.1 ihi^ii***^^'^* t j*ti»*S*iHtUJ»V i:r>:^:.? Hi .. t: : ..»^*!:.f:!:; :-?:l|: ri- »..- ' ^ ^^"^ OF THT? ^ [UHIVEBSIT *?£> -;:^S^ ■ CUZCO: A JOURNEY TO THE ANCIENT CAPirAL OF PEEU; WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE HISTORY, LANGUAGE, LITERATURE, AND ANTIQUITIES OF THE INCAS. ^ AND ' LIMA: A VISIT TO THE CAPITAL AND PROVINCES OP MODERN PERU; WITH A SKETCH OP THE VICEREGAL GOVERNMENT, HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC, AND A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE AND SOCIETY OF PERU. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND A MAP. BY CLEMENTS E. MARKHAM, F.E.G.S., I Author of " Frankliu's Footstepj;." liriivBKsifrl LONDON : CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 1856. ^3 LONDON : BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITETRIARS. »• % CONTENTS. 4 PAGE CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY 1 CHAPTER II. JOURNEY TO CUZCO — THE COAST 21 CHAPTER III. JOURNEY TO OUZCO — THE SIERRA 51 CHAPTER IV. *^ CUZCO AND THE INCAS 89 CHAPTER V. vcuzco AND THE INCAS, Continued 118 CHAPTER YT. ■V^QUICHUA. — THE LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF THE INCAS • 161 CHAPTER VII. *^INCA INDIANS.— THEIR PAST AND PRESENT CONDITION . . . 202 IV CONTENTS. T'AGE CHAPTER VIII. THE MONTANA OP PERU. — ON THE KIVERS AMAZON, HUALLAGA, TUCAYALI, AND PURCS 239 CHAPTER IX. LIMA. — THE SPANISH VICEROYS 283 CHAPTER X. LIMA. — THE PERUVIAN REPUBLIC 314 CHAPTER XI. LIMA. — THE MODERN LITERATURE OF PERU, AND STATE OF SOCIETY 362 APPENDIX A. QOIOHUA. GRAMMAR, VOCABULARIES, DIALOGUE, AND SPECIMENS OP COMPOSITION OF THE LANGUAGE OF THE INCAS . . . 389 APPENDIX B. STATISTICS OF THE PERUVIAN REPUBLIC. — COMMERCE, POPULATION, REVENUE, DEBT, AND EXPENDITURE 409 • • '.If ' si, CUZCO AND LIMA. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. There are few more attractive periods of history, than that which treats of the adventures of the lawless conquerors of the New World, who shattered at a hlow the fabrics of stately empires, and so utterly prostrated the once thriving civilised communities of Peru, Mexico, and Bogota, that a century after the arrival of the Spaniards, scarce a vestige of them remained. Their origin, obscured by the mist of ages, their rise comparatively rapid, and their fall sudden, and for ever. In the masterly pages of Prescott have been recorded, in glowing language, the deeds of those stony-hearted warriors who uprooted them ; and every one knows the history of Cortez and Montezuma, of the courageous Quatimozin, of Pizarro and his strangled victim, and all the wonderful, almost incred- ible tales of Spanish prowess. Surpassing in wonder the tales of Amadis de Gaul, or 2 CUZCO AND LIMA. Arthur of Britain, yet historically true, the chronicles of the conquest of the New World, the voluminous pages of the Inca Garcilasso, and the simple record of tlie true-hearted old soldier, Bernal Diaz, are the last, and not the least wonderful narratives of mediaeval chivalry, and commemorate that brilliant interval which ushered in the modem spirit of enterprise and improvement. But in the eager search for information with regard to the conquest of America, the deeply interestmg history of its anterior civilisation has been compara- tively neglected ; and the blood-thirsty conquerors have been deemed more worthy of attention than their unfortunate victims. Volumes have been devoted to the deeds of the blood-stained Pizarro, the fanatic Valverde, and their greedy followers ; wliile a few pages suffice for a record of the Incas whom they destroyed, of their mythical origin, theu' wonderful career, and the beau- tiful episodes in their history, whose interest is enhanced by the majestic scenery amidst wliicli their valorous deeds were performed. It is a field of investigation which has been left almost entirely untouched; and the sketches of the civihsation of the Incas by Eobertson and others, are only*collected from Spanish chronicles, as mtroductions to the bloody history of the conquest which follows ; and are composed by students who, though masterly in their powers of collecting the gold from the dross in the old chronicles and manuscripts of Spain, have never themselves gazed with rapture on the towermg INTRODUCTORY. jj Andes, nor examined tlie native traditions of the country they described, nor listened to the sweet but melancholy Inca songs, nor studied the beautiful language m which they are written. Of the few English traveUers in Peru who have in modern times, given their narratives to the world none with whom I am acquainted have visited the' once splendid and imperial Cuzco,* the city of the Incas and the surrounding country, that charming land whose lovely vaUeys abound in the most interesting archi- tectural remains. It was therefore to be expected that much which would assist in elucidating the former condition of this remarkable country, might be learned in a visit to the actual scene of the deeds of the Incas, by any one who would be at the pains to undertake such a journey. With that object in view, the writer of the foHowing pages sailed from England in August 1852, and on the 2nd of October arrived, by way of New York, at AspmwaU, the lately erected American city on the Isthmus of Panama. AspinwaU, so caUed in honour of one of the directors of the Steam Navigation Company, consists of a long hne of wooden houses facing the sea, and is surrounded by dense tropical vegetation, springing out of a marshy ^^a reporter . . ^.^ ^^ll^I^^ exceptions T Vn . ' , ^^'''^ *'''°''Sli it in 1851. With these LnSC " " "' "^°™* °' ''' ^^ '""^ ^'^^^^ - F--^ B 2 4 CUZCO AND LIMA. swamp. It is situated between the old towns of Porto Bello and Cliagres ; the one famous in the days of the Buccaneers, as the great emporium of the trade of America ; the other, at the mouth of the river of the same name, was the usual place of disembarkation, before the rise of Aspinwall. Both are now wretched and deserted places, the abodes of leprosy and fever. A motley crowd of passengers landed from the New York steamer, and hurried to the railway cars under a broiling sun. Here was the owner of a Californian saw-mill, tall and haggard, with a wife and large family ; there a learned judge ; in other spots might be seen a crowd of rough lumber-men from the forests of Maine, going to seek their fortunes in California ; New York trades- men ; broken-down soldiers who had fought in the Mexican war ; all bustling to and fro on the platform, in the broiling heat, some with luggage, others with none, and jostling each other most miceremoniously. At length all was ready, the cars started, and crossing a shallow arm of the sea by a causeway on piles, we plunged deeper and deeper into the thick, pestilential forest, whose rank vegetation rises from a black unwholesome morass. Lofty trees, creepers of every description, flowers of all hues, palms, plantains, and ^ery variety of tropical plant, crowd close upon either side of the railway in dense masses ; and as they fall or decay, others spring up, while the vegetable matter sends up a fever from the black swamp, which has cleared off the unhappy labourers on this fatal line by scores and scores. INTRODUCTORY. At higli noon our destination was reached, at the spot where the railway then termmated, on the hanks of the river Chagres.* This place was called Barhacoas. Here we were surrounded by a host of most truculent looking Indians and Negroes, the owners of boats ; and after struggling for luggage amidst the shrieks and execrations of unprotected females, long-bearded adventm-ers, and men with large families — under a blazing sun, and in a swamp of black mud, which served as the platfoi*m of the Barhacoas station — we at length assembled a party of nine men, three women, and seven children, in a long flat-bottomed boat, with a wooden awning. The current runs Avith great rapidit}'', and the men punt the boats up the river with long poles, by walking along a ledge round the gunwale, in a state of complete nudity. Six of these conveyances left Barhacoas, and began to work their slow and weary way up the river, which is bounded on either side by thick tropical forests, among which, thousands of humming birds and butter- flies of the most brilliant colours are seen disporting themselves in the rays of the sun, and flocks of noisy parrots fly about among the higher branches of tlie trees. Having stemmed the current for six miles, we reached Gorgona, a wretched village of huts, with high conical palm-leaf roofs, situated at a bend of the river. Here the night was to be passed, as it was hazardous to face the rapids after dark. All the * The railway is now completed to Panama. 6 CUZCO AND LIMA. boatmen got drunk, the Californians prowled about among the huts trying to pick quarrels, the dogs yelled, the negroes fought each other with long knives, and nobody slept. As the early dawn appeared, a thick mist teeming with yellow fever arose from the forest. Again the boatmen handled their poles, and again we began to advance up the river, with heavy dews falling around us, and wetting everything through. At length we arrived at Cruces, where the river ceases to be navigable, and whence a mule road of twenty miles concluded the journey to Panama. Cruces consists of about a hundred huts, arranged along a dirty street crowded with mules, and steaming with liquid filth. The road from this place to Panama is about the most execrable in the world. In many places sloughs of violently adhesive black mud, five feet deep, embarrass the mule and his rider ; to the mud succeed great stones, a few inches apart, with sharp edges, stuck on end, all over the road. Now the way would wind up steep acclivities, then it would follow the bed of a torrent about three feet wide, with rocks rising up perpendicularly on either side, and the whole road passes through a dense tropical forest. G^dually, however, that which for several miles had been the bed of a torrent, or a slough of black mud, became a bridle-path ; fields of Indian corn and pasture land made their appearance, the bridle-path became a road lined vnth. huts, and at length the blue Pacific burst upon our view, -with many verdant islets INTRODUCTORY. 7 bosomed on its unruffled surface. We trotted tlirougli a suburb, passed under an old archway, and entered the city of Panama. Panama is bounded on three sides by the sea, and surrounded by a wall, with ditch and bastions on the land face. In its centre is the plaza, with the old cathedral, and through the town runs the Calle de las Monjas, wiiich is called by the Americans Main Street. The town consists of old-fashioned Spanish houses, with broad verandahs, and heavy folding-doors instead of windows, which a few years ago looked sedate and drowsy enough ; but a strange metamorphosis has come over the old towTi. Now flaring red and gilt sign-boards swing across the street in every direction. On one house a blue sign -post inscribed " American Hotel," hangs from an upper story, "American Hotel" in red is daubed across the one below, and " Ice, Egg- nogg, Good Lodging, Brandy-smashes, Cheap Board," are painted up all over the ground floor. There ai'e six other hotels* in this street for the accommodation of passengers to California, besides three restam'ants, and as many newspaper oSices ; all of which are covered with sign-boards of all colours and dimensions. Here the young American world is treading hard and close on the heels of the old one ; and this once quiet old-fashioned city looks strange indeed, decked out m its new and flaunting dress. In the year 1846, * Viz., the New Orleans . . Aspinwall (the best). Louisiana . . . Franklin. New York . . . Western. 