level space 8 paces broad. Above the third wall there are many carefully hewn stones lying about, some of them supporting three lofty wooden crosses. Here, probably, were the three towers mentioned by Garcilasso, now totally destroyed. The view from this point is extensive and beautiful. The city of Cuzco is spread out like a map below, with its handsome church towers and domes rising above the other buildings. The great square is seen, crowded with Indian girls sitting under shades before their merchandise, or passing to and fro like a busy hive of bees. Beyond is the long plain, and far in the distance, rising above the lower ranges of mountains, towers Asungato, with its snowy peak standing out in strong relief against the cloudless sky.

The length of the platform or table land on the summit of the Sacsahuaman hill is 525 paces, and its breadth, in the broadest part, 130 paces. Many deep excavations have been made in all parts of it, in search of hidden treasure. On the south side the position was so strong that it needed no artificial defence, being bounded by the almost inaccessible ravine of the Huatanay. On the north, from the terraces already described for 174 paces in a westerly direction, the position is naturally defended by the steep ravine through which flows the river Rodadero, and only required a single stone breastwork, which still exists. But from this point to the western extremity of the table land, a distance of 400 paces, it is entirely undefended by nature. Here the Yncas constructed that gigantic treble line of Cyclopean fortification, which must fill the mind of every traveller with astonishment and admiration. The first wall averages a height of 18 feet, the second of 16, and the third of 14: the terrace between the first and second being 10 paces across, and that between the second and third 8 paces. The walls are built with salient and retiring angles. The position is entered by three doorways, so narrow that they only admit of the passage of one man at a time. The outer angles are generally composed of one enormous block of stone. I measured some of these. One was 17 feet high, 12 broad, and 7½ long; another, 16 feet high by 6 broad. They are made to fit so exactly one into the other as to form a piece of masonry unparalleled in solidity and the peculiarity of its construction, in any other part of the world. These walls are composed of a limestone of a dark slate colour, and are now overgrown with cacti and wild flowers.

[452] The Yncas ascertained the time of the solstices by means of eight towers on the east, and eight towers on the west of the city, put four and four, two small between two large ones. The smaller towers were eighteen or twenty feet apart, and the larger ones were the same distance, one on each side. The solstice was ascertained by watching when the sun set or rose between the smaller towers. G. de la Vega, i, lib. ii, cap. 22.

[453] The four grand divisions of the empire of the Yncas gave their names to these four royal roads. The whole empire was called Ttahua-ntin-Suyu, literally “The four regions.”

[454] The most detailed account of ancient Cuzco is to be found in the pages of the Ynca historian. He says that the first houses were built on the steep slopes of the Sacsahuaman hill. The city was divided into two parts, Hanan-Cuzco (upper or north) and Hurin-Cuzco (lower or south). The chief ward or division was on the slopes of Sacsahuaman, and was called Collcam-pata. Here Manco Ccapac built his palace, the ruins of which are still in good preservation; and the great hall, where festivals were celebrated on rainy days, was entire in the days of Garcilasso. The next ward, to the east, was called Cantut-pata (“the terrace of flowers”); then came Puma-curcu (“lion’s beam”), so called from a beam to which wild animals were secured; then Toco-cachi (“window of salt”); then, further south, Munay-sencca (“loving nose”); then Rimac-pampa (“speaking place”), where ordinances were promulgated, close to the temple of the sun, at the south end of the city; then Pumap-chupan (“lion’s tail”), where the two streams of Huatanay and Rodadero unite, and form a long promontory, like a tail. To the westward there was a division called Chaquill-chaca; and next to it, on the north, were others called Pichu and Quillipata. Finally, the division known as Huaca-puncu (“holy gate”) adjoined the Collcampata on the west side.

The inner space, between the abovenamed divisions or suburbs, and extending from the Collcampata on the north to Rimac-pampa on the south, was occupied by the palaces and houses of the Ynca and his family, divided according to their Ayllus or lineages. This central part of the city was divided into four parts, called Hatun-cancha, containing the palace of Ynca Yupanqui; Puca-marca, where stood the palace of Tupac Ynca Yupanqui; Ynti-pampa, the open space in front of the temple of the sun; and Ccori-cancha, which was occupied by the temple of the sun itself. Immediately south of the Collcam-pata was the Sacha-huasi or college, founded by Ynca Rocca, where the Amautas or wise men resided. Near the college was the palace of Ynca Rocca, called Coracora, and another palace called Cassana,{a} the abode of the Ynca Pachacutec. The latter was so called because it would cause any one who saw it to freeze (cassa) with astonishment, at its grandeur and magnificence. These palaces looked upon the great square of the ancient city, called Huacay-pata (“the festive terrace”), which was two hundred paces long and one hundred and fifty broad from east to west. At the west end it was bounded by the Huatanay stream. At the south side there was another royal palace, called Amaru-cancha (“place of a serpent”), the residence of Huayna Ccapac, and south of the Anaru-cancha was the Aclla-huasi.

{a} The site is now occupied by the convent of San Francisco. or convent of virgins. West of the Huacay-pata was the Cusi-pata (“joyful terrace”), which was united with it, the Huatanay being paved over with large flagstones.

All the streets of modern Cuzco contain specimens of ancient masonry. Many of the stones have serpents sculptured in relief, and four slabs are to be seen, with figures—half bird, half man—carved upon them, with some pretence to artistic skill. The wall of the palace of Ynca Rocca is still very perfect. It is formed of huge masses of rock of various shapes, one of them actually having twelve sides, yet fitting into each other with marvellous accuracy. They are of a sombre hue, and have an imposing effect. With the exception, however, of this building, of the palace on the Collcampata, and of the fortress, which are in the Cyclopean style, all the ancient masonry of Cuzco is in regular parallel courses. The roofs were of thatch, but very neatly and carefully laid on, as may be seen in the specimen still existing at the Sondor-huasi of Azangaro (See note to p. 166), and the city must altogether have presented a scene of architectural grandeur and magnificence which was well calculated to astonish the greedy and illiterate conquerors.

[455] Ccuri-cancha means literally “the place of gold.” Its site is now occupied by the convent of San Domingo, but several portions of the ancient temple of the sun are still standing, especially at the west end, where a mass of the dark, beautifully-formed masonry, about eighteen feet high, overhangs the Huatanay river. At the east end of the convent the ancient wall of the temple is almost entire, being seventy paces long and about thirty feet high. The stones are of irregular length, generally about two feet by one and a-half, and very accurately cut. They are in regular parallel courses, with their exterior surfaces projecting slightly and sloping off at the sides to form a junction with their neighbours. The roof was formed of beams pitched very high, and thatched with straw. In the interior the four walls were lined with plates of gold, and at one end there was a huge golden sun, with features represented, and rays of flame darting from its circumference, all of one piece. It extended from one wall to the other, occupying the whole side. This magnificent prize fell to the share of a Spanish knight named Marcio Serra de Lejesama, who gambled it away in one night; but he never took a card into his hand again. The reformed knight married an Ynca princess, and left the memorable will which I have quoted in a note at page 124.

On each side of the golden sun were the mummies of the deceased Yncas, seated in chairs of gold. The principal door faced towards the north, and opened on the open space known as the Ynti-pampa; and a cornice of gold, a yard broad, ran round the exterior walls of the temple. On the south side were the cloisters, also ornamented with a broad cornice of gold, and within the enclosure were buildings dedicated to the moon, and adorned with silver, to the stars, to lightning, and to the rainbow; as well as the dwellings of the Huillac Umu, or high priest, and of his attendants. Within the courts of these cloisters there were five fountains, with pipes of silver or gold. In the rear of the cloisters was the garden of the sun, where all the flowers, fruits, and leaves, were of pure beaten gold. I have myself seen some of these golden fruits and flowers.

[456] Namely Sinchi Rocca (1062), Lloque Yupanqui (1091), Mayta Ccapac (1126), Ccapac Yupanqui (1156), Ynca Rocca (1197), Yahuar-huaccac (1249), Huira-ccocha (1289), Pachacutec (1340), Ynca Yupanqui (1400), and Tupac Ynca Yupanqui (1439). The last named was succeeded by Huayna Ccapac (1475), in whose reign the Spaniards first appeared on the coast of Peru.

