stead of being limited to the legitimate members of the royal stock, who could show a better title to the crown than the usurper, extended to all, however remotely or in whatever way, connected with the race? Why were aged women and young maidens involved in the proscription, and why were they subjected to such refined and superfluous tortures, when it is obvious that beings so impotent could have done nothing to provoke the jealousy of the tyrant? Why, when so many were sacrificed from some vague apprehension of distant danger, was his rival Huascar, together with his younger brother Manco Capac, the two men from whom the conqueror had most to fear, suffered to live? Why, in short, is the wonderful tale not recorded by others before the time of Garcilasso, and nearer by half a century to the events themselves ? 1 That Atahuallpa may have been guilty of excesses, and abused the rights of conquest by some gratuitous acts of cruelty, may be readily believed; for no one who calls to mind his treatment of the Cañariswhich his own apologists do not affect to deny "— 16 of them were alive at the time of his writing: "Tubo cien hijos y hijas, y la mayor parte de ellos son vivos." Hist. de las Indias, MS., Parte 3, lib. 8, cap. 9. 15 I have looked in vain for some confirmation of this story in Oviedo, Sarmiento, Xerez, Cieza de Leon, Zarate, Pedro Pizarro, Gomara,-all living at the time, and having access to the best sources of information, and all, it may be added, disposed to do stern justice to the evil qualities of the Indian monarch. 16 No one of the apologists of Atahuallpa goes quite so far as Father Velasco, who, in the overflowings of his loyalty for a Quito monarch, regards his massacre of the Cañaris as a very fair retribution for their offences: "Si les auteurs dont je viens de parler s'étaient trouvés dans les mêmes circonstances qu'Atahuallpa et avaient éprouvé autant will doubt that he had a full measure of the vindictive temper which belongs to "Those souls of fire, and Children of the Sun, With whom revenge was virtue." But there is a wide difference between this and the monstrous and most unprovoked atrocities imputed to him, implying a diabolical nature not to be admitted on the evidence of an Indian partisan, the sworn foe of his house, and repeated by Castilian chroniclers, wno may naturally seek, by blazoning the enormities of Atahuallpa, to find some apology for the cruelty of their countrymen towards him. The news of the great victory was borne on the wings of the wind to Caxamalca; and loud and long was the rejoicing, not only in the camp of Atahuallpa, but in the town and surrounding country; for all now came in, eager to offer their congratulations to the victor and do him homage. The prince of Quito no longer hesitated to assume the scarlet borla, the diadem of the Incas. His triumph was complete. He had beaten his enemies on their own ground, had taken their capital, had set his foot on the neck of his rival, and won for himself the ancient sceptre of the Children of the Sun. But the hour of triumph was destined to be that of his deepest humiliation. Atahuallpa was not one of those to whom, in the language of the Grecian bard, "the gods are willing to reveal themselves." He had not read the handwriting on 17 d'offenses graves et de trahisons, je ne croirai jamais qu'ils eussent agi autrement." Hist. de Quito, tom. i. p. 253. 17 “ Οὐ γάρ πω πάντεσσι θεοὶ φαίνονται ἐναργεῖς.” the heavens. The small speck which the clear-sighted eye of his father had discerned on the distant verge of the horizon, though little noticed by Atahuallpa, intent on the deadly strife with his brother, had now risen high towards the zenith, spreading wider and wider, till it wrapped the skies in darkness and was ready to burst in thunders on the devoted nation. CHAPTER III. THE SPANIARDS LAND AT TUMBEZ.-PIZARRO RECON. NOITRES THE COUNTRY.-FOUNDATION OF SAN MIGUEL.-MARCH INTO THE INTERIOR.-EMBASSY FROM THE INCA.-ADVENTURES ON THE MARCH.-ARRIVAL AT THE FOOT OF THE ANDES. 1532. WE left the Spaniards at the island of Puná, preparing to make their descent on the neighboring continent at Tumbez. This port was but a few leagues distant, and Pizarro, with the greater part of his followers, passed over in the ships, while a few others were to transport the commander's baggage and the military stores on some of the Indian balsas. One of the latter vessels which first touched the shore was surrounded, and three persons who were on the raft were carried off by the natives to the adjacent woods and there massacred. The Indians then got possession of another of the balsas, containing Pizarro's wardrobe ; but, as the men who defended it raised loud cries for help, they reached the ears of Hernando Pizarro, who, with a small body of horse, had effected a landing some way farther down the shore. A broad tract of miry ground, overflowed at high water, lay between him and the party thus rudely assailed by the natives. The tide was out, and the bottom was soft and danger ous. With little regard to the danger, however, the bold cavalier spurred his horse into the slimy depths, and, followed by his men, with the mud up to their saddle-girths, plunged forward into the midst of the marauders, who, terrified by the strange apparition of the horsemen, fled precipitately, without show of fight, to the neighboring forests. This conduct of the natives of Tumbez is not easy to be explained, considering the friendly relations maintained with the Spaniards on their preceding visit, and lately renewed in the island of Puná. But Pizarro was still more astonished, on entering their town, to find it not only deserted, but, with the exception of a few buildings, entirely demolished. Four or five of the most substantial private dwellings, the great temple, and the fortress-and these greatly damaged, and wholly despoiled of their interior decorations-alone survived to mark the site of the city and attest its former splendor.' The scene of desolation filled the conquerors with dismay; for even the raw recruits, who had never visited the coast before, had heard the marvellous stories of the golden treasures of Tumbez, and they had confidently looked forward to them as an easy spoil after all their fatigues. But the gold of Peru seemed only like a deceitful phantom, which, after beckoning them on through toil and danger, vanished the moment they attempted to grasp it. ■ Xerez, Conq. del Peru, ap. Barcia, tom. iii. p. 185.—“ Aunque lo del templo del Sol en quien ellos adoran era cosa de ver, porque tenian grandes edificios, y todo el por de dentro y de fuera pintado de grandes pinturas y ricos matizes de colores, porque los hay en aquella tierra." Relacion del primer Descub., MS. |