8 CUZCO AND LESIA. there was not an inn or hotel in the place — so great has been the change wrought by the discovery of gold in California. Panama, however, is not the same city whence the swineherd Pizarro sailed to the conquest of the empire of the Incas. That adventurer did not here equip his expedition, nor was it here that he, Ahnagro, and Luque desecrated the sacrament by their infernal compact. Old Panama, now a miserable ruin, about six miles down the coast, was deserted after Morgan with his buccaneers had crossed the Isthmus, sacked the town, and murdered every soul witliin its pre- cincts. Now a heap of ruins overgrown A\ith rank vegetation, in a pestilential swamp, is all that remains of that proud city — the key of the Pacific, and one of the brightest jewels in tlie Castihan crown ; from whose port those vessels sailed whose leader over- threw the most civilised empire in the New World, added the viceregal province of Peru to the over- grown dominions of Spain, and loaded a happy and industrious people with the bitter chams of slavery.* From Panama a line of English steamers runs along the whole western coast of South America ; and thus the shores of Peru, which took Pizarro and his little band so much toil and trouble to arrive at, are reach^ in a few days. * After the destruction of old Panama hj Morgan — a buccaneer of infa- mous notoriety, who was rewarded for his villany, by our Charles II. , with knighthood, and the government of Jamaica — the former site was deserted, and the new town built where it now stands. The anchorage is bad and inconvenient for shipping, so that vessels usually lay at Tohoga, an island about ten miles distant. INTRODUCTORY. 9 We passed the Isle of Gorgona, so famous as the spot of the stern conqueror's deed of desperate devo- tion — the Cape of Emeralds — the mouth of the Guayaquil, where he first landed, and whence the towering summits of Cotopaxi and Chimborazo are visible, and reached Callao, the port of Lima, in six days from Panama. The present republic of Peru extends along the coast of the Pacific for a distance of 1,235 miles, in a straight line from point to point — it is much more including the windings of the coast — from the river Tumbez, which separates it from Ecuador on the north, to the river Loa, which separates it from Bolivia on the south. Lima, its far-famed capital, is situated about half way between these two points. This beautiful country, embracing every variety and description of climate and scenery, producing, or capable of producing in abundance every kind of vegetable that is known to the world, and yielding from its mines, rich stores of gold, silver, copper, lead, tin, coal, and mercury ; and from its herds and flocks, an endless supply of hides, and fleeces of silky texture, is divided into three very distinct and well defined regions. I. The Coast, extending from the feet of the maritime Cordillera to the ocean, contains a numerous succession of rich and fertile valleys, separated from each other by sandy deserts. These valleys enjoy a warm though not oppressive climate, rain is never known to fall, hut refreshing dews descend in abun- dance during the night. In these valleys immense 10 CUZCO AND LrVIA. crops of sugar and cotton are raised ; while extensive vineyards produce wines of delicious flavour, and a spirit called pisco, whicli is consumed in great quan- tities by all classes, and also largely exported. II. The Sierra, the region of the Cordillera of the Andes, is about 300 miles wide, and contains the most stupendous mountains, whose scenery is miequalled in beauty ; vast plains and pasture lands, and waim and fertile ra\ines and valleys. The Sierra is the native place of the potato, the abode of the vicuiia and alpaca, while in its recesses lie concealed the far-famed and inexhaustible treasures of Peru. In the midst of the Sierra, and in the centre of Peru, stands Cuzco, the ancient city of the Incas, to whose former history and present state a charm is attached, which enhances the enjoyment of a journey to this beautiful country, and adds new interest to a land overflowing with historical associations. III. The Montana, or tropical forests skirting the eastern slopes of the Andes, and extending over two- thirds of the Republic of Peru, are comparatively J unknown ; but they abound in products of the gTeatest \ commercial value, and will, at some future time, be the principal source of Peruvian wealth. The government of this country, so highly favoured by n&ture, is centred in the city of Lima, whose site was chosen by the conqueror Pizarro, a little more than three hundred years ago. On the shores of the Pacific, in 12° 3' south latitude, a broad and fertile valley ex- tends from the foot of the Cordillera to the sea. The river San Mateo, rising among lofty mountain peaks, after a INTRODUCTORY. 1 1 tortuous course, at length finds its way into the plain, and changing its name to the Eimac (he who speaks), from an oracle formerly existing on its banks, empties itself into the Pacific. Here, on Epiphany Sunday, I 1535, Pizarro founded El Ciudad de los Reyes, or I Lima, on the banks of the Rimac, and about seven miles from the sea. The view from the bay of CaUao, looking towards Lima, is very fine. The gi-een alluvial plain, covered with little white farms and clusters of willow-trees, spreads itself from the right and left of the seaport of CaUao to Ancon on the north, and the bold cUff of the Morro Solar, with the little bathing-place of Chorillos at its foot, on the south. Inland, the glorious Andes rise abruptl}^ from the plain, at a distance of about two leagues from the ocean, with their snowy peaks towering one above the other far into the cloudy sky ; and^t their feet, the white towers of Lima ai-e embosomed in the gardens of oranges and chirimoyas which surround the city. There is a railway from Callao to Lima, to which the old suppressed convent of San Juan de Dios forms a terminus ; and, to keep pace with this sign of pro- gress, the old city of late years has assumed a more busy aspect; new houses are rising up in many directions, English broughams and barouches drive through the streets, and crowds of German and Chinese emigrants are met at every turn. But while we leave the modern city, with tlie story of its viceregal pomp in by-gone days, and the pro- mismg repubhc now centred m its bosom, till our 12 CUZCO AND LliMA. pilgrimage to Cuzco is completed, there is much worthy of attention, before commencing our journey, in the ruins still widely scattered over the valley of the Eimac and its vicinity. Ascending the course of the river from Lima, to- / wards the interior, the picturesque ravine is filled with curious remains. At the skirts of the mountains are numerous old Indian villages, built of enormous adobes (bricks baked in the sun), and the cactus, or prickly pear, is frequently seen to raise its ungainly head amidst the now deserted dwellings. It is remarkable that these villages are all situated in the gorges of the liiHs, and not in the valley, a proof how thickly the country was formerly peopled, and how anxious its governors were that every, foot of gromid should be retained for cultivation. In one of these gorges, near the Rimac, are the remains of an extensive city of adobes, now called Caxamarquilla, covering nearly as much ground as their modern rival Lima.* In the valley of the Rimac are mnnj mounds of im- mense size, generally supposed, from the numerous skulls and bones which have been dug up, to have been used as burial-places. These vast artificial hills are built of adobes. One of them is nearly seventy feet liigh,*and covers two acres of ground. Although these were doubtless partly used as bm'ial-places, it is probable that they answered a far more extensive purpose : that they were intended to * Ulloa gives an account of this ruined city, fmiiished liim by the Marquis of Valdelirios, 1745. INTRODUCTORY. 13 afford protection against their enemies to the feudal lords of the valley ; and to serve as a place of retreat to their retainers. At their feet is almost always fomid a collection of ruins forming the little village of the peasantry ; and frequently a court enclosed by a high wall, resembling the present galpons, or quarters of the slaves on the sugar estates, in the neighbourhood. But the most famous and interesting ruin, of a date anterior to the time of the Incas, is the temple of Pachacamac, situated on the shores of the Pacific, about twenty-five miles south of Lima. The road to it, from the valley of the Eimac, skirts close round the lofty Morro Solar, a precipitous head- land overhanging the fashionable bathing village of Chorillos. It then turns sharp round into a wood of acacias, which opens into a broad and handsome avenue of willow trees, half a mile long, leading to the sugar estate of Villa. Fruit gardens, maize, sugar-cane, and lucerne fields are spread out on either side ; and the farm itself is an extensive collection of buildings, containing a fine house, huts for the slaves, in number 480, outhouses, and a church. Villa has long been famous for the lawless character of its slaves : some years ago they murdered the steward,* and hid his * " In the farm of Villa they killed the steward; and certain negro slaves who were suspected, after having been tortured, confessed that they had murdered him, and thrown him into an oven. The bones were sought for and found, two of the faculty having declared they were human bones, but a French surgeon contending they belonged to a donkey. ' ' The Prefect treated the Frenchman as ignorant, and was about to give Christian burial to the donkey's bones, when the real body was discovered, i buried near the sea-beach. "From these facts it may be deduced, 1. That torture does not conduce [ 14 CUZCO AND LIMA. body in an oven ; and this road is still considered the most dangerous in the vicinity of Lima. Bejj-ond this estate a broad plain extends along the coast to the great desert of San Juan, contaming several large lakes well stocked with water-fowls. The desert beyond is composed of very heavy sand, and is about six miles in breadth, the ride across it being excessively fatiguing. At length, reacliing the top of an almost imper- ceptible ascent, the Pacific ocean, -^ith three rocky islets off the coast, first breaks upon the view, and then the hill on which is situated the once splendid temple of Pachacamac. Passing rapidly down the sandy steep, and sldrting the small farm of Mama-Conas, I entered the city of the dead. It is with a feeling of mournful depression that a stranger wanders among the now empty and deserted streets of this once rich and populous city. The houses are built of small bricks, but the roofs are gone, and the rooms filled with sand. Towards the sea, an isolated hill rose above the city, and on its summit was built the famous temple. The ruins consist of three broad terraces, with walls about to til "discovery of the truth ; 2. That in Peru, the police have a power more tyrannical, more arbitrary, and more stupid than the inquisition." — Herencia Espanola, por Coronel Espinosa, pp. 15, 16. Lima, 1S52. The negro slaves in the sugar estates on the coast, especially near Lima, are a very lawless set of rascals ; frequently, after their work is done, they take their masters' horses, and go out on the road, to watch for lonely tra- vellers, and do a little on their own account. Many of them run away altogether, and form gangs of robbers. P INTRODUCTORY. 