[457] G. de la Vega quotes this passage (i, lib. vii, cap. 19).

[458] In Quichua, Muchani is to adore or to kiss; and Muchay would be “adoration.”

[459] The valley of Yucay or Vilca-mayu is the paradise of Peru. It was the favourite residence of the Yncas, and is one of the most delightful spots in this favoured land. The rapid river which flows through it rises in the mountains of VilcaÑota, and, leaving the city of Cuzco at a distance of about ten miles to the west, eventually joins the Apurimac after a course of about four hundred miles, and becomes one of the main affluents of the Ucayali.

The valley is seldom more than three miles in breadth, and is bounded on its eastern side by the snow-capped range of the Andes. To the westward there is a lower range of steep and rocky mountains. Within these narrow limits the vale of Yucay enjoys a delicious climate, and the picturesque farms, with their maize towers surrounded by little thickets of fruit trees, the villages scattered here and there along the banks of the rapid river, the groves of trees, and the lofty mountains rising abruptly from the valley, combine to form a landscape of exceeding beauty. The little village of Yucay is on the site of the delicious country retreat of the Yncas, a palace on which all the arts of Peruvian civilisation were lavished to render it a fitting abode for the sovereign and his court. The only remaining vestiges of the palace are two walls of Ynca masonry, forming sides of a modern house in the plaza of the village.

[460] Next to the fortress of Cuzco, the ruins at Tambo or Ollantay-tambo, in the valley of Yucay, are the most astonishing in Peru. They are built at a point where the valley is only about a league in width, covered with maize fields, with the broad and rapid river flowing through the centre. The dark mountains rise up almost perpendicularly on either side to such a stupendous height that but a narrow portion of blue sky smiles down upon the peaceful scene between them. A ravine, called Marca-ccocha, descends from the bleak punas of the Andes to the valley of Yucay at this point, and at the junction two lofty masses of rock rise up abruptly in dark and frowning majesty. The fortress of Tambo is built on the rock which forms the western portal to the ravine. The rock is a dark limestone, the lower part of which, to the south and east, is faced with masonry composed of small stones. At a height of about 300 feet there is a platform covered with a ruin apparently left in an unfinished state. Here there are six enormous slabs of granite, standing upright, and united by smaller pieces fitted between them. Each slab is 12 feet high, and at their bases there are other blocks of the same material, in one place formed into a commencement of a wall. This spot appears to have been intended as the principal part of the citadel. In the rear, and built up the steep sides of the mountains, there are several edifices of small stones plastered over with a yellow mud. They have gables at either end, and apertures for doors and windows. Still further to the east, a flank wall of the same material rises up from the valley to near the summit of the mountain, which is very steep and rocky, and indeed difficult of ascent. Immediately below the principal platform there are a succession of stone terraces. The upper one is entered at the side by a handsome doorway with an enormous granite lintel. The wall is built of polygonal-shaped blocks, fitting exactly into each other, and contains eight recesses, two feet two inches high by one broad and one deep. When the inner sides of these recesses are tapped with the fingers, a peculiar metallic ringing sound is produced. In front of the terraces there a series of well-constructed andeneria, or hanging gardens, sixteen deep, all faced with masonry, which descend into the ravine. On the opposite side of these andeneria the mountain rises perpendicularly, and terminates in a dizzy peak, where there is a huge block of stone called the Ynti-huatana, or place for observing the sun.

The most astonishing circumstance connected with these ruins is the distance from which the stones which compose them have been conveyed. The huge blocks of granite of enormous dimensions rest upon a limestone rock, and the nearest granite quarry is at a distance of six miles, and on the other side of the river. On the road to this quarry there are two stones which never reached their destination. They are known as the Saycusca-rumicuna or “tired stones.” One of them is 9 ft. 8 in. long and 7 ft. 8 in. broad; with a groove round it, three inches deep, apparently for passing a rope. The other is 20 ft. 4 in. long, 15 ft. 2 in. broad, and 3 ft. 6 in. deep.

At the foot of the rock on which the fortress is built there are several ancient buildings. Here is the MaÑay raccay or “court of petitions,” sixty paces square, and surrounded by buildings of gravel and plaster, which open on the court by doorways twelve feet high, surmounted by enormous granite lintels. On the western side of the ravine of Marca-ccocha, opposite the fortress, there is another mass of rock towering up perpendicularly, and ending in a sharp peak. It is called the Pinculluna (“Place of Flutes”). Half-way up, on a rocky ledge very difficult of approach, there are some buildings which tradition says were used as a convent of virgins of the sun. They consist of three long chambers separated from each other but close together, and rising one behind the other up the declivitous side of the mountain. They are each twenty-eight paces long, with a door at each end, and six windows on each side. There are steep gables at each end about eighteen feet high, and the doors have stone lintels. There may have been six cells, according to the number of windows, making eighteen in all. On one side of these buildings there are three terraces on which the doors open, which probably supplied the inmates with vegetable food and flowers, and whence they might view one of nature’s loveliest scenes, the tranquil fertile valley, with its noble river, and mountains fringed with tiers of cultivated terraces.

About a hundred yards beyond the edge of these convent gardens the Pinculluna becomes quite perpendicular, and forms a yawning precipice eight hundred feet high, descending sheer down into the valley. This was used as the Huarcuna or place of execution, and there is a small building, like a martello tower, at its verge, whence the victims were hurled into eternity.

For an account of the tradition connected with the building of Ollantay-tambo, and of the Quichua drama which is founded on it, see my work, Cuzco and Lima, pp. 172 to 188.

The authors of the Antiguedades Peruanas believe these ruins to be anterior to those of Cuzco.

[461] Cunti-suyu was the western division of the empire of the Yncas. The word was afterwards corrupted by the Spaniards into Condesuyos; and the district of that name is now a province of the department of Arequipa. It is nearly on the watershed of the maritime Cordillera, and is drained by a river which, after irrigating the valley of OcoÑa, falls into the Pacific.

[462] To the eastward of the Andes are the great forests which extend unbroken to the Atlantic. Those in the immediate neighbourhood of Cuzco are watered by the tributaries of the Purus, one of the largest and most important, though still unexplored affluents of the Amazon. These forests comprised the Anti-suyu or eastern division of the empire of the Yncas, and were inhabited by wandering savage tribes called Antis and Chunchos. The forest region was first invaded by the Ynca Rocca, but no permanent conquest was made until the reign of the Ynca Yupanqui, who received tidings of a rich province inhabited by a people called Musus (Moxos) far to the eastward. All the streams were said to unite and form a great river called the Amaru-mayu (“serpent river”), which is probably the main stream of the Purus. The Ynca made a road from the Andes to the shores of the river, through the forest-covered country now known as the montaÑa de Paucartambo, and was occupied for two years in making canoes sufficient to carry ten thousand men, and their provisions. He then descended the river, and, after a long and bloody war, subjugated the savage tribes of Chunchos on its banks, and collected them into a settlement called Tono. They ever afterwards paid an annual tribute of parrots, honey, and wax to the Yncas. Yupanqui then penetrated still further to the south and east, and conquered the province of Moxos.

In the early days of the conquest, the Spaniards established farms for raising coca, cacao, and sugar in the beautiful forests of Paucartambo, especially along the banks of the Tono, and Garcilasso de la Vega tells us that he inherited an estate called Abisca, in this part of the country. But as Spanish power declined, these estates began to fall into decay, the savage Chunchos encroached more and more, and now there is not a single farm remaining in this once wealthy and flourishing district. The primitive forest has again resumed its sway, and the country is in the same state as it was before it was invaded by the Ynca Yupanqui. The exploration of the course of the Purus is one of the chief desiderata in South American geography. An expedition under Don Tiburcio de Landa, governor of Paucartambo, penetrated for some distance down the course of the Tono in about 1778; in about 1824 a Dr. Sevallos was sent on a similar errand; General Miller, in 1835, penetrated to a greater distance than any other explorer before or since; Lieutenant Gibbon, U.S.N., entered the forests in 1852; and I explored part of the course of the Tono in 1853. I have been furnished with a most valuable and interesting paper on the river PurÚs, by Mr. Richard Spruce, the distinguished South American traveller and botanist, which I have inserted as a note at the end of this chapter.

[463] These are the Chunchos and other wild tribes.

