I have already spoken of the person and the quali ties of Atahuallpa. He had a handsome countenance, though with an expression somewhat too fierce to be pleasing. His frame was muscular and well-proportioned; his air commanding; and his deportment in the Spanish quarters had a degree of refinement, the more interesting that it was touched with melancholy. He is accused of having been cruel in his wars and bloody in his revenge. 33 It may be true, but the pencil of an enemy would be likely to overcharge the shadows of the portrait. He is allowed to have been bold,

Ped. Sancho, Rel., ap. Ramusio, tom. iii, fol. 399.-Xerez, Conq. del Peru, ap. Barcia, tom. iii. p. 234.-Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., MS.-Naharro, Relacion sumaria, MS.-Conq. i Pob. del Piru, MS. -Relacion del primer Descub., MS.-Zarate, Conq. del Peru, lib. 2, cap. 7.-The death of Atahuallpa has many points of resemblance to that of Caupolican, the great Araucanian chief, as described in the historical epic of Ercilla. Both embraced the religion of their conquerors at the stake, though Caupolican was so far less fortunate than the Peruvian monarch that his conversion did not save him from the tortures of a most agonizing death. He was impaled and shot with arrows. The spirited verses reflect so faithfully the character of these early adventurers, in which the fanaticism of the Crusader was mingled with the cruelty of the conqueror, and they are so germane to the present subject, that I would willingly quote the passage were it not too long. See La Araucana, Parte 2, canto 24.

33" Thus he paid the penalty of his errors and cruelties," says Xerez "for he was the greatest butcher, as all agree, that the world ever saw; making nothing of razing a whole town to the ground for the most trifling offence, and massacring a thousand persons for the fault of one!" (Conq. del Peru, ap. Barcia, tom. iii. p. 234.) Xerez was the private secretary of Pizarro. Sancho, who, on the departure of Xerez for Spain, succeeded him in the same office, pays a more decent tribute to the memory of the Inca, who, he trusts, "is received into glory, since he died penitent for his sins, and in the true faith of a Christian Ped. Sancho, Rel., ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 399.

high-minded, and liberal.34 All agree that he showed singular penetration and quickness of perception. His exploits as a warrior had placed his valor beyond dispute. The best homage to it is the reluctance shown by the Spaniards to restore him to freedom. They dreaded him as an enemy, and they had done him too many wrongs to think that he could be their friend. Yet his conduct towards them from the first had been most friendly; and they repaid it with imprisonment, robbery, and death.

The body of the Inca remained on the place of execution through the night. The following morning it was removed to the church of San Francisco, where his funeral obsequies were performed with great solemnity. Pizarro and the principal cavaliers went into mourning, and the troops listened with devout attention to the service of the dead from the lips of Father Valverde. The ceremony was interrupted by the sound of loud cries and wailing, as of many voices at the doors of the church. These were suddenly thrown open, and a number of Indian women, the wives and sisters of the deceased, rushing up the great aisle, surrounded the corpse. This was not the way, they cried, to celebrate the funeral rites of an Inca; and they declared their intention to sacrifice themselves on his tomb and bear him company to the land of spirits.

34" El hera muy regalado, y muy Señor," says Pedro Pizarro. (Descub. y Conq., MS.) "Mui dispuesto, sabio, animoso, franco," says Gomara. (Hist. de las Ind., cap. 118.)

35 The secretary Sancho seems to think that the Peruvians must nave regarded these funeral honors as an ample compensation to Atahuallpa for any wrongs he may have sustained, since they at once raised him to a level with the Spaniards! Ibid., loc. cit.

The audience, outraged by this frantic behavior, told the intruders that Atahuallpa had died in the faith of a Christian, and that the God of the Christians abhorred such sacrifices. They then caused the women to be excluded from the church, and several, retiring to their own quarters, laid violent hands on themselves, in the vain hope of accompanying their beloved lord to the bright mansions of the Sun.36

Atahuallpa's remains, notwithstanding his request, were laid in the cemetery of San Francisco.37 But from thence, as is reported, after the Spaniards left Caxamalca, they were secretly removed, and carried, as he had desired, to Quito. The colonists of a later time supposed that some treasures might have been buried with the body. But, on excavating the ground, neither treasure nor remains were to be discovered.38

A day or two after these tragic events, Hernando de Soto returned from his excursion. Great was his astonishment and indignation at learning what had

36 Relacion del primer Descub., MS. See Appendix No. 10, where I have cited in the original several of the contemporary notices of Atahuallpa's execution, which being in manuscript are not very accessible, even to Spaniards.