15 twenty feet high, on parts of which the vermilion paint that once coated the whole, is still to be seen, having been preserved through three centuries of neglect, owing to the extreme dryness of the air, in a land ^ where rain never falls. Above the terraces there is a level platform, where once a splendid fane rose in honour of Pachacamac, the Creator of the World,* the Supreme God of the Indians of Peru, whose worship extended over the whole land of the Incas, and whose shrine was crowded by devout pilgrims from the distant plains of Chile, and the sunny forests of the equator. It is 399 feet above the level of the Pacific, and about half-a-mile from the heavy surf which rolls upon the sandy beach. The shrine itself was entirely demolished by Hernando Pizarro, who plundered it at the time of the conquest. The chroniclers of the period report that the doors were plated with gold, and powdered with precious stones ; and that the riches found in it were so immense, that the ornaments of the doors alone were worth 4000 marks, and were given to the pilot, Quintero, as his share of the spoil. At the foot of the temple are the ruins of a large tambo or hospice for pilgrims ; and antiquaries have also discovered vestiges of a palace, a temple of the Sun, and a convent of virgins. In their present state, these are little different from the other buildings, however splendid they may have been in the happy days of the Incas. The view from the platform, once crowned by the temple, is very striking. The great silent city of * Pacha, the earth. Camac, participle of Camani, I create. 16 CUZCO AND LIMA. Pachacamac, which does not now contain one solitary inhabitant, is spread out immediately beneath the hill, and is separated from the fertile valley of Lurin by a river of the same name. To the north of this little stream a sandy desert" extends from the Pacific to the foot of the towering Andes ; while to the south the smiling face of the cultivated and well-wooded vale of Lui'in stands out in striking contrast. The evening was far advanced before, leaving these famous ruins, I approached a small hut on the fertile side of the stream, to seek a night's lodging; but instead of the kindly Indian I had expected to find, a ruffianly crowd of negroes came out, and assumed an insolent and menacing attitude. High words followed, wliich ended in one of the gang rushing upon me with a long knife. There was no further choice left ; I fired my revolver within a few inches of him, and sticking spurs into the horse, gave the ruffians another parting shot, and rode away through the city of the dead into the sandy desert, where I passed the night. These ruins, in the vicinity of Lima, including Caxamarquilla and Pachacamac, are, without doubt, the remains of very ancient civilisation ; and together with the gigantic stone remains of Tiahuanuco, on the banks of Lake Titicaca, point to a period long anterior to the advent of the Incas, and bear the same relation to their edifices, arS the great ruins at Palenque and Axmul do to the works of the more modern Aztecs. But while in Central America there is no sign or clue to explain the origin of the extraordinary architec- tural remains which abound in its forests, there are INTRODUCTORY. 17 certaiii indications which appear to throw some light upon the early peopling of the shores, and eventually of tlie interior of Peru, even prior to the appearance of the first Inca. That a voyage across the Pacific, by the first settlers of parts of America, is far from improbable will be inferred, when we reflect on the prevailing winds in that ocean, and the myriads of islands with wliich it is studded. In our own time, the junks of China and Japan, carried off theu' shores by a gale of wind, have reached the Sandwich Islands, and even the coast of California. From India or Malacca there is a frequent succession of resting places, through the Indian Archipelago, to Tahiti, Easter Island, and eventually to the coast of Peru near Arica ; and by this route it is probable that, centuries ago, the first settler " Diversa exsilia, et clesertas quaerere terras agitui- " and landed in the far distant continent of another hemisphere. But along the path trodden by the first emigi-ants from the cities and ports of Asia and China to the table-land of the Andes, it would be natural to seek for traces of their progress. Among these, not to mention the many significant traditions prevalent among the South -Sea islanders, may be noticed the platforms of masonry and gigantic statues that were found in Easter Island, and " were not looked upon as idols b}^ the natives," who appeared 18 CUZCO AND LIMA. ignorant of tlieir origin. Captain Cook, in wTiting of these remains, might be describmg the Temple of j Pachacamac, or the ruins of Tiahuanuco, so marked is the resemblance.* There was a wide-spread tradition throughout Peru, at the time of the conquest, that ages before the appearance of the Incas, a race of giants had landed at Caj)e St. Helena, near Guayaquil, coming from the far West in large boats. It is added, that God destroyed them for theii* sms ; and even now the huge fossil bones of mastodons and mammoths often found in the hard clay, in various parts of Peru, are attributed to these mythical personages.! But little is left, in the way of tradition or other evidence, sufficiently conclu- sive to enable us to form any opinion on this early civilisation of Peru, which, like the wonderful architec- ture of Central America,! leaves room for wonder and admiration, but scarce any ground on which to found a basis for speculation. But, leaving the temple of Pachacamac and its * " The platforms are faced with hewn stones of a very large size. They used no sort of cement, yet the joints are exceedingly close, and the stones mortised and tenoned one into another in a very artful manner, and the side walls were not i>erpendicular, but sloping a little inwards." — Captain Cook's Voyages ; Second Voyage ; book ii. c. viii. + See G. de la Vega, lib. ix. c. ix. ; and A casta, lib. i., who, ia mentifcning the arrival of the giants, says that the Indians of the coast affirmed that, in old time, they often sailed forth to the isles of the West, in blown -up skins. For accounts of fossil bones in Peru, see Temple, vol. ii. p. 393 ; Dr. A. Smith's "Peru as it is," vol. ii. p. 265 ; and Castelnau. X Figures resembling alphabetical characters were found on the walls at Palenque, which may, at some future time, be interpreted by a western Eawlinson, and disclose the wondrous history of the unknown people who, ages ago, erected those once splendid palaces and temples. INTRODUCTORY. 1 9 kindred ruins around Lima, wliose origin and earl}'^ history are unknown, it is time to turn our attention to beautiful Peru as it now is, and to the more attain- able and deeply-interesting history of the Incas, and of Cuzco, their imperial city. The preparations for a journey into the interior of Peru from Lima are usually on rather an extensive scale. The native Peruvian' cavalleros travel with at least three cargo mules, two carrying their luggage, and the third bearing an enormous case made of bullock's hide, called an almofrex, which contains a large mattress, pillow, sheets, &c. ; for, except in the large towns, there are no beds to be had on the road. A wheeled vehicle is quite unknown. The trade in mul^s throughout South America is of course very important; and long troops periodically arrive in Lima from Piura on the northern coast, and from the province of Tucuman, south of Bolivia. In the last century a stimulus was given to this trade by the system of overland carriage for goods from Peru to Buenos Ayres, established by the Spanish govern- ment, by which the dangers of the Pacific ocean, which was then infested by buccaneers, were avoided. In 1748, regular stages and posthouses, with relays of animals and provisions, were formed between Lima and the river Plate, and it is calculated that 130,000 horses and mules were at that time annually imported into Peru. At tJie present day the sale of mules is carried on at Lima, on the banks of the Pdmac, where large troops are collected together waiting for a purchaser. 2 20 CUZCO AND LIMA. For the real enjoyment of travelling in the interior of Peru, it is necessary to throw aside all superfluity of luggage, portmanteau, and almofrex ; and setting forth with a small pair of leather saddle-bags, and a few warm ponchos for a bed, to commence the journey with a perfect absence of care or anxiety. Thus, unliamjiered by luggage, the traveller may wander through the enchanting scenery, wliithersoever his fancy leads him ; and, taking his chance for a lodging or a supper, roam amidst the majestic Cordilleras, and pass a time of most perfect enjoyment. In very light marching order, with two mules lately arrived from the pastm"es of Tucuman, and a black cavalry soldier, who proved of no use and was certainly no ornament, the pilgTimage to Cuzco was commenced on the 7th of December, 1852 ; and, leaving Lima by the gate of Guadaloupe, passing through Chorrillos and by the old temple of Pachacamac, we arrived at the little village of Lurin, and accomplished the first stage of the joiu-ney along the coast of Peru. CHAPTER II. JOURNEY TO CUZCO. THE COAST. From Lurin to the sea-port of Pisco is a journey of 130 miles along a succession of sandy deserts stretching from the Cordillera to the Pacific, and separated from each other by fertile valleys. The first inhabited spot to the southward of Lurin is the little village of Chilca ; a collection of cane-huts, with a handsome church, but dependent on wells for its supply of water. It is inhabited by a race of Indians, who, thus isolated in a small oasis surrounded by the sandy wilderness, have preserved much of the spirit of freedom and independence. An instance of their determined resistance of op- pression occurred the morning after my arrival : when, my soldier having given the syndic of the village a blow with the butt-end of a pistol, the whole popula- tion assembled in a state of the utmost excitement, and insisted on the fellow being sent back a prisoner to Lima for trial. So careful were the Indians of their rights, that, till witliin a few years, there was a particular apartment allotted to every white traveller who arrived at Chilca ; 22 . CUZCO AND LIMA. the governor or cacique supplied him with food, and informed him that he could only remain foiu'-and- twenty hours in the village. The people of Chilca are an extremely industrious race — some of them are mule- teers, others employ themselves in field lahour in the neighbouring valley of Mala, and the rest are fisher- men. The Avomen make cigar-cases of straw. The sandy undulations round the place produce palm-trees, figs, and pomegranates ; and several moist beds have been formed where reeds are cultivated to make matting for the roofs of the houses. A little scanty herbage grows on the sand-hills, where mules and asses were grazing, but the food of the inhabitants is all brought from Mala. The whole width of the scanty vegetation does not exceed a mile ; and, if it were not for the view of the blue Pacific, the traveller might fancy himself in an oasis of the Sahara desert. After lea\ang Chilca, the road leads through a sandy desert, crossing ravines, at intervals, that end in small sandy bays, in some of which the Indians were engaged in fishing. A ride of twelve miles brought us to the beautiful valley of Mala, watered by the river San Antonio, now much swollen ; but which, with its plantations of oranges, vines, and bananas, its fields of maize, and rows of graceful willow-trees, formed a striking contrast to the dreary wilderness. Nothing but the most unbounded hospitality is to be met with in this country, without inns or extor- tioners. At Lurin and at Chilca our Indian hosts had refused all payment, and at Mala the excellent old priest, Don Martin Fernandez, received us with the JOURNEY TO CUZCO. 