[464] Unfit for translation.

[465] “Ensayo Corografico sobre o ParÁ. This author cites no authorities, but he had access to very valuable documents and manuscript maps in the archives of ParÁ, most of which were unfortunately destroyed or dispersed during the uprising of the cabanos in 1835; and wherever I have had the opportunity of testing his statements by personal observation I have found them very exact.

[466] “New Discovery of the Great River of the Amazons. Markham’s Transl., p. 107.

[467] “AcuÑa writes these names respectively ‘Curucurus’ and ‘Quatausis.’

[468] “The original exists as an appendix to the ‘Falla dirigida Á assemblea legislativa provincial do Amazonas, no dia 1º de Outubro de 1853,’ by Senhor Herculano Ferreira Penna, the learned and patriotic president of the province, who presented me with a copy of it when I revisited the Barra in 1854.

[469] “Tolda, roof to shelter the after part of a canoe.

[470] “Furo, a channel between two points of the same river, or from one river to another, which becomes filled with water in the time of flood. A narrow channel between an island and the bank is generally called a ParanÁ-merÍm, or little river.

[471] “Caldeirao, a noted whirlpool in the Amazon, near the left bank, above the mouth of the Rio Negro.

[472] “Solimoes, the Brazilian name of the Amazon from the Rio Negro to the frontier, or even as far up as to the mouth of Ucayali.

[473] “The furo, or paranÁ-merÍm, of ParatarÝ is the lowest mouth of the PurÚs, and it appears that Serafim sailed along it for three days before reaching the main channel. In 1851 I spent nearly a month on the lakes of ManaquirÝ, about forty miles below the mouth of the PurÚs, and found that the ParatarÝ had many ramifications, communicating not only with those lakes, but also with the much larger lake of UauatÁs to the eastward, and thence with the river Madeira. In the rainy season, indeed, it is possible to navigate for hundreds of miles parallel to the southern side of the Amazon without ever entering that river.”

[474] “The beaches on the Amazon and its tributaries are very important to the Indians, being the places where the turtles lay their eggs; and hence they all have a special name.

[475] “UbÁ, a canoe made simply of a hollow trunk, and stretched to the form of a boat by putting fire under it and cross pieces of wood within it. Casca, a bark canoe.

[476] “This is the yÚca of Peru, and is a distinct species from the mandiocea (Manihot utilissima Pohl.), which is the staple article of food throughout Brazil.

[477] “In June 1851, I took six days to go from the Barra only half way to ManacapurÚ, but the river was then at the height of flood, and my large boat was manned by only three men.

[478] “I should suppose the UainamarÍs to be a tribe of the savage Chunchos. Many of the large Indian nations spoken of by old authors are now much subdivided; thus of the Jibaros, on the eastern side of the Quitenian Andes, have been constituted in modern times the tribes Achuales, Pindus, Huambisas, etc.

“The Cucamas are a section of the great Tupi nation, and speak a very euphonious dialect of Tupi. They are now found scattered in most of the villages on the MaraÑon (or upper Amazon) in Peru, and formerly existed in much greater numbers than at present in the village of La Laguna, within the Huallaga. It is curious to find a remnant of them so far separated from the bulk of their nation as at the head of the PurÚs, but it is explicable enough when we come to trace the migrations of the TupÍs and Cucamas, as narrated by AcuÑa and other writers.”

[479] See my chapter on coca cultivation in Travels in Peru and India, chap. xiv, p. 232.

[480] Cieza de Leon now conducts the reader up the beautiful valley of Vilca-mayu, or Yucay.

[481] Canas was conquered by Lloque Yupanqui, the third Ynca. G. de la Vega, i, lib. ii, cap. 18.

[482] The country inhabited by the Indian tribes of Canas and Canches was, in Spanish times, included within the Corrigimiento of Tinta, one of the divisions of the Presidency of Cuzco. It now comprises the two provinces of Canas and Canches. It consists of lofty plateaux or punas of the Andes, intersected by the deep and fertile ravine through which flows the river Vilcamayu or Yucay; and is bounded on the south by the equally lofty plains of the Collao. The punas are covered with flocks of llamas; and the more inaccessible fastnesses are the haunts of huanacus, vicuÑas, deer, and viscachas (a kind of rabbit).

In the most remote times the tribe of Canas inhabited one side of the Vilcamayu ravine, and that of Canches the other. The former were proud, cautious, and melancholy, their clothing was usually of a sombre colour, and their music was plaintive and sad. The latter were joyous, light hearted, and sociable, but very poor, their clothing consisting of skins. They made wars upon each other, and built their villages in strong fortified positions called pucaras. These tribes were brought under the yoke of the Yncas by Sinchi Rocca, the second of his dynasty. He permitted the ancient chiefs to retain their power, but insisted upon their children being educated at Cuzco. The Canas, however, were constantly in a state of revolt, until the Ynca Huayna Ccapac gave one of his daughters in marriage to their chief.

The Canches were of middle height, very bold, restless, inconstant, but good workmen, industrious, and brave. The Canas, though of a darker complexion, were stouter and better made. The Canches loved solitude and were very silent, and built their huts in secluded ravines and valleys. The villages of the Canches were Sicuani, Cacha, Tinta, Checacupe, Pampamarca, Yanaoca, and Lanqui; and those of the Canas were Checa, Pichigua, Yacuri, Coparaque, Tungasaca, Surimani. Sicuani, in the ravine of the Vilcamayu, is the principal place in the country of the Canches and Canas. At the end of the last century it contained a population of four thousand Indians, and one thousand Mestizos. The number of Indians in the whole district was calculated, at the same time, to amount to twenty-six thousand souls. Mercurio Peruano (Nueva Edicion), i, p. 193.

[483] Garcilasso de la Vega relates a tradition respecting this temple at Cacha, which is on the right bank of the river Yucay, sixteen leagues south of Cuzco. A supernatural being is said to have appeared to the Ynca Huira-ccocha, before the battle with Anco-hualluc and his allies on the plain of Yahuar-pampa (see note to p. 280), and after his victory the grateful prince caused a temple to be erected at Cacha, in memory of the phantom. As the vision appeared in the open air, so the temple was to have no roof, and as he was sleeping at the time under an overhanging rock, so there was to be a small covered chapel opening into the temple, which was 120 feet long by 80. The edifice was built of large stones carefully dressed and finished. It had four doors, three of them being merely ornamental recesses, and the fourth, facing to the east, was alone used. Within the temple there were walls winding round and round and forming twelve lanes, each seven feet wide, and covered overhead with huge stone slabs ten feet long. As these lanes went round and round they approached the centre of the temple, and at the end of the twelfth and last there was a flight of steps leading to the top. At the end of each lane or passage there was a window by which light was admitted. The steps were double, so that people could go up on one side and down on the other. The floor above was paved with polished black stones, and on one side there was a chapel, within which was the statue representing the phantom. The Spaniards entirely demolished this temple.

[484] This description of the Collao is very accurate. South of the VilcaÑota mountains the Andes separate into two distinct chains, namely the cordillera or coast range and the Eastern Andes, which include the loftiest peaks in South America, Illimani and Sorata. The Collao is the region between these two ranges. It contains the great lake of Titicaca, and consists of elevated plains intersected by rivers flowing into the lake.

[485] The potatoe was indigenous to the Andes of Peru, and the best potatoe in the world is grown at a place called Huamantango, near Lima. I am surprised to find that Humboldt should have doubted this fact, (“La pomme de terre n’est pas indigÈne au PÉrou.” Nouv. Espagne, ii, p. 400), seeing that there is a native word for potatoe, and that it is mentioned as the staple food of the people of the Collao, by Cieza de Leon, and other early writers. Moreover the SolanaceÆ are the commonest plants in several parts of Peru. The ancient Quichua for potatoe is ascu or acsu, and the same word exists in the Chinchay-suyu dialect. (Torres Rubio, p. 219.)

[486] ChuÑus or frozen potatoes are still the ordinary food of the natives of the Collao. They dam up square shallow pools by the sides of streams, and fill them with potatoes during the cold season of June and July. The frost soon converts them into chuÑus, which are insipid and tasteless.

[487] The oca (Oxalis tuberosa Lin.) is an oval shaped root, the skin pale red, and the inside white. It is watery, has a sweetish taste, and is much liked by the Peruvians.

