Having received this letter, the Governor and all the Spaniards who were with him were filled with infinite content over the victory which the captain had obtained, and at once he sent it, together with another, to the city of Xauxa, to the treasurer and to the Spaniards who had remained there in order that they might share in the gladness over the victory of the captain. And likewise he sent despatches to the captain and the Spaniards who were with him congratulating them much on the victory they had won, and begging them and counseling them to be governed in these matters more by prudence than by confidence in their own strength, and commanding, at all events, that, having passed the last bridge, they should await him [the Governor] there so that they might then enter the city of Cuzco all together. This done, the Governor set out the following day and went by a rough and tiring road through rocky mountains and over ascents and descents of stone steps from which all believed they could only bring their horses with difficulty, considering the road already traversed and that still to be traversed. They slept that night in a village on the other side of the river, which here, as elsewhere, had a bridge of net-work. The horses crossed through the water and the footsoldiers and the servants of the Spaniards by the bridge. On the next day they had a good road beside the river where they encountered many wild animals, deer and antelope; and that day they arrived at nightfall at some rooms in the vicinity of Bilcas where the captain who was going ahead had made halt in order to travel by night and so enter Bilcas without being found out, as he did enter it, and here was received another letter from him in which he said that he had left Bilcas two days before, and had come to a river four leagues ahead which he had forded because the bridge had been burned, and here he had understood that the captain Narabaliba was fleeing with some twenty Indians and that he had met two thousand Indians whom the captain of Cuzco had sent to him as aid who, as soon as they knew of the rout at Bilcas, turned around and fled with him, endeavouring to join with the scattered remnants of those who were fleeing, in order to await them [the Spaniards] in a village called Andabailla,[44] and [the Spanish captain said] that he was resolved not to stay his course until he should encounter them. These announcements being understood by the Governor, he first thought of sending aid to the captain, but later he did not do so because he considered that if there were to be a battle at all it would have occurred already and the aid would not arrive in time, and he determined furthermore not to linger a single day until he should catch up with him, and in this way he set out for Bilcas which he entered very early the following day, and on that day he did not wish to go further. This city of Bilcas[45] is placed on a high mountain and is a large town and the head of a province. It has a beautiful and fine fortress; there are many well built houses of stone, and it is half-way by road from Xauxa to Cuzco. And on the next day the Governor encamped on the other side of the river, four leagues from Bilcas, and although the day's march was short, it was nevertheless toilsome because it was entirely a descent almost all composed of stone steps, and the troops waded the river with much fatigue because it was very full, and he set up his camp on the other bank among some groves. Scarcely had the Governor arrived here, when he received a letter from the captain who was reconnoitring in which the latter informed him that the enemy had gone on five leagues and were in waiting on the slope of a mountain in a land called Curamba,[46] and that there were many warriors there, and that they had made many preparations and had arranged great quantities of stones so that the Spaniards would not be able to go up. The Governor, when he understood this, although the captain did not ask him for aid, believed that it was necessary now, and he at once ordered the Marshal D. Diego de Almagro to get ready with thirty light horsemen, well equipped as to arms and horses, and he did not wish him to take a single peon with him, because he ordered him [Almagro] not to delay for anything until he should come up with the captain who was ahead with the others. And when he [Almagro] had set out, the Governor likewise started, on the following day, with ten horsemen and the twenty peons who were guarding Chilichuchima, and he quickened his pace so much that day that of two days' marches he made one. And just as he was about to arrive at the village called Andabailla, where he was to sleep, an Indian came to him on the run to say that on a certain slope of the mountain, which he pointed out with his finger, there had been discovered hostile troops of war, on which account, the Governor, armed as he was and on horseback, went with the Spaniards he had with him to take the summit of that slope, and he examined the whole of it without finding the warriors of whom the Indian had spoken, because they were troops native to the land who were fleeing from the Indians of Quito because the latter did them very great harm. The Governor and company having arrived at that village of Andabailla, they supped and spent the night there. On the next day, they arrived at the village of Airamba from where the captain had written that he was with the armed troops waiting for them upon the road.[47]