23 greatest kindness and tlie most hearty welcome. The southern portion of the vale of IVIala is occupied hy the extensive grazing farm belonging to Don Jose Asin, where large herds of cattle are reared, which prmci- pally supply bulls for the Lima bull-ring. Nine miles further on, over a waste of heavy sand, is the village of Asia, consisting of nine or ten small huts made of cane plastered with mud, and surrounded by a few stunted bushes and some pumpkins. At this wretched little place I fomid an Indian who possessed a copy of the History of the Incas, by Garcilasso de la Vega, and who talked of their deeds as if he had studied its pages with much attention. From Asia the road winds round a lofty headland close to the sea, and continues on among barren hills and ravines for twenty-five miles, until at last the eye is relieved by a view of the broad and fertile plain of Canete, one of the richest sugar-yieldmg districts in Peru. The plain is about twelve or fourteen miles in length, extending in breadth from the Cordillera to the sea ; and is covered in nearly its whole extent by waving fields of sugar-cane separated by rows of grace- ful willows. It is divided into eight large estates, which are cultivated by about two thousand negro slaves, and several hundred Chinese lately imported. The negro population of the coast valleys of Peru were imported from Porto Bello, the great depot for this trade, which was principally in the hands of EngHsTi merchants during the first century after the conquest. It was old John Hawkins, one of the naval heroes of 24 CUZCO AND LIMA. Elizabeth's reign, who commenced a lucrative trade in African slaves, between the coast near Sierra Leone and the new Spanish settlements of America ; and by a curious coincidence, the retribution that overtook his son, for the heartless avarice of the father, commenced off this very vale of Caiiete, which was then just begin- ning to receive its first cargo of human merchandise. Sir Eichard Hawkins sailed from England in 1594, in a vessel quaintly but not mappropriately named by his mother, the " Repentance," for she remembered the sins of her slave-dealing husband with grief and shame. He entered the South Seas on a marauding expedition, and it was off the coast of Caiiete that the Spanish fleet, which afterwards defeated and took liim prisoner, first sighted the English pu-ate. Caiiete suffered from the attack of the Enghsh in 1746, when Anson landed at and burnt the little fort of Cerro Azul, on the northern end of the valley. His name is still to be seen, carved in large letters, on the face of a cliff. The cultivation of sugar at Canete is carried on with considerable energy. The cane is cut once in about eighteen months; and, as the weather is some- times cold, and rain never falls, much care and labour are required in irrigatmg the fields. But though the cane 4s slow in growing, a greater suppl}^ of sugar is produced, owing to the cane being of closer texture, and containing more juice, than in many milder regions. Two of the best estates, those of La Quebrada and Casa Blanca, are rented by an Englishman from tlie I JOURNEY TO CUZCO. 25 Convent of Buena Muerste, at Lima. In the former is a steam-engine for crushing the cane, and a distillery for rum. On other estates water-power is used, and at the estate of La Huaca, where I was staying, the cane is crushed by means of mules and bullocks fastened to capstan bars, and driven round three capstans which turn the crushing rollers. The juice, runs down a gutter into a receptacle in a long room, where it undergoes the boiling process. There are seven copper cauldrons underneath, in which the juice is boiled by furnaces, and eventually some of it is refined, some made into broTvn sugar, and some into chancacas — cakes of hard' brown treacle, much eaten by the slaves. A great portion of the produce of Canete is exported to Chile and other parts of the coast, from the httle port of Cerro Azul in small trading vessels, and the remainder is sent to Lima by mule carriage, each mule carrying 325 pounds of sugar. The proprietors of the estates of Caiiete are an excellent class of country gentlemen, upright, hospitable, and kind to theu* slaves and dependents. The buildings on the estates are handsome and extensive. One side of a court-yard usually contains the trajnche, or sugar- mill, the boiling-house, and large refining and store- rooms ; while on the other is the dwelling-house, with long airy rooms handsomely furnished. Adjoining the house there is always a chapel, with a priest attached to it. The mode of life on these estates is very agreeable. The proprietors and their dependents rise very early 26 CU2C0 AXD LIMA. and ride over the fields, or go to their several occupa- tions until 10 a.m., when they meet at a very substantial breakfast of caldo, or soup, poached eggs garnished with slices of fried bananas, and various dishes of meat, closing Avith a cup of well frothed chocolate, and a glass of water. Dinner is at 4 p.m., when the proprietor presides, and the company consists of his family, the administrador, or steward, the chaplain, refiner, and other dependents, and any guests who may happen to drop in. The dinner consists of a chupe, the national dish of Peru, made of potatoes, eggs, and chicken. This is usually followed by fresh fish in vinegar and ahi, or Peruvian pepper, and the repast concludes with the most dehcious didccs and preserves, washed down by a glass of water. The society at Canete is made up of the families of the country gentlemen, the chaplains and officials in the little town, and is most charming.* An interchange * The estates in Canete are eiglit in number, viz. : — 'Mr. Wm. Keid, rented of the Convent I. Hacienda de la Quehrada. (600 \ of Buena Muerte, at Lima, slaves) . . . . . ^ Worked by steam. (Pays a rent of ( $26,000.) II. Hacienda de Casa Blanca . . \ ^^,V '^™- ^''^- ^^^° "^ ^"^^^ I Muerte. !Don Mariano de Osma : belonging to his mother, Dona Eamirez de Asellano y Osma. !Don Domingo Carillo. The mills of these two estates are worked by mules and bullocks. / Don Pedro Paz Soldan, worked by V. Hacienda de Matarratones, or \ water-power. Don Pedro is San Juan Arena . . . i married to a sister of the owner \ of the — JOURNEY TO CUZCO. '27 I of dinners and visits keeps up a constant feeling of kindliness and goodwill among them. A beautiful flower and fruit garden is attached to each house, with a running stream passing through it ; where groves of the tall chirimoya tree whose fruit, peculiar to Peru, is unrivalled in excellence, and resembles spiritualised strawberries and cream ; the lofty and gi-aceful palta, or alligator pear ; orange, lemon, and citron trees ; all tempt a visitor with their exquisite flavour, wliile the dehcious grmiadilla, the fruit of the passion-flower, hangs over the trees in rich profusion. Unequalled are the gardens of Cailete in the abund- ance and beauty of their fruits and flowers, unless it is by the more abundant hospitahty of their excellent owners. Near the garden is usually situated the galpon, or abode of the slaves, a village of huts with a small square in the centre, surrounded by a high wall. The negroes of Canete appear a happy and contented race, and though their labour is forced, they receive clothing, food, and lodging, and escape the capitation tax of the oppressed Indians of the Sierra. Early in the morning, one is roused by the voices of the young girls and women, when they all repair to the !Don Jose Unanue : a son of the learned physician and author. Worked by water. iDon Demetrio O'Higgins, son of the famous general, who also lived here. iDon Antonio Eamos, a wealthy Chi- lian. Worked by steam, and a vacuum pan. 28 CUZCO AND LIMA. door of the chajiel before going to work, and chaiint a li3''mn of praise upon their knees. This is repeated at sunset, when the day's work is concluded.* Since the independence of Peru, it has been the intention of the Repubhcan Government to abolish slavery, and the law for the liberation of the negroes appears to be both a wise and a just one. Avoiding on the one hand the precipitate measure of the English reform ministry, and on the other the ribald effrontery of the slave statesmen of North America, who quote scripture in defence of their inhuman institutions, the Peruvians have steered a middle course between the two extremes. In 1821, a law was passed that all existing slaves should remain so for hfe, that tlieii- childreu should be free when fifty years old, and that theii' grand- children should be born free.f Thus the slaves them- selves, it was intended, would become gradually accus- tomed to liberty, and at the same time their owners would have ample time to prepare for the change by importing Chinese, whose cheap labour would prevent the negroes from striking for higher wages, wliile the condition of the former slaves woidd be greatly * A Cliilian traveller thus describes his first morning at Canete : — ' ' I was sleeping tranquilly, when a chorus of angels seemed to awaken ' mef before the light of day had dawned. The most melodious accents were | wafted to my ears, and when I perceived that it was a sacred hymn, I \ could not understand who it was that felt so much piety at such an hour. ' ' The poor slave-girl, who passes her life in sorrow, nakedness, and ( fear of the lash, is she who thus comes to praise God, and give thanks for the light of another day." — Cartas sobre el Peru, por Pedro Vicuna. Valparaiso, 1847. + In 1855, General Castilla, the acting President of Peru, has issued a decree proclaiming the freedom of all slaves. I JOURNEY TO CUZCO. 