[488] See note at page 143.

[489] See chapter xxv, p. 90.

[490] The most remarkable of these tower tombs of the Collao are at a place called Sillustani, on a promontory running out into the lake of Umayu, near Puno. This promontory is literally covered with places of sepulture. Four of them are towers of finely cut masonry, with the sides of the stones dovetailing into each other. See a full description of them in my Travels in Peru and India, p. 111; also Vigne’s Travels in South America, ii, p. 31; and Antiguedades Peruanas, p. 293.

[491] A small village of the Collao, on the banks of the river Pucara, near the point where, uniting with the Azangaro, it forms the Ramiz, which empties itself into lake Titicaca at the north-west corner.

[492] The editor also remained a whole day at Pucara in 1860, looking at everything, but more than three centuries had elapsed since the visit of Cieza de Leon, and there is no longer a vestige of the ruins mentioned in the text. Pucara is a little town at the foot of an almost perpendicular mountain, which closely resembles the northern end of the rock of Gibraltar. The precipice is composed of a reddish sandstone, and is upwards of twelve hundred feet above the plain, the crevices and summit being clothed with long grass and shrubby queÑuas (Polylepis tomentella Wedd.) Here Francisco Hernandez Giron, the rebel who led an insurrection to oppose the abolition of personal service amongst the Indians, was finally defeated in 1554. In 1860 the aged cura, Dr. JosÉ Faustino Dasa, was one of the best Quichua scholars in Peru.

[493] Hatun-colla is now a wretched little village, not far from the towers of Sillustani, already alluded to.

[494] See my chapter on the province of Caravaya, in Travels in Peru and India, chap. xii, p. 199.

[495] A thorough survey of the great lake of Titicaca is still a desideratum in geography. The lake is about 80 miles long by 40 broad, being by far the largest in South America. It is divided into two parts by the peninsula of Copacabana. The southern division, called the lake of Huaqui, is 8 leagues long by 7, and is united to the greater lake by the strait of Tiquina. A number of rivers, which are of considerable volume during the rainy season, flow into the lake. The largest of these is the Ramiz, which is formed by the junction of the two rivers of Pucara and Azangaro, and enters the lake at its north-west corner. The Suchiz, formed by the rivers of Cavanilla and Lampa, also flows into the lake on its west side, as well as the Yllpa and Ylave; while on the eastern side are the rivers Huarina, Escoma, and Achacache. Much of the water thus flowing in is drained off by the great river Desaguadero, which flows out of the south-west corner, and disappears in the swampy lake of Aullagas, in the south of Bolivia. Perhaps a great quantity is taken up by evaporation. On the eastern side lake Titicaca is very deep, but on parts of the west shore it is so shoal that there is only just water enough to force a balsa through the forests of rushes. The winds blow from the eastward all the year round, sometimes in strong gales, so as to raise a heavy sea. Along the western shore there are acres of tall rushes. The principal islands are those of Titicaca and Coati, near the peninsula of Copacabana, Campanario, Escoma, Soto, and Esteves.

[496] The temple, on the island of Titicaca, was one of the most sacred in Peru, and the ruins are still in a good state of preservation. The buildings are of hewn stone, with doorways wider below than above. But they are inferior to those on the adjacent island of Coati. See Rivero, Antiguedades Peruanas, chap. x.

[497] We first meet with Hernando Bachicao as a captain of pikemen in the army of Vaca de Castro. When Gonzalo Pizarro rose against the viceroy Blasco NuÑez de Vela, he entrusted Bachicao with the formation of a navy. That officer took command of a brigantine at Callao, which had just arrived from Quilca, and sailed up the coast. At Tumbez he found the viceroy, who fled inland on his approach; and Bachicao seized two vessels. Sailing northward he captured several others, and with the fleet thus formed, he got possession of the city of Panama in March 1545. Soon afterwards Gonzalo Pizarro appointed Hinojosa to command the fleet, and superseded Bachicao; who then joined his chief with reinforcements from Panama, and took part in the final defeat of the viceroy at AÑaquito, where he commanded the pikemen. At the battle of Huarina, where he also commanded the pikemen, believing that the forces of Centeno were about to gain the victory, he turned traitor and deserted his colours; but he was mistaken, for his old commander Gonzalo Pizarro won that bloody fight. Bachicao, therefore, returned to his own side, and would have been glad if his conduct had escaped observation. But the eagle eye of the fiery old master of the camp, Carbajal, was not to be deceived, and the captain Hernando Bachicao was hung by his order, a few days afterwards, in the little village of Juli, on the western shore of lake Titicaca.

[498] These ruins are in lat. 16° 42´ S. long. 68° 42´ W., 12,930 feet above the level of the sea, and twelve miles from the south shore of lake Titicaca. (See Mr. Bollaert’s paper, in the Intellectual Observer for May 1863.)

[499] It is 918 feet long, 400 broad, and 100 to 120 in height.

[500] The head of one of these statues is 3 feet 6 inches long, from the point of the beard to the upper part of the ornamental head dress; and from the nose to the back of the head it measures 2 feet 7 inches. It is adorned with a species of round cap, 1 foot 7 inches high, and 2 feet 5 inches in width. In the upper part are certain wide vertical bands, and in the lower are symbolical figures with human faces. From the eyes, which are large and round, two wide bands, each with three double circles, project to the chin. From the outer part of each eye a band descends, adorned with two squares terminating in a serpent. The nose is slightly prominent, surrounded on the lower side by a wide semicircular band, and terminating towards the inner side of the eyes in two corners. The mouth forms a transverse oval, garnished with sixteen teeth. From the under lip projects, in the form of a beard, six bands, towards the edge of the chin. The ear is represented by a semi-lunar figure in a square, and in the fore-part of it is a vertical band with three squares, terminating in the head of a wild beast. On the neck there are many human figures. The sculpture of this head is very remarkable. Antiguedades Peruanas, p. 295.

[501] Of these huge monolithic doorways there is one block of hard trachytic rock measuring 10 feet in height by 13 wide, and another 7 feet in height. In the former block a doorway is cut, which is 6 feet 4 inches high, and 3 feet 2 inches wide. On its eastern side there is a cornice, in the centre of which a human figure is carved. The head is almost square, and there proceed from it several rays, amongst which four snakes can be discerned. The arms are extended, and each hand holds a snake with a crowned head. The body is covered with an embroidered garment, and the short feet rest upon a pedestal, also ornamented with symbolical figures. On each side of this figure there are a number of small squares on the cornice, in three rows, each containing a human figure in profile with a walking-stick in the hand. Each row has sixteen figures, the central row with birds’ heads. Antiguedades Peruanas, p. 296.

Acosta says that he measured one of the great stones at Tiahuanaco, and found it to be 38 feet long, 18 broad, and 6 deep. Historia Natural de las Indias, lib. vi, cap. 14, p. 419.

(In the Intellectual Observer for May 1863, there is an excellent engraving of one of the great monolithic doorways at Tiahuanaco, to illustrate a paper by Mr. Bollaert.)

[502] The famous ruins of Tiahuanaco, generally considered to be long anterior to the time of the Yncas, appear, like those at Ollantay-tambo, to be remains of edifices which were never completed.

Garcilasso de la Vega gives the following account of Tiahuanaco. “Amongst other works in this place, one of them is a hill, made artificially, and so high that the fact of its having been made by man causes astonishment; and, that it might not be loosened, it was built upon great foundations of stone. It is not known why this edifice was made. In another part, away from the hill, there were two figures of giants carved in stone, with long robes down to the ground, and caps on their heads: all well worn by the hand of time, which proves their great antiquity. There is also an enormous wall of stones, so large that the greatest wonder is caused to imagine how human force could have raised them to the place where they now are. For there are no rocks nor quarries within a great distance, from whence they could have been brought. In other parts there are grand edifices, and what causes most astonishment are some great doorways of stone, some of them made out of one single stone. The marvel is increased by their wonderful size, for some of them were found to measure 30 feet in length, 15 in breadth, and 6 in depth. And these stones, with their doorways, are all of one single piece, so that it cannot be understood with what instruments or tools they can have been worked.