37 "Oi dicen los indios que está su sepulcro junto á una Cruz de Piedra Blanca que esta en el Cementerio del Convento de Sn Francisco." Montesinos, Annales, MS., año 1533.

38 Oviedo, Hist. de las Indias, MS., Parte 3, lib. 8, cap. 22.-According to Stevenson, " In the chapel belonging to the common gaol, which was formerly part of the palace, the altar stands on the stone on which Atahuallpa was placed by the Spaniards and strangled, and under which he was buried." (Residence in South America, vol. ii. p. 163.) Montesinos, who wrote more than a century after the Conquest, tells us that "spots of blood were still visible on a broad flagstone, in the prison of Caxamalca, on which Atahuallpa was beheaded." (Annales, MS., año 1533.)-Ignorance and credulity could scarcely gc further.

been done in his absence. He sought out Pizarro at once, and found him, says the chronicler, "with a great felt hat, by way of mourning, slouched over his eyes," and in his dress and demeanor exhibiting all the show of sorrow.39 "You have acted rashly," said De Soto to him bluntly; "Atahuallpa has been basely slandered. There was no enemy at Huamachuco; no rising among the natives. I have met with nothing on the road but demonstrations of good will, and all is quiet. If it was necessary to bring the Inca to trial, he should have been taken to Castile and judged by the emperor. I would have pledged myself to see him safe on board the vessel."' 40 Pizarro confessed that

he had been precipitate, and said that he had been deceived by Riquelme, Valverde, and the others. These charges soon reached the ears of the treasurer and the Dominican, who, in their turn, exculpated themselves, and upbraided Pizarro to his face, as the only one responsible for the deed. The dispute ran high; and the parties were heard by the by-standers to give one another the lie!" This vulgar squabble among the

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39 "Hallaronle monstrando mucho sentimiento con un gran sombrero de fieltro puesto en la cabeza por luto é muy calado sobre los ojos." Oviedo, Hist. de las Indias, MS., Parte 3, lib. 8, cap. 22.

40 Ibid., MS., ubi supra.-Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., MS.— See Appendix No. 10.

41 This remarkable account is given by Oviedo, not in the body of his narrative, but in one of those supplementary chapters which he makes the vehicle of the most miscellaneous, yet oftentimes important, gossip, respecting the great transactions of his history. As he knew familiarly the leaders in these transactions, the testimony which he collected, somewhat at random, is of high authority. The reader will find Oviedo's account of the Inca's death extracted, in the original, among the other notices of this catastrophe, in Appendix No. 10.

leaders, so soon after the event, is the best commentary on the iniquity of their own proceedings and the innocence of the Inca.

The treatment of Atahuallpa, from first to last, forms undoubtedly one of the darkest chapters in Spanish colonial history. There may have been massacres perpetrated on a more extended scale, and executions accompanied with a greater refinement of cruelty. But the blood-stained annals of the Conquest afford no such example of cold-hearted and systematic persecution, not of an enemy, but of one whose whole deportment had been that of a friend and a benefactor.

From the hour that Pizarro and his followers had entered within the sphere of Atahuallpa's influence, the hand of friendship had been extended to them by the natives. Their first act, on crossing the mountains, was to kidnap the monarch and massacre his people. The seizure of his person might be vindicated, by those who considered the end as justifying the means, on the ground that it was indispensable to secure the triumphs of the Cross. But no such apology can be urged for the massacre of the unarmed and helpless population,-as wanton as it was wicked.

The long confinement of the Inca had been used by the Conquerors to wring from him his treasures with the hard gripe of avarice. During the whole of this dismal period he had conducted himself with singular generosity and good faith. He had opened a free passage to the Spaniards through every part of his empire, and had furnished every facility for the execution of their plans. When these were accomplished, and he remained an encumbrance on their hands, notwith