29 ameliorated. It is anticipated that few on receiving their liberty will leave their masters, to whom they are endeared by their almost paternal kindness, and the recollections of their earliest childhood. The cost of the keep and clothing of a slave is calculated at about $40 a year. On leaving the hospitable haciendas of Canete, I was accompanied by a negro guide, and proceeded along the coast to the southward ; and after crossing the river of the same name, now very rapid and much swollen, arrived at a mass of ruins on a point of land overlooking the sea — now called the fortress of Hervay. Situated on a steep hill, these extensive remains are divided into two parts. That farthest from the sea consists of nine chambers. Entering through a breach in the northern wall, I passed along a rampart broad enough for two men to walk abreast, with a parapet five feet high on the outside, and a wall sixteen feet high on the inside. The parapet is on the edge of a very steep cliff, partly faced -with adobes, and about thirty feet above the plain. At the end of twenty yards, the passage turns at right angles into the interior of the building, where there is a doorway ten feet high. The sides approach each other, and the lintel is of willow beams. It leads into a spacious hall, surrounded by large »' 1 recesses, with passages opening into numerous small ■ fiji [ chambers. The walls are sixteen feet high, built of adobes, and partly covered with plaster. From this most interesting ruin, walking towards the 30 CUZCO AND LEVIA. sea, over 220 paces of ground strewed witli ruined walls, I entered a large hall, perfectly square, whose sides measured thirty-nine paces. The east side contained fifteen recesses, resembling those of the chamber in the other ruin. On the south side were two doorways leading, by passages, into numerous smaller chambers. In the upper part of the walls, the holes for the beams which once supported the roof, were distinctly visible.* These ruins of Hervay afford unmistakeable evidence, from their general resemblance to the architectm'e at Cuzco and Limatambo, of an Incarial origin. They differ in this respect from those of Pachacamac, and the vale of the Rimac, which have been already noticed, and are the first traces of the conquests of the Incas that are to be met with on the coast. The valleys from Yea and Pisco, to the dominions of the great Chimu, where now stands the modem city of Truxillo, were first conquered by the Incas, in the time of Pachacutec, whose son, the renowned Prince Yupanqui, proved the superiority of the arms of the Sun, in many a fierce battle with the Yunca Indians. The fortress of Hervay, containing a palace and other extensive buildings, in all probability erected at about this period, became one of the first estabKsh- ments of the Incas on the coast of the Pacific. In the huacas, or burying places, on the plain of Canete, many curious relics of this period have lately been dug up, including specimens of Inca pottery, * The walls of these ruins, as is the ease with many of greater celebrity, have, as usual, been defaced by people scribbling their names over them. Among others, I remarked the following doleful sentence : — ' 'Aqui suspiio un triste amante, por la ingrata Panchita Garcia." I JOURNEY TO CUZCO. 31 stone canopas, or liouseliold gods, golden ear-rings, and silver ornaments of various kinds. Leaving at Hervay the remains of the happy rule of a wise and beneficent race of monarchs, we entered the sandy waste, forty miles in breadth, which separates the fertile plains of Cliincha and Canete. For thirty miles the road passes over a dreary succession of sandy hills with lofty perpendicular cliifs towards the sea, and at last a winding path brought us on to the beach, where a heavy surf was breaking. Turning the point of a clifi^, we came upon the dry bed of a mountain torrent, which had once dashed through a declivitous ravine, and emptied itself into the Pacific. All now was stillness and desolation. At the foot of the rocky sides of the ravine were a few stunted shrubs, and the dry bed of the stream was lined with large round stones. The sun was just touching the western ocean, and reflected a bright light on one side of the ravine, while the long range of dismal cliffs threw their broad shadows over the other. The monotonous roar of the surf was the only sound; but some little way up the ravine an object attracted my attention, and, dismounting, I walked towards it. There, at the foot of one of the low bushes, was a female figure in the well-known dress of an Inca Indian girl, as worn in the valleys of Tarma and Xauxa — the blue cotton gown, and the black mourning janacu, or apron, with her face bmied in the sand. I took one of her hands, and she tirrned to me with an expression of the most heartrending grief. It was a beautiful face, and the poor girl seemed not more 33 CUZCO AND LEVIA. than sixteen. She pointed to a little bush a few yards farther on, where I found a little baby quite dead. Placing some money by its side, I rode away. The poor young girl seemed like the genius of the Incas weeping for the affliction of her children, while the brilliant gun, the deity of their race, sank into the ocean and left them to the galling yoke of foreign conquerors. It was in just such another spot, with the exception of the ocean which, like the tantalising mirage of the desert, would have added another pang to her suffer- ing, that Hagar " cast her child under the shrubs, and sat over against him a good way off, and lifted up her voice and wept." The road, leaving this desolate spot, again ascends the cliff; and passing over some leagues of desert, we entered the beautiful vale of Chincha after dark, and reached the hospitable sugar estate of Laran. This extensive hacienda is one of the finest on the coast of Peru. The house is fronted by a broad and handsome corridor with stone steps, leading down into the court-yard. The rooms are lofty, and handsomely furnished, and the proprietor, Don Antonio Prada, who resides on the spot, has introduced the unusual luxury of a billiard-table. On another side of tlie coiu't-yard there is a handsome church, and the sugar-mill is worked by steam. A broad straight road, bordered by fields of sugar- cane, which runs from the gates of Laran to the feet of the Cordillera, is exactly in the same latitude with the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco ; and is said to have been JOURNEY TO CUZCO. 33 the boundary between New Castille and New Toledo, the territories granted to Pizarro and Ahnagro, after the conquest. It was here that the Marshal Almagro established his quarters, when returning from Chile in 1537, he proceeded to the coast, to claim from Pizarro his share of the territories of Peru. The stormy inter- view between those two fierce adventurers at Mala, led to the retreat of Almagi'o into the interior, and his filial overthrow in the bloody battle of Las Salinas. There are two other sugar estates in the valley of Cliincha, of San Jose, and San Rsgis, belonging to Don Fernando Carrillo, Count of Monte Blanco, the former worked by a steam-engine, and the latter by mules and bullocks. There is also a small town ; and numerous huacas, or ancient burial j^laces, attest the populousness of the valley in the time of the Incas. Between the plains of Chincha and Pisco, there is a desert of hard sand, and passing over a new suspension- bridge which spans the river of Pisco, and through a plain covered with date palms, willows, and patches of pasture where herds of goats were grazing, we entered the little town some hours after dark. Pisco is a good specimen of the smaller towns on his part of the coast. There are several good houses in the plaza, one belonging to Don Domingo Elias, me of the largest landed proprietors, and certainly the nost enterprising man in Peru. There is also a ,iof landsome church, in the Limenian style of architecture, occupying one side of the same square. The smaller dwellings of the poorer classes, princi- L m 34 CUZCO AND LIMA. pally negroes and half castes, are of simple construc- tion. The streets are composed of rows of houses, built of cane stuck in the ground, -with cross pieces at intervals. They are about ten feet high, plastered with mud, and whitewashed. The framework of a door, and a glass lamp suspended over it, make them look neat and comfortable. Besides the gi-eat church in the jplaza, which is a well known landmark for vessels at sea, there is the old chapel of the Jesuits, which possesses a side altar covered with elaborately carved gilt work ; and further on, an avenue of willow trees leads to the old and dilapidated Monastery of Franciscans, wliich was suppressed about twenty years ago by the Republican Government. The cloister was deserted, the cells were empty, and the extensive pleasure-grounds, mth avenues of splendid olive-ti'ees, had been allowed to go to ruin ; Avhile the hideous turkey buzzards, or foul carrion crows of Peru, roosted on those olive branches, where once the little doves, now driven to the willows in the distant fields, had made their nests. Rank weeds cover the paths intended for quiet and religious contemplation, and evetything wears a melancholy appearance. Formerly Pisco was very unhealthj^, and the in- habitants suffered much from fever, but eighteen years ago, a ditch, eight feet deep, was dug all roimd the town, which drains off the moistui'e, and now the town is remarkably healthy. The plain to the southward is barren and unpro- ductive. Stony mounds, with a few stunted shi'ubs, JOURNEY TO CUZCO. 35 and clumps of date palms, stretch away to the desert, and in a few places there are square swamps where reeds are cultivated for making matting for the roofs of the houses. But to the north it is very different. In the imme- diate vicinity of the town are large pastures for asses, horses, and cattle, fields of alfalfa and vegetables, and many date palms and willows. Some miles farther on, and bordering on the coast, is the large sugar estate of Caucato, worked by steam. The plain of Pisco is covered with immense vine- yards, principally owned by Don Domingo EUas,* which produce the most delicious grapes. He manu- factures great quantities of wine and spirit called Pisco or Italia, which is exported to all parts of the coast, and also into the interior of Peru. His gTeat wine store-room at Pisco contains more than a hundred casks of wine, of 280 to 300 gallons each ; and a Portuguese, who has undertaken the charge, produces three kinds : one, an excellent wine, resemblmg Madeira, another inferior white wine, and a tliird like Bucellas. There was also a delicious liqueur made from a spirit distilled from the large white grape, flavom'ed with the chirimoya fruit. The common Pisco is stored in large warehouses on the beach, and shipped off to the ports of Peru and Chile. In the Bay of Pisco are the three Chincha Islands, * Tlie vine estates of Elias, at Pisco, are : — 1. Buena Vista. 2. Palta. '6. Urrutia, formerly belonging to Don Juau Aliaga, Count of Luringauclio, 4. Ctacarilla. 