“The natives say that all these edifices were built before the time of the Yncas, and that the Yncas built the fortress of Cuzco in imitation of them. They know not who erected them, but have heard their forefathers say that all these wonderful works were completed in a single night. The ruins appear never to have been finished, but to have been merely the commencement of what the founders intended to have built. All the above is from Pedro de Cieza de Leon, in his 105th chapter; to which I propose to add some further particular obtained from a schoolfellow of mine, a priest named Diego de Alcobasa (who I may call my brother, for we were born in the same house, and his father brought me up). Amongst other accounts, which he and others have sent me from my native land, he says the following respecting these great edifices of Tiahuanaco. ‘In Tiahuanaco, in the province of Collao, amongst other things, there are some ancient ruins worthy of immortal memory. They are near the lake called by the Spaniards Chucuito, the proper name of which is Chuquivitu. Here there are some very grand edifices, and amongst them there is a square court, 15 brazas each way, with walls two stories high. On one side of this court there is a hall 45 feet long by 22 broad, apparently once covered, in the same way as those buildings you have seen in the house of the sun at Cuzco, with a roof of straw. The walls, roofs, floor, and doorways are all of one single piece, carved out of a rock, and the walls of the court and of the hall are three-quarters of a yard in breadth. The roof of the hall, though it appears to be thatch, is really of stone. For as the Indians cover their houses with thatch, in order that this might appear like the rest, they have combed and carved the stone so that it resembles a roof of thatch. The waters of the lake wash the walls of the court. The natives say that this and the other buildings were dedicated to the Creator of the universe. There are also many other stones carved into the shape of men and women so naturally that they appear to be alive, some drinking with cups in their hands, others sitting, others standing, and others walking in the stream which flows by the walls. There are also statues of women with their infants in their laps, others with them on their backs, and in a thousand other postures. The Indians say that for the great sins of the people of those times, and because they stoned a man who was passing through the province, they were all converted into these statues.’

“Thus far are the words of Diego de Alcobasa, who has been a vicar and preacher to the Indians in many provinces of this kingdom, having been sent by his superiors from one part to another: for, being a mestizo and native of Cuzco, he knows the language of the Indians better than others who are born in the country, and his labours bear more fruit.”

The part of the country in which Tia-huanaco is situated, was first conquered by Mayta Ccapac, the fourth Ynca. The name is derived from a circumstance connected with the conquest. It is said that, while the Ynca was engaged in this campaign against the Aymara nation, and being encamped amongst the ruins, a CaÑari Indian, serving as a chasqui or courier, arrived from Cuzco in an extraordinarily short space of time. The Ynca exclaimed Tia (Be seated) Huanaco: the huanaco being the swiftest animal in Peru. Thus, like Luxor, and so many other famous places, these wonderful ruins have received a comparatively modern name, which has no real connection with their history.

[504] On the 26th of October 1547 Centeno mustered a thousand men, of whom 250 were mounted. Gonzalo Pizarro’s force barely amounted to 400 infantry and 85 cavalry. Pizarro gained a complete victory, and 350 of Centeno’s followers were killed.

[505] The president Gasca ordered Don Alonzo de Mendoza, an officer who had come over to him from the party of Gonzalo Pizarro, to found a new city south of lake Titicaca, which was to be called “La Ciudad de Nuestra SeÑora de la Paz;” to commemorate the peace which had been established, after the overthrow of the rebel Gonzalo Pizarro. It was deemed convenient that there should be a Spanish settlement between Cuzco and the rich silver-yielding province of Charcas, and thus the building of the city of La Paz was commenced. It is now one of the principal towns in the modern Republic of Bolivia.

[506] It is now known as the city of Chuquisaca, or Sucre, and is the capital of the republic of Bolivia.

[507] Pedro de Hinojosa is first heard of as fighting bravely against Almagro the younger, in the battle of Chupas. He afterwards joined the fortunes of Gonzalo Pizarro, and that ill-fated chief entrusted him with the command of Panama and of the fleet. On the arrival of the president Gasca from Spain, Hinojosa, after some months of hesitation, betrayed his trust, and handed over the fleet to the wily ecclesiastic on November 19th, 1546. He was rewarded by being appointed Gasca’s general by land and sea, and commanded the troops at the final overthrow of his old commander on the plain of Xaquixaguana. Gasca granted Gonzalo Pizarro’s valuable estates and mines in Charcas to Hinojosa. He was also appointed corregidor of Charcas, where he was assassinated two years afterwards in a mutiny headed by Sebastian de Castilla.

[508] Before the defeat and death of the viceroy Blasco NuÑez de Vela, near Quito in January 1546, Gonzalo Pizarro had sent his lieutenant Carbajal to reduce the province of Charcas, and put down a revolt headed by Diego Centeno and Lope de Mendoza. Centeno fled, closely pursued by Carbajal, and hid himself in a cave somewhere near Arequipa for eight months. The aged veteran Francisco de Carbajal, having run this fox to earth, then marched into Charcas, and captured Lope de Mendoza and Nicolas de Heredia, both of whom he hung. Carbajal sent the heads of his victims to Arequipa, while he busied himself in collecting silver from the rich mines of Potosi, to supply the needs of his commander.

[509] The ancient Peruvians knew of gold, silver, copper, tin, and quicksilver. They took the silver from mines which were not very deep, abandoning them as soon as the hardness of the ore offered a resistance sufficient to withstand their imperfect tools. They not only knew native silver, but also its chemical combinations, such as the sulphate, antimonial silver, etc. They also knew how to extract the pure metal from these compounds by fusion, or in portable stoves.

[510] The gold mines of Tipuani, to the eastward of the Andes of Bolivia, are the richest in South America. See an account of the method of working them in Bonelli’s Travels in Bolivia, i, p. 268.

[511] The licentiate Polo de Ondegardo was appointed corregidor of Charcas by the president Gasca, and subsequently of Cuzco, where he remained for several years. He was the author of two Relaciones, or reports to the government, the first addressed to the viceroy Marquis of CaÑete in 1561, and the second to the Count of Nieva. They contain an account of the laws, habits, religion, and policy of the Yncas. Unfortunately these valuable documents have never been printed, and Mr. Prescott obtained copies both of them and of the equally important manuscript of Sarmiento from Lord Kingsborough’s collection, through the agency of Mr. Rich. Their publication would be a great boon to the student of ancient South American civilisation. See Prescott’s Peru, i, p. 162, etc.

[512] A castellano was worth about £2 12s 6d. of our money.

[513] Acosta says that in his time there were four principal veins of silver on the hill of Potosi, called La Rica, Centeno, EstaÑo (tin), and Mendieta. They were all on the east side, and ran in a north and south direction. There were many other smaller veins which branch off from these four, and in each vein there were several mines. In La Rica there were seventy-eight mines, which were very deep; and to remedy the evils caused by their great depth, horizontal excavations, called socabones, were made in the sides of the hill, and continued until they met the veins. The mines of Potosi were discovered by an Indian named Hualpa, a native of Chumbivilica near Cuzco. He was climbing up a steep part of the hill in chase of deer, and helping his ascent by catching hold of the queÑua shrubs (Polylepis tomentella, Wedd.) which grow there. One of the shrubs came up by the roots, and disclosed a quantity of native silver, which was the commencement of the vein called La Rica. He secretly worked the vein himself for some time, but eventually disclosed the secret to a native of Xauxa, who told his master, a Spaniard of Porco, named Villaroel, and the latter began to work the vein in April 1545. The three other principal veins were discovered between April and August of the same year. People soon flocked from all parts to seek their fortunes at the hill of Potosi. Acosta, lib. iv, cap. 6, 7, 8.

[514] Huayra is “wind” or “air” in Quichua.

[515] Acosta tells us that, when he wrote in 1608, most of the silver was extracted from the ore by means of quicksilver. Formerly, however, he says that there were more than six thousand huayras on the sides and summit of the hill of Potosi. “The huayras were small ovens in which the metal was melted, and to see them burning at night with a red heat, and throwing their light to a distance, was a pleasant spectacle. At present if the number of huayras reaches to one thousand or two thousand, it is the outside, because the melting is done on a small scale, nearly all the metal being extracted by quicksilver.” Acosta, lib. iv, cap. 9, p. 218.

The hill of Potosi is in 21° 40´ S. lat., and seventeen thousand feet above the level of the sea. The name is said to be derived from the Aymara word Potocsi (“he who makes a noise”), because, when Huayna Ccapac in 1462 ordered search to be made for a silver mine on the hill, a terrible voice cried out from underground that the riches it contained were reserved for other masters. G. de la Vega.

Zarate says, that in a short time after the discovery of the silver, seven thousand Indians were at work, who had to give two marcs of silver to their masters every week, which they did with such ease, that they retained more silver for themselves than they paid to their employers. Historia del Peru, lib. vi, cap. 4.

In 1563 Potosi was constituted a town, and was granted a coat of arms by Philip II; and in 1572 the viceroy Don Francisco de Toledo went in person to this great seat of mining wealth, and established regulations for its government. This viceroy also introduced the use of quicksilver, a mine of which had been discovered at Huancavelica, by a Portuguese named Enrique Garces, in 1566. Toledo also regulated and legalised the atrocious system of mitas, or forced labour in the mines. He caused a census to be taken of Indians in Peru, between the ages of eighteen and fifty, the result of which gave a total of 1,677,697 men liable for service, who were divided into 614 ayllus or lineages. Of these he assigned a seventh part of those living in the seventeen nearest provinces, or 11,199 Indians, to work at the mines of Potosi, under certain rules for their protection, which were generally evaded. According to Toledo’s law, each Mitayo, or forced labourer, would only have to serve for eighteen months during the thirty-two years that he was liable. They were to receive twenty rials a week, and half a rial for every league of distance between their native village and Potosi. In 1611 there was a population of one hundred and sixty thousand inhabitants in the town of Potosi, of whom seventy-six thousand were Indians, three thousand Spaniards, thirty-five thousand Creoles, forty thousand Europeans, and six thousand Negroes and Mulattoes. The riches accumulated by individuals were enormous, and a man named Sinteros, “the rich,” who died in 1650, was worth twenty million dollars. Mercurio Peruano.

In 1825 there were about five thousand mouths of mines on the mountain, of which only fifty or sixty were then worked. The upper portion of the mountain, indeed, was so completely honeycombed, that it was considered as nearly worked out. The lower part, about one-third of the cone, was then hardly touched, in consequence of the number of springs which impede the working.

[516] Yana, in Quichua, is a “companion,” and also a “servant.” The word also means “black.” Cuna is a particle denoting the plural number. The Yana-cuna were a class of Indians forced to labour as domestic servants, but with the power to choose their masters.

[517] “The domestic animals,” says Padre Blas Valera, “which God has given to these Indians of Peru, are bland and gentle, like their masters, so that a child can lead them where he likes. There are two kinds, one larger than the other. The Indians call the animals llamas, and their shepherds llama-michec. They are of all colours, like the horses of Spain, when domesticated, but the wild kind, called huanacus, have only one colour, which is a washed-out chestnut. The llama stands as high as a deer of Spain, but no animal does it resemble more than a camel without a hump, and a third part of the size. The neck of the llama is long and smooth. The Indians used the skin, softened with grease, as soles for their sandals, but, as they had not the art of tanning, they took them off in crossing brooks or in rainy weather. The Spaniards make very good reins of it for their horses. The skin is also used for girths and cruppers of saddles, and for whips. Besides this, the animals are useful to both Indians and Spaniards as beasts of burden, to carry merchandise whithersoever they list, but they are generally used on the road from Cuzco to Potosi, a distance of near two hundred leagues. They carry three or four arrobas” (75 or 100 lbs.) “weight, and only make journeys of three leagues a day. When they are tired they lie down, and nothing will induce them to stir, for if any one tries to force them to rise, they spit in his face. They have no other means of defending themselves, having no horns like a stag. That they may not be easily tired, some forty or fifty unladen animals accompany the drove, that they may take their turn with the burdens. Their flesh is the best in the world; it is tender, wholesome, and savoury. The doctors order the flesh of their lambs of four or five months, for sick persons, in preference to chickens.

“The Yncas possessed enormous flocks of llamas of all colours, and each colour had a special name. The flocks were divided according to their colours, and if a lamb was born of a different colour from its parents, it was passed into the flock of its own colour. The Quipus had knots for each flock, according to the colour, and thus an account of their number was easily kept.

“There is another domestic kind, called Paco. The Pacos are not reared for carrying burdens, but for the sake of their flesh, and for their wool, which is excellent and very long. The Indians make very fine cloths of it, dotted with rich colours. The Indians do not use the milk of either of the kinds, nor do they make cheese of it. Indeed, they only have sufficient to nourish their lambs, and the Indians call the milk, the udder, and the act of sucking, by the same word nuÑu.

“The wild kind was called huanacu, and these huanacus are of the same size and form as the llamas. Their flesh is good, though not so good as that of the domesticated llama. The males always remain on lofty heights, while the females come down into the plains to feed, and when the males see any one coming, they bleat like the neighing of a horse, to warn the females, and they gallop away with the females in front. Their wool is short and rough, yet it was also used by the Indians for their cloths. There is another wild kind called vicuÑa, a delicate animal with plenty of fine wool. The vicuÑa stands higher than a goat, and the colour of its wool is a clear chestnut. They are so fleet that no dog can overtake them, and frequent the loftiest fastnesses near the line of snow.” G. de la Vega, i, lib. viii, caps. 16 and 17.

“Among the notable things possessed by the Indians of Peru,” says Acosta, “are the vicuÑas and llamas. These llamas are tame and very useful; the vicuÑas are wild. The vicuÑas live in the loftiest and most uninhabited parts of the mountains, which are called punas. Snow and frost do not harm them, and they run very swiftly. They are not very prolific, and the Yncas therefore prohibited the hunting of these animals, except on special occasions. Their wool is like silk and very durable, and, as the colour is natural and not a dye, it lasts for ever. Acosta also says that vicuÑa flesh is excellent for sore eyes.

“The domestic flocks are of two kinds, one small, and called pacos, the others with less wool, and useful as beasts of burden, called llamas. The llamas have long necks like those of camels, and this is necessary to enable them to browse, as they stand high on their legs. They are of various colours, some white all over, others black all over, others grey, others black and white, which they call moro-moro. For sacrifices the Indians were very particular to select the proper colour, according to the season or occasion. The Indians make cloth from the wool, a coarse sort called auasca, and a fine sort called ccompi. Of this ccompi they make table cloths, napkins, and other cloths very skilfully worked, which have a lustre like silk. In the time of the Yncas the principal ccompi workers lived at Capachica, near the lake of Titicaca. They use dyes which are gathered from various plants.

“The llamas carry loads weighing from four to six arrobas (100 to 150 lbs.), but do not go further than three, or at the most four leagues a day. They are all fond of a cold climate, and die when they are taken down into the warm valleys. They have a very pleasant look, for they will stop in the road and watch a person very attentively for some time without moving, with their necks raised up, so that it causes laughter to see their serenity; but sometimes they suddenly take fright and run off to inaccessible places with their loads.” Acosta, lib. iv, cap. 41, p. 293.

The llama measures, from the sole of the hoof to the top of the head, 4 feet 6 to 8 inches, and from the sole of the hoof to the shoulders 2 feet 11 inches to 3 feet. The female is usually smaller, but her wool is finer and better. The young llamas are left with their dams for about a year. In Acosta’s time (1608) a llama was worth six or seven dollars, and in 1840 about from three to four dollars. The Indians are very fond of these animals. They adorn them by tying bows of ribbon to their ears, and, before loading, they always fondle and caress them affectionately. See Von Tschudi’s Travels, pp. 307-14.

The llama is invaluable to the Peruvian Indians, and Cieza de Leon truly says that without this useful animal they could scarcely exist. Their food is llama flesh, which may be preserved for a long time in the form of charqui or smoke-dried meat, their clothing is made from llama wool, all the leather they use is from llama hides, the only fuel they have in many parts of the Collao is llama dung, and, while living, the llama is their beast of burden.

[518] The molle tree (Schinus Molle: Lin.) is well known in the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, and Mrs. Clements Markham introduced it into the Neilgherry hills in Southern India in 1861. It is the commonest tree in some parts of the Andes, especially in the valleys of Xauxa, Guamanga, Andahuaylas, Abancay, and the Vilcamayu, and in the campiÑa of Arequipa; where its graceful foliage and bunches of red berries overshadow the roads.