5. Santa Cruz. 6. Hoyas. D 2 30 . CUZCO AND LIMA. situated about twelve miles from the mainland, whence immense cargoes of guano are shipped to England, the United States, and other parts. On the 1st of January, 1853, I embarked on board a little launch, manned by Chmamen, to visit these islands, and landed next morning on the northern one, by means of a steep ladder, which leads up the j)erpen- dicular cliff to a wooden platform formed in the side of the rock. This island is about 1400 varas* in length, and 600 in breadth. Its formation is entirely of felspar and quartz ; and as the felsj>ar is decomposed by the action of the air, it may easily be imderstood how all the shores of the island are broken and indented by caverns, which in process of time fall in, and thus diminish the size of the island. The chemical force of decomposition, and the mechanical action of the waves, have parted into three fragments that which once was one island ; and in times jet more remote this island was probably connected with the coast, as is sho-^ni by a chain of rocks, the Ballista Isles, and finally the Island of San Gallan, which successively intervene between the Chinchas, and the hill of Lechuza on the coast, south of Pisco. The whole of the northern Chincha Isle is covered with thick layers of guano, and the princijial cutting, noAv full sixty feet high, is about a hundred yards from the edge of the cliff. Two hundred convicts are here employed in shovelling down the guano ; whilst a small * A vara is a Spanish yard. 100 Taras=10S English yards. IJOURNEY TO CUZCO. 37 steam-engine of about twelve horse power is used for digging it out, and also for loading the cars. A crane projects from the engine with chains, from wliich is suspended a large iron trough, like a coal-skuttle, with six teeth at the edges, and weighing eight cwt. By working one chain this scuttle digs into the guano and fills itself, by connecting another the crane turns, and the contents of the trough are discharged into the car. About four loads fill the car, which is drawn down a tram road to the edge of the cliff, where it is emptied : and the guano is shovelled down a canvass shoot into the hold of the vessel which is loading j beneath. At the same time strong-brained negroes are stationed in the hold to trim the cargo as it comes down. They receive thirteen dollars per 100 tons from the captain of the vessel, and wear iron masks, as the guano is more penetrating than coal-dust or steel-filings, and stronger than volatile salts. There were five and twenty merchant vessels, chiefly ! English, lying off the island, but there are generally many more, and sometimes the number exceeds a hundred. I The convicts exist in a filthy collection of cane huts : besides wliich there is a little town containinsf two iron houses, occupied by Peruvian officials, English carpenters, and an Irish doctor. During the three previous years, Don Domingo Elias held the sole contract for shipping the guano. He received twelve rials per ton of manure shipped, which is sold in England for 101. Messrs. Gibbs in England, and Don Felipe Barreda, the Peruvian agent 38 CUZCO AND LIMA. for the United States, also receive a per-centage for exjjorting it.* It is calculated that in 1853 there were 3,798,256 English tons of guano on the northern island. In the less frequented parts of the island thousands of sea-birds stiU lay their eggs in little caverns exca- vated in the guano.f Some of the hills are covered with these nests. The legitimate guano bird is a sort of tern, the bill and legs of which are red : the top of the head, and ends of the wings and tail, black, and the lower part of the head white, with a long whisker- like feather curlmg out from mider the ear on each side. The body is a dark slate-colour, the length about ten inches. The enlightened government of the Incas of Peru knew well how to appreciate this valuable manure ; it was much used throughout their empire, and a pimish- ment of death is said to have been inflicted on any one who disturbed the birds during the breeding season. Besides the guano terns, there are large flocks of divers, pelicans, and various kinds of gulls constantly visiting the islands. The centre island is' worked almost entirely by Chinese, who are imported in ship-loads to Callao. They are very badly treated, and, in consequence frequently commit suicide, owing to the fearful natiu'< of the work and a feeling of home-sickness. Then * Importation of guano into England : 1852 129,889 tons. 1853 123,166 „ 1854 235,111 „ + Guano, a corruption of the Quichua word Iluanu, meaning manure^ as Huanu challuap, fisli-manure : or, ffuanu piscup, bird-manure. JOURNEY TO CUZCO. 39 are 672,903 square yards occupied by guano, con- taining about 2,000,000 tons. The southern island has not yet been touched, and contains something over 5,680,000 tons of guano* How astonishing it seems that the little birds should have been providing, during a long series of centuries, in these distant islets of the Pacific, a vast deposit by wliich the worn-out lands throughout the populous parts of the globe are destined to be renovated. Wonderful indeed are the ways by which the Almighty has provided means " to satisfy the desolate and waste places, and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth." To the southward of Pisco, and separated from its vine -bearing plain by a sandy desert of forty miles, is the town of Yea, the capital of the province, and the largest to^\Ti between Lima and Arequipa. It is about twenty miles from the sea coast, and separated from it by a desert and a range of sandy hills. Half way between Pisco and Yea the monotony of the desert is relieved by the ruined soap hacienda, of Villa-ccurijf in the centre of a forest of date palms, which covers an area of several miles. Leaving Yilla-ccuri, and riding over tw^enty miles of * Large lumps of ammoniacal salts are often found in the guano. Some- times tlie eggs of tlie birds are converted into this substance. See the Rejjort of a Commission appointed by the Peruvian Government to sui-vey these islands, in November, 1 853, and published at Lima by authority, in the form of a pamphlet : ' ' Informes sobre la existencia de Huano, en las Islas de Chincha." Lima, 1854. + ViUa-ccuri is composed of a Spanish and a Quichua word, meaning the "city of gold." There are many Aicacas containing curious pottery and gold ornaments. (See Don Juan Avuela's Collection at Yea.) 40 CUZCO AND LIMA. sandy desert, we arrived at the edge of the valley of Yea, which is fringed hy a wood of algoroha, or carob- trees (here called guarangas). This tree grows to a great size, often indeed attaining to the dimensions of a large oak, and is of very hard wood, which, from its weight, bends the trunk down, twists it round and round, makes the branches tie over-hand knots in themselves, and the tree to assume the wildest fantastic forms imaginable. Beyond this wood of carob-trees we passed through the court-yard of the estate of Macaconas ; * and then half a league of road leading through vineyards and cotton fields, and lined with hedgerows of fig-trees, jessamine, and roses, brought us into the town of Yea. Yea is a large town with about 10,000 inhabitants. It is situated in a fertile and beautiful plain, and about two leagues from the feet of the Cordillera of the Andes. The houses are flat-roofed, and built in the same style as at Lima and Pisco ; many of them also are very handsomely furnished. The town has suffered fearfully from earthquakes. In 1745 the old town was entirely destroyed, and its ruins are still to be seen two leagues to the southward. In the present town the roof of the cathedral and the walls of one of the churches have fallen in. The plaza in the centre of the town contains the * The estate of Macaconas was the scene of a battle, dui-ing the war of independence. The patriot, or rebel forces, 3000 strong, under General Tristan, were surprised by the active Spanish General Valdez, who descended suddenly from the Sierra, and entirely defeated them, 7th April, 1822. The estate, formerly belonging to the Jesuits, is now the property of Don Gregorio Falconi. I JOURNEY TO CUZCO. 41 churches of San Augiistin and Santa Merced, and the handsome new house of Don Juan de Dios Quintana, a hrother-in-law of Don Domingo Elias. From the plaza there is a street leading down to a river, which is crossed in this season by a bridge of ropes and willow branches, but during the greater part of the year it is dry. Lined with tall willow-trees, it dashes, in a foaming torrent, through the fertile valley diu'ing one week, and in the next its bed has become a dry and dusty road. Here the ladies of Yea bring out their chairs and sit talking in the cool of the evening. An avenue of willows and fruit-trees, leading from the bridge, is the fashion- able promenade after the fatigues of a sultry day, and the snowy peaks of the Andes, bounding the view, give a delightful feeling of coolness to this charming spot. The fertile plain of Yea is covered with extensive vine estates and cotton plantations, surrounded on three sides by a sandy desert, and on the east by the mountain chain of the maritime Andes. One of the richest and most beautiful estates is that of Chavalina,* situated at the entrance of a ravine * Estates at Yea : — San Ramon (Don Pedro Toledo), Tine. ' ' >• (Don Juan de Dios Quintana), vine. Huamam, J La Tinguiua, 1 ,t. t, • -m- \ ,. ° ' >• (Don Donungo Elias), cotton. San Geronino, cotton, Belen, vine, San Jose, vine. San Xavier de Trapiche, sugar. Macaconas, cotton and vine. Desorillos, cotton. 42 CUZCO AND LIMA. through which the momitain road winds up into the the interior. It formerly belonged to the Jesuits, and is now the property of Don Juan de Dios Quintana. The vineyards cover a great extent of land, and jield about 20,000 arrobas of spii'its a year (at two $2 the arroba). Don Juan de Dios is an excellent specimen of the country gentlemen to be met with on the coast of Peru. He paj^s much attention to various improvements, is kind and indulgent to his slaves and dependents, and receives a stranger with frank hospitality. All the married slaves and workmen are allowed a piece of ground rent free, where they grow vegetables and breed pigs and poultry, while their children may be seen driving donkey loads of provision towards the town, and sitting before their heaps of fruit and vegetables in the market place of Yea. They are thus enabled to earn money and live in comparative comfort. One old slave at Chavalina had made several hundred dollars by lending money on usury ; and, un- able to write, he kept his accounts by notches on a stick. The Indians and liberated slaves receive very good wages, and rent small tracts of land, where they grow vegetables for the market of Yea. The road to the south, crossmg the river and passing through several miles of vineyard, enters an extensive forest of carob-trees growing to a great size, and pro- ducing a pod which is used as fodder for mules and horses, and very highly prized. Occasionally we passed a few comfortable -looking huts built of the twisted JOURNEY TO CUZCO. 