Acosta says that the molle tree possesses rare virtues, and that the Indians make a wine of the small twigs (lib. iv, cap. 30). Garcilasso de la Vega describes it as forming its fruit in large bunches. “The fruits are small round grains like coriander seeds, the leaves are small and always green. When ripe the berry has a slightly sweet taste on the surface, but the rest is very bitter. They make a beverage of the berries by gently rubbing them in the hand, in warm water, until all their sweetness has come out, without any of the bitter. The water is then allowed to stand for three or four days, and it makes a very pleasant and healing drink. When mixed with chicha it improves the flavour. The same water boiled until it is curdled, forms treacle, and when put in the sun it becomes vinegar. The resin of the molle is very efficacious in curing wounds, and for strengthening the gums. The leaves boiled in water also have healing virtues. I remember when the valley of Yucay was adorned with great numbers of these useful trees, and in a few years afterwards there were scarcely any; for they had all been used to make charcoal.” Comm. Real., i, lib. viii, cap. 12, p. 280.

The resin of the molle is a substance like mastick, and the Peruvians still use it for strengthening their gums.

[519] The Collahuayas, or itinerant native doctors of Peru, still carry about a vast number of herbs and roots, which are supposed to cure all diseases.

[520] Buenaventura.

[521] See p. 26.

[522] The best known hot medicinal springs in Peru are those near Caxamarca (129.7° Fahr.), those at Laris, in the mountains overhanging the valley of the Vilcamayu, and those at Yura, near Arequipa.

Great attention was paid by the Yncas to the formation of their baths, called armana in Quichua. The springs (puquio), or hot springs (ccoÑic puquio), were carefully paved with a mixture of small stones and a species of bitumen, and over them was arranged the figure of an animal, bird, or serpent in marble, basalt, or even gold or silver, which threw water from the mouth, either perpendicularly into the air, when the jet was called huraca, or horizontally, when it was called paccha. The flowing water was conducted through a pipe of metal or stone into jars of sculptured stone. The baths had small dressing-rooms attached, which were ornamented with statues in stone and metal. Antiguedades Peruanas, p. 238.

[523] Wheat was introduced into Peru by a lady named Maria de Escobar, wife of Don Diego de Chaves, a native of Truxillo; and one of those noble knights who raised their voices against the murder of the Ynca Atahualpa. She first sowed it in the valley of the Rimac, but there were so few seeds to begin with, that three years elapsed before any wheaten bread was made.

[524] Garcilasso says he does not know who introduced the barley, but thinks it probable that a few grains may have come with the wheat. Comm. Real., i, lib. ix, cap. 24.

[525] Olive trees from Seville were introduced into Peru in 1560, by Don Antonio de Ribera, a citizen of Lima, ten years after Cieza de Leon left the country. Ribera brought more than a hundred young plants out very carefully in two jars, but, as might have been expected, there were only three alive when he reached Lima, and he was very fortunate in preserving any. He planted them in a fruit garden near Lima, and stationed an army consisting of a hundred negroes and thirty dogs, to guard and watch over them night and day. In spite of all this care, one of the three plants was stolen and carried off to Chile, where it yielded many cuttings, which eventually formed flourishing plantations. At the end of three years the same olive tree was secretly planted again in Ribera’s garden, and he was never able to discover who had stolen it, nor who had restored it. There are now several olive plantations in the coast valleys of Peru, especially at Tambo, near Aiequipa, where there are five thousand olive trees and seven mills. G. de la Vega.

[526] This excellent suggestion, which Cieza de Leon made more than three hundred years ago, has never been adopted by the indolent Peruvians. I am convinced that plantations, not perhaps of oak, but of larch, fir, and birch, might be successfully formed in the more sheltered ravines of the Collao, and of other treeless parts of the Andes, for the supply of timber and fuel. The winters, from May to September, are not nearly so cold as in Scotland, though very dry; and during the rainy season, though it is cold, there is plenty of moisture. The introduction of these plantations would change the whole face of the country, and the introducer would confer an inestimable blessing on the inhabitants.

[527] This nasty animal is called aÑas in Quichua.

[528] Called Suri in Quichua. (Rhea Americana L.)

[529] The Huis-cacha (Lagidium Peruvianum May) is a large rodent very common in the Andes, and frequenting rocky ridges. It has a long bushy tail. In the morning and evening it creeps out from amongst its rocks to nibble the alpine grass.

[530] One called chuy in Quichua; the other yutu.

[531] He here alludes to the turkey buzzards, or gallinazos, obscene vultures, which act as scavengers in the streets of Lima and other coast towns, but are unknown in the mountains. The Quichua word for them is suyuntuy. Aura is the word used in Mexico.

[532] The ancient Peruvian silversmiths knew how to melt the metal, to cast it in moulds, to solder it, and to hammer it. For melting they used small ovens, with tubes of copper through which the air passed. The moulds were made of a clay mixed with gypsum, and the moulded figures were finished off with a chisel. They hammered out figures on the sides of open vases with wonderful skill, and soldered the parts with great art, after burnishing so that the points of junction can scarcely be discerned. They supplied the place of gilding by fastening very thin leaves of gold or silver to copper, timber, and even stone. They also extracted fine threads from the precious metal, and wove them into cloths. Unfortunately, all their best works were either destroyed by the covetous Spaniards, or concealed by the Indians themselves at the time of the conquest. Zarate mentions four llamas and ten statues of women, of the natural size, of the finest gold, as having been found at Xauxa; and all the ancient writers agree in their accounts of the vast number and great merit of the gold and silver ornaments of the Yncas.

The ancient pottery of Peru is very remarkable. The Indians imitated every quadruped, bird, fish, shell, plant, fruit, besides heads of men and women. All these varied forms were moulded in clay, and the vessels thus made were used as sacred urns to be buried with the dead, or for sacrificial purposes. Those for domestic uses were more simple. The material made use of was coloured clay and blackish earth, and the vessels do not appear to have been burnt, but dried in the sun. Many of these vessels are double, others quadruple, and even octuple, the principal vessel being surrounded by smaller appendages, which communicate with each other and with the principal vessel. When the double ones were filled with water, the air escaped through the opening left for that purpose, and produced sounds, which imitated the voice of the animal represented by the principal vessel. Thus, in a vessel representing a cat, when water is poured in, a sound like mewing is produced, and another gives out a sound like the whistling of a bird, the form of which is moulded on the handle. See some very interesting remarks on ancient Peruvian pottery, in Professor Wilson’s work. Prehistoric Man, i, p. 110.

[533] Small beads. See note at page 176.

[534] The Peruvians wove cotton and woollen cloths with great skill, and there are a great number of words connected with weaving in the Quichua language, such as ahuana (loom), ahuay (woof), comana (a wooden batten used in weaving), etc. They also knew the secret of fixing the dyes of all colours—flesh colour, yellow, gray, blue, green, black—so firmly that they never fade after the lapse of ages, and all their dyes were extracted from vegetables. They ornamented their textures by sewing leaves of gold or silver, mother-of-pearl, and feathers on them; and they also made fringes, laces, and tassels of wool and cotton, to adorn carpets and tapestries.

[535] The people included within the empire of Yncas are comprised by D’Orbigny in his Ando-Peruvian race, which he divides into three branches, namely the Peruvian, Antisian, and Araucanian. The Peruvian branch is subdivided by him into four nations, namely the Quichua, Aymara, Atacama, and Chango. This Peruvian branch is characterised by a rich brown olive colour, middling height (1 mÈtre 597 millimÈtres), massive form, trunk very long in comparison with the whole height, forehead receding, face large and oval, nose long, very aquiline, and full at the base, mouth large, eyes horizontal, cornea yellowish, ball not jutting out: character serious, thoughtful, and sad. The height of the pure Quichua Indians varies from 4 feet 9 inches to 5 feet 3 inches. Their shoulders are very broad, and square; breast excessively voluminous, and longer than ordinary, so as to increase the length of the trunk. The arms and feet are always small. The head is oblong, forehead slightly receding, but the cranium is nevertheless voluminous, and indicates a well developed brain. The face is generally large, and nearer a circle than an oval. The nose is long and very aquiline, nostrils large and open. The lips are thick and the mouth large, but the teeth are always good. The chin is short but not receding. The cheeks are somewhat high. The eyes are always horizontal, the cornea yellowish, the eyebrows much arched, and the hair black, long, and very straight. They have no beard beyond a few straggling hairs, appearing late in life.