43 brandies of the carob, and consequently assuming a peculiar corkscrew-like appearance. Tlie great sandy desert of Guayuri, forty miles in breadth, separates the forest of carob-trees on the southern verge of the valley of Yea, from the vineyards and cotton plantations of Palpa. Not a blade of vege- tation is to be seen in any part of this arid wilderness, and the scorching rays of the sun reflect a painful glare on the sandy plain. Suddenly the traveller leaves the desert, and finds himself surrounded by the smiling vineyards of Cliimbo, Guayuri, and Santa Cruz, and the well- cultivated vale of Rio Grande, which is owned by Don Domingo Elias, and let out to various small proprietors. A range of barren hills separates Rio Grande from the valley of Palpa. The latter contains extensive vineyards, wheat sufficient for the consumption of the whole population, about 4000 souls, with two flour- mills worked by water, and large plantations of cotton, the greater part of which is sold to Don Domingo Elias for exportion, at $14 the quintal. As it approaches the foot of the Andes, the valley of Palpa separates itself into the picturesque and fertile ravines of Sara-marca and of Mollaque ; and on the range of hills that divide them, there is a thermal spring, and a very rich copper mine, which is worked by Don Manuel Frias, the sub -prefect of Yea. The little town of Palpa is surrounded by gardens, weU stocked with the most luscious fruits, and is 44 CUZCO AMD LLMA. watered by a clear stream, overshadowed by rows of willow trees. A succession of barren bills, twelve miles in breadth, intervenes between Palpa and the fertile plain of San Xavier, wliich is the exclusive property of Don Domingo Elias, and contains the vineyards of San Xavier, and the cotton estates of San Jose, Santa Isabella de Lacra, and Coymigo, besides numerous small vegetable farms near the feet of the cordillera. The estate of San Xavier is one of the finest on the coast of Peru. The house is si^acious and well fur- nished, and the courtyai"d is smTounded by a stone corridor, with massive columns supporting round arches. On one side ai*e store-rooms and immense wine-presses ; and on another is the handsome chm^ch, which was erected by the Jesuits when they owned these estates in the last century. The carved wood- work of the pulpit and altars is very fine, and the splendid gilt frames of the portraits of the generals of the order, give the old church an air of grandem% In the time of the Jesuits, negro slaves were introduced, and the valley was cultivated with considerable profit. Their vineyards produced 70,000 arrobas of spirits an- nually, wliich they sold at $5 to $7 the arroba; the present price being about $2 the arroba : and thus they must have realised great wealth not only from this valley, but also fi-om their estates at Yea and Pisco. When, therefore, the colonial authorities, by order of the Spanish muiister Aranda, greedily seized upon their property in 1767, San Xavier must have been in a most prosperous condition ; but since that time the JOL'ENEY TO CUZCO. 45 estates had been gi^adually decreasing in value, until Don Domingo Elias purchased them from the Repub- lican Grovernment. The cotton estates of Lacra and San Jose contain water-mills, with machinery for separating the seeds, and presses for packing the cotton. For its exportation, Don Domingo has lately opened a port on the coast, fort}^ miles to the north of Point Nasca, and ships off about 12,000 quintals of cotton annually fi'om his own estates, and 28,000 more which he buys up from the haciendas of other proprietors. This port, called Lomas, is to the southward of a remarkable rounded hill, called "La mesa de Dona Maria," off which is the rock of Infiernillos, in lat. 14° 41' S., long. 74° 54' W. This harbour is separated by hilly deserts from any supply of water, A few miles inland is the mj^sterious Cerro de las Bruxas, or hill of witches ; and the only inhabitant is an old man named Manuel, who has one or two murders on his conscience, and occasionally starts up in the night, and runs screaming along the cliffs, chased by imagi- nary goblins. The cotton is brought down on mules ; each one carries two bales of 175lbs. each. The cotton is shipped on a large raft, which is launched in a heavy surf, and brought alongside the vessel. The distance from the port of Lomas to the valley of San Xavier is about seventy miles, over a succession of sandy and barren hills. To the southward of San Xavier, and divided from it by thirty miles of rocky desert, is the valley of 46 CUZCO AND LIMA. Nasca, which, from the peculiar mode of its irrigation, is perhaps the most interesting on the coast. Nasca itself is a small and very quiet little tovm, with one church, ruined by an earthquake, and a con- vent, suppressed by the RepubHc ; but the valley in which it is situated, has, by the care and ingenuity of the ancient government of the Incas, been converted into a beautiful and fertile spot, producing eveiy vege- table and every fruit that can be imagined, and all of the most excellent quality. The valley, which is a perfect little oasis, with forty miles of desert on its north side, and nearly a hundi'ed to the south, descends from the sierra by an easy and gradual slope for about seven leagues, T\'idening as it approaches the coast, and is hemmed in by the giant spurs of the cordillera. The whole of tliis space is covered with rich and fertile haciendas, yielding large crops of grapes, cotton, axi pepper, maize, melons, potatoes, camotes, yucas, lemons, citrons, chirimoyas, and every kind of fruit ; yet, all that nature has provided for the irrigation of this lovely valley, is a small water-course, wliich is dry for eleven months out of the twelve. But, in former days, before the arrival of the destroy- ing Spaniards, the engineering skill of the Incas had contended with the arid obstacles of nature, and, by executing a work almost unequalled in the history of irrigation, the wilderness of Nasca was converted into a smiling paradise. This was effected by cutting deep trenches along the whole length of the valley, and so far up into tlie JOURNEY TO CUZCO. 47 moimtains, that to this day the inhabitants know not to what distances they are carried. High up the valley are the main trenches, called, in the language of the Incas, puquios. They are some four feet in height, with the sides and roof lined with stones. As they descend, they separate into smaller puquios, wliich ramify in every direction over the valley, supplymg each estate with the most delicious water, and feeding the little streams that irrigate and fertiUse the soU. The main trenches are many feet below the surface, and at intervals of about two hundred yards there are ojos, or small holes, by which workmen may go down into the vault and- clear away any obstruction. The puquios diverge in every direction, some of them crossing over others, and, before they reach the termina- tion of cultivation towards the south, all the water has been exhausted on the various estates. There are fifteen vine and cotton estates watered by tliis means in the vale of Nasca.* * Viz. : — -Cajuca (vine), Don Jose Soto. Gobernadora (vine), Don Fernando Orton. Acliaca (vine), Don Jose Torres. AngUa(vine), I ©on BasiHo Trigoso. Orcona (vme), J , . , Y (vine and cotton), Don Augustin Munoz. Ajai J San Miguel (vine). Bisambra (vine). Pangaravi (vine). Cantayo (vine). Curbe (vine). Belen (vine). Majoro (vine). * At Aja there is a water-mill for cleansing the cotton. 48 CUZCO AND LIMA. On the summit of one of the mountains which over- hang Nasca, is the deserted gold mine of Cerro Blanco. It is a wild and desert place, where the most perfect silence, unbroken by the slightest sound, prevails, and the view is most stiiking. The vaUey beneath looks, from this height, Hke some broad river winding its way through the sandy desert towards the ocean ; and the enormous masses of momitains, ascending one above the other in every direction, give a slight notion of the majestic grandeur of the Andes. A lane, shaded by orange and fig-trees, leads from the modern town of Nasca to the ancient ruins dating from the time of the Incas, on the side of the moun- tains. This deserted town is built on terraces uj) the steep acclivity on the southern edge of the valley. The houses contain spacious rooms, with niches resem- bling those in the ruins at Hervay, near Canete, which clearly point to an Incarial origin. On an isolated hill in the centre of the ruins is a fortress with a semi- circular front wall, and a corresponding out-work at the foot of the hill. The walls of the houses and fortress are built of stone. To the southward of Nasca, an enormous desert, ninety miles in breadth, extends to the sugar yielding vale of Acari. Farther along the coast are the vales of Yaucos, Atequipa, and Chala, abounding in olives ; and the fertile plains of Atico, Chapata, Ocona, and Camana, separated from each other by deserts extend- ing from the cordillera to the Pacific. Such are the general features of the coast districts of Peru. Nasca was the farthest point to which I I I JOURNEY TO CUZCO. 49 attained before striking across the Andes, in a direct route to Cuzco, the city of the Incas. The deserts are, it is true, wild and dreary expanses, without shade or means of existence ; but wherever there is a drop of water, the country becomes abun- dantly fertile, and the waving fields of sugar-cane, groves of willows and of fruit-trees, and graceful vine- yards, form a striking contrast to the suiTounding wilderness. It is said that on the southern coast, in the neigh- bourhood of Chapata and Atico, there are still some isolated oases nestling in a bed of sand, which have never been visited by Europeans, and are believed still to be inhabited by happy and imenslaved Indians. Strange tales are told of benighted travellers having lost their way in the desert, and come unexpectedly on these favoured spots ; where they have indistinctly seen, through the gloom of night, the dark fringes of foliage which bordered the trackless wilderness.* The largest desert on the coast is that of Sechura, in the neighboui-hood of Payta, where it is reported that durmg the cloudless nights, the wayworn traveller is charmed by the sounds of sweet music mysteriously wafted across the sand.f Throughout the cultivated valleys, excepting, perhaps, in the immediate neighbourhood of Lima, the people, both Negroes, Indians, and the numerous * See Memoirs of General Miller. + On the authority of Dr. Miranda, of Cuzco, who experienced this mys- terious but agreeable visitation, when journeying across the Pampa del Medio Mundo, with General Orbegoso. E 50 CUZCO AND LIMA. shades between them, appeared for the most part happy and contented. With a charming climate, and abundance of all the necessaries of life, they lead a most enjoyable exist- ence. The numerous y^cstos of the church vary their labour with oft-recurring days of amusement, the young girls all wear white satin shoes and other finery, and their masters, so far as I had an opportunity of seeing, treat them with unvaried kindness. The country gentlemen of the Peruvian coast, as a class, are remarkable for their attention to their estates, and the charity and benevolence they display, both to their own dependants and to strangers. The unbounded hospitality, indeed, of all those who made me, an unknown and solitary stranger, often without a letter of introduction, their welcome guest, far ex- ceeded anything I had ever experienced or heard of before. At length, the examination of the coast being completed, I made preparation for the second part of the journey to Cuzco, over the table-lands and valleys of the Andes.* * To stow that the hospitality of such hosts as I met with on the coast of Peru is not forgotten, and as a slight tribute of grateful remembrance of their unbounded kindness, their names are here recorded : — At Canete, Don Mariano Osma and Don Pedro Paz Soldan. *Chincha, Don Antonio Prada. Pisco, Don Francisco Calmet. Yea, Don Jose Bias Santos Mai-tinez and Don Juan de Dios Quintana. Palpa, Don Jose Tijero. San Xavier, Don Pedro Herrera. Lomas, Don Isaac Ladd (of Vermont, New England). Nasca, Don Basilio Trigoso. CHAPTER III. JOURNEY TO CUZCO. THE SIERRA. The journey across the cordillera of the Andes is usually, if possible, undertaken in the dry season. Between the months of December and March the rainy season prevails, the windows of heaven are open, and the streams are swollen to deep and some- times impassable torrents. It was on the 1st of February, 1853, that, taking leave of the kind people of Yea and Chavalina, I commenced the ascent of the cordillera. Their Idnd- ness had supplied me with every necessary provision, and my cargo mule was laden with wine, chocolate, almonds and raisins, dulces, biscuit, and spirits for fuel. At Huamani, a small outlying vineyard, belonging to Chavalina, the last on the coast side of the cordil- lera, I was jomed by my guide, Agustin Carpio by name, a most respectable muleteer, who is employed in the trade of importing 2^isco from the vineyards of Yea into the sierra, and rents three fanegadas of grazing land for his mules, at $70 a-year, from Don Juan de Dios Quintana. 53 CUZCO AND LEVIA. ' The wine and spirits are conveyed by mules in goat- skins called odres, wliich are flayed off the unfortunate animals while yet alive ; this cruel practice being adopted in the belief that the skin taken off in this fashion is more durable* On the coast, large earthenware jars, called hotijas, are used, two of them forming a mule load. Early in the morning of the 1st of February we left Huamani, and passing up a valley covered with pastures well stocked with cattle, horses, and mules, we entered an uninhabited ravine, bounded on either side by lofty and almost perpendicular mountains. Through it, the river Yea rushed noiselessly along, Imed with willows, a kmd of laurel bearing yellow flowers called chilca, and a tree with bunches of fragrant red berries called molle. Along gi-eat part of its length, the ravine was bor- dered by stone terraces, the andeneria or hanging- gardens of the ancient Peruvians, sometimes eight or ten deep, and becoming narrower as they ascended the mountain. Although now in ruins, they bore witness that this wilderness was, previous to the arrival of the Spaniards, a fertile and populous tract of country. Passing up a winding road or cuesta, at the termi- nation of the ravine, we first became aware to what a height we had ascended, the view extending over the mountain tops, far away into the distance. * Don Manuel Ugalde, -who collects India-rubber in the forests east of Cuzco, has attempted to introduce odj'cs of tliat material, to prevent the horrible cruelty of flaying the go&ts alive. JOURNEY TO CUZCO. 53 The slopes of the steep ascent are covered with luj)in, heliotrope, verbena, and scarlet salvia ; and on the road were crowds of small insects rolling balls of mud, like the scarabseus of the Egyptians. We crossed over the crest of the mountain, and came upon a green and fertile ravine abounding in fields of potatoes and lucerne, in which is situated the little sierra village of Tambillo. The terrace system of cultivation is here carried on to some extent. On leaving Tambillo, the water began to come down, that is, a thick, heavy cloud descends to the earth, heavily charged with water. This commences a little after noon, and lasts until the following morning, durmg the months of January, February, and March. Ascending through the cold vapour bath, up moun- tain after mountain, with perpendicular precipices descending directly from the mule path, the bottoms of which were hidden by the mist, and rendered frightful by the roar of unseen torrents, we reached the little village of Ayavi, situated on the top of a hill covered with brilliant green herbage, after a ride of thirty-six miles from Huamani. Early the following morning, we started for the summit of the pass over the cordiUera, where there was said to be a small natural cave, in which travellers could pass the night. • The road passes over broad plains, or -pam-pas, covered with grass, and gradually rising one above the other ; intersected by deep ravines, with torrents dashmg down them in every direction. These pampas were covered with large flocks of 64 CUZCO AND LULA.. graceful vicunas, roaming about on the elevated va\- dernesses in unrestrained and joyous liberty, looking, at a distance, like deer in an English park. They are beautiful animals, of a light fawn colour, •with long slender necks, and small camel-shaped heads. Their wool is fine and silky ; and, in place of hoofs, they are provided with two strong hooks or talons, by which they climb the most inaccessible precipices with wonderful agility. A large kind of rabbit, with short fore legs, and bushy tail, called a biscache, a land of partridge called yuta, and a loudly screaming plover, are the other inhabitants of these lofty regions. A ride of eight leagues brought us to the frozen district, or Riti-suyu, where the snow was falhng heavily. Here, on a broad stone pampa, the road divides into two, one leading to the city of Ayacucho, and the other to Huancavelica and Castro Vireyna. The former place is famous for an extensive quicksilver mine, discovered by a Portuguese named Henrique Garces, in 1567;* and from that time to the war of inde- pendence, it yielded 1,040,000 quintals. Latterly, however, it has fallen off, as quicksilver is imported at a cheaper rate from California, and carried past the mouth of the mine at Huancavehca, for tlie use of the silver mines of Cerro Pasco. In Castro Vireyna, some very rich silver mines were opened shortly after the conquest. The fame of them spread far and wide, and Don Lope Garcia de Castro, * The Incas were acquainted ■with the existence of mercury here, and used the vermillion found in the mine, which they called ychma. JOURNEY TO CUZCO. 55 who was viceroy of Peru from 1564 to 1569, made a journey to visit tliem, with his lady. On tliis occasion, it is related, the path from the house where the vice -queen lodged, to the shaft of the principal mine, was paved with ingots of silver : and the province has ever since been called Castro Vireyna. The pampa, where the roads divide, was covered with snow, surrounded by lofty mountains, and inter- sected in every dii'ection, at this season, by huge rivers dashing along furiously, some to the Atlantic, and others to the Pacific, and swelled by thousands of smaller streams and waterfalls, that rushed noisily across the path at every yard. The sky was charged with thick mist, snow was falling heavily, and the roaring waters on every side made a deafening noise. Perched about, among little heaps of rock, were numbers of biscaches sittmg on their hind legs, while here and there was a group of vicunas quietly resting in the snow. It was a wild and dismal scene, and the rivers in their swollen state were very difiicult to cross, the foaming flood coming down with tremendous force, frequently reaching up to our saddles. As night approached we reached the cumhre, or highest part of the pass, in a narrow defile surrounded by frowning peaks of black rock, which contrasted strangely with the masses of snow that capped their summits. Here the cave was situated where the night should be passed. It consisted of an overhanging rock in the 56 CUZCO AND LIMA. face of a perpendicular cliff, but to our horror we found it full of water, with a stream di'ippmg from its roof The ground in the vicinity was covered ■^\-ith large tufts of a long kind of grass called ychii, heavily charged with snow, which rendered it impossible to lie down. The night was pitch dark, a heavy fall of snow was coming down, and owing to the great elevation the spirits would not ignite. Under these depressing circumstances, with Agustin Carpio ready to sink under the weight of our mis- fortunes, after a cold supper of almonds and raisins, &c., it was necessary to pass the night in a standing position ; so placing my head on the mule's back, I passed a tolerably comfortable night. From the uproar around us sleep was impossible. At about 10 p.m. the thunder began to roar loudly, above, around, and below us ; while flashes of forked lightning illumined the scene witli its dazzling light, exposing to view the craggy peaks of the cordillera, and then again leaving us in utter darkness. It was the most sublime sight I ever beheld; perched thus, in the very midst of Heaven's artillery, with the thunder crashing far beneath our feet, and the black peaks appearing and disappearing in the intervals of the flashes. As morning dawned, nature assumed a more cheerful appearance ; it ceased to snow, the heavy mists gathered themselves together, and rolled slowly down the ravines, and at 5 a.m. we recommenced the journey. JOURNEY TO CUZCO. 57 After the summit of the pass has been crossed, the road passes for two leagues down a very steep declivity composed of large slippery rocks, with waterfalls tumbling over them. In some places the mules had to jump down four feet, at others the path was entirely gone, and the beasts had to spring from one ledge to another, where a false step would have plunged us to the bottom of a yawning precipice. At length we completed the descent, and entered the broad valley of Palmito Chico, with the river of the same name flowing through its centre. It was covered with excellent pasture, where herds of cattle were grazing, and bounded on one side by the snow-capped cordillera we had lately passed, and on the other by a less elevated range of mountains, whose summits were also covered with snow. At tliis period of the year the river was impassable, but by making a round of two leagues, we crossed it by a natural granite bridge called Eumi-chaca, and after another league of precipitous road, reached a shepherd's hut, the first habitation on the interior side of the cordillera. Surrounded by wide grassy slopes, where sheep and llamas were grazing, the httle hut was built in a circular form, of round stones, with a conical roof of ychu- grass. The large family of children and dogs, in this far distant abode, appeared in comfortable and happy contrast with the scene of the preceding night ; and as the usual place for crossing the river of Palmito Grande was now impassable, a pretty little barefooted Indian girl undertook to guide us to a temporary 58 CUZCO AND LIMA. bridge which the shepherds had thrown across the river* Having passed over a range of mountains covered with long grass, we commenced a most perilous descent, until the precipice became at last perfectly pei-pen- dicular, and our footing as