Such were the main characteristics of nearly all the tribes which formed the empire of the Yncas. These tribes were, as mentioned by Cieza de Leon, the Quichuas, Collas or Aymaras, Canas and Canches, Chancas, Huancas, Yuncas, Antis, Chachapuyas, and CaÑaris. It is generally found that a vast number of languages exist in a mountainous country, and the Caucasus offers a striking example of this rule; to which the Andes was no exception, for Cieza de Leon assures us that nearly every village originally had a language of its own. But the dominant tribe of the Quichuas, with its civilised rule and astute policy, had gradually superseded all the other dialects by their own language—the richest and most copious to be found in the whole American group of tongues. Thus at the time of the conquest the Quichua was alone spoken throughout the empire of the Yncas, and we now have but few scattered remnants of any other language on the plateaux of the Andes, except the Aymara. The vocabulary of a Chinchay-suyu dialect, spoken in the north of Peru, as given by Torres Rubio, differs little, if at all, from the Quichua, and the same remark applies to the Quito dialect. I am of opinion that the whole of the ancient tribes mentioned above, were essentially members of one and the same race.

D’Orbigny says of the Quichua or Ynca Indians that their character is gentle, hospitable, and obedient. They are good fathers, good husbands, sociable or rather gregarious, always living together in villages, taciturn, patient, and industrious. (L’Homme AmÉricain, i, p. 255). I have myself seen much of these interesting people, and have found them to be intelligent, patient, obedient, loving amongst each other, and particularly kind to animals. They are brave and enduring. I was in the dense untrodden forests with four of these Indians for many days, and they proved to be willing, hard working, intelligent, good humoured, efficient, and companionable. Of the higher qualities of this race, their copious language; plaintive songs; superb works of art in gold, silver, stone, and clay; beautiful fabrics; stupendous architecture; enlightened laws; and marvellous civilisation in the days of the Yncas; are sufficient proof.

[536] See p. 82.

[537] The family of QuiÑones is still the principal one in Azangaro; and the enlightened and liberal Don Luis QuiÑones, late a member of Congress, was my host during my stay in that interesting town.

[538] This is a very curious account of the ceremony at harvest time, in use among the ancient inhabitants of the Collao.

[539] Umu is the correct word for priest in Quichua, and huillac-umu for high priest. Huaca-camayoc was a person having charge of the huacas, or tombs and holy places.

[540] This is the Mexican name for turkey buzzards.

[541] All this sounds very like a spirit-rapping and table-turning piece of business.

[542]

The above is Mr. Prescott’s version of these famous lines. Mr. Helps translates them thus:—

[543] Of the famous thirteen only four ever appear again in the history of the times. These are Pedro de Candia (see note, p. 193); Juan de la Torre (see note, p. 221); Nicholas de Ribera, who is mentioned as having deserted from Gonzalo Pizarro to Gasca, as having been afterwards appointed captain of the guard of the royal seal by the Royal Audience of Lima in 1554, and as having lived quietly on a repartimiento granted to him near Cuzco, and left children to inherit it; and Alonzo de Molina. When Pizarro finally left the desert island, and continued his voyage of discovery, he first touched at Tumbez, on the northern boundary of Peru, and then sailed some distance down the coast. Alonzo de Molina was sent on shore at one place, and, the sea running high, he was left there until the return of the ship. The natives treated him with great kindness, and when Pizarro’s ship came back, three more of the thirteen, Nicolas de Ribera, Francisco de Cuellar, and Pedro Alcon were sent ashore, the latter being very gaily dressed. This Alcon fell madly in love with an Indian lady at first sight, and was so furious at not being allowed to stay behind, that he drew his sword on his own shipmates, and the pilot Ruiz was obliged to knock him down with an oar. He was afterwards kept chained on the lower deck. When Pizarro finally sailed for Panama again, on his way to Spain, Alonzo de Molina was allowed to remain behind at Tumbez until the Spaniards should come back, the Indians promising to use him well. But he died before Pizarro returned, and the Indians gave various conflicting accounts of the manner of his death. Herrera, dec. iii, lib. iii, cap. 3, and lib. iv, cap. 1.

The most authentic and only complete list of the thirteen is given by Prescott, from a manuscript copy of “the Capitulation made by Pizarro with Queen Juana on July 26th, 1529,” which he obtained from Navarrete. The original is at Seville. In this document all those, among the thirteen, who were not already hidalgos, were created so.

Gomara gives the names of two, the pilot Ruiz, and Pedro de Candia. Zarate adds seven more, one of whom is not in the “Capitulation.” Garcilasso de la Vega copies from Zarate, but adds that there were two whose names were Ribera, and that he knew them both afterwards. There is only one in the “Capitulation.”

The list in the “Capitulation,” supplied by Pizarro himself, must of course have been the correct one: it is as follows:—

• Bartolome Ruiz (the pilot).
• Cristoval de Peralta.
• Pedro de Candia.
• Domingo de Soria Luce.
• Nicolas de Ribera.
• Francisco de Cuellar.
• Alonzo de Molina.
• Pedro Alcon.
• Garcia de Jerez.
• Anton de Carrion.
• Alonzo BriceÑo.
• Martin de Paz.
• Juan de la Torre.

The name added by Zarate is that of Alonzo de Truxillo; but he may have been one of the two Alonzos of the “Capitulation;” Zarate giving his birth place of Truxillo, instead of his surname. Garcia de Jerez (or de Jaren), another of the thirteen, seems to have given evidence before a judge respecting this transaction in 1529, which has been preserved (Doc. Ined., tom. 26, p. 260), and is quoted by Mr. Helps (iii, p. 446, note). He says:—“Pizarro being in the island of Gallo, the governor Rios sent for the men who were with the said captain, allowing any one who should wish to prosecute the enterprise to remain with him.”

This story respecting Pizarro, who, when his people were suffering from the extremities of famine and hardship, and when a ship had arrived to take them back to Panama, drew a line, and called upon those who preferred toil and hunger to ease and pleasure, to cross it and remain with him, is certainly one of the most heart-stirring in the history of Spanish conquest in America. Robertson gives the story on the authority of Herrera, Zarate, Xerez, and Gomara. Prescott adds the speech imputed to Pizarro, from Montesinos, a very unreliable source; and Helps gives the account according to Herrera’s version, which no doubt is very near the truth. The conduct of these thirteen brave men shows the spirit which animated the Spaniards of that age, and the dauntless act itself, in its simple grandeur, certainly derives no additional glory from the melodramatic speeches which have been put into Pizarro’s mouth by later chroniclers.

[544] See note at page 47.

[545] See page 79 and note.

[546] See page 110, note.

[547] See note at page 300.

[548] This warlike prelate was in the battle of Huarina, fighting on the side of Centeno, and narrowly escaped with his life; for if grim old Carbajal had caught him, he would assuredly have been hanged. Solano succeeded Valverde in the bishopric of Cuzco in 1545, and died in 1562.

[549] Guamanga was detached from Cuzco, and erected into a separate bishopric by a Bull of Pope Paul V, dated July 20th, 1609. The first bishop was installed in 1615; since which time there have been twenty-five bishops of Guamanga.

[550] See note at page 227.

[551] Plata (Chuquisaca), Truxillo, and Chachapoyas afterwards became the seats of distinct bishoprics.

[552] Previously viceroy of Mexico. He died at Lima in 1555. He was a son of Inigo Lopez de Mendoza, second Count of Tendilla and Marquis of Mondejar, who was ambassador to Rome in the time of Innocent VIII.

[553] The church of La Merced in Cuzco has a cloister, which is the finest specimen of architecture in Peru dating from Spanish times, and, I should think, in all South America. Here the Almagros, father and son, and Gonzalo Pizarro were buried.

[554] All the monasteries in Guamanga have been suppressed.

[555] This is by far the largest monastery in Lima.

[556] The tower of San Domingo is the loftiest in Lima, being 180 feet high. The church contains a rich silver-cased altar to Santa Rosa, the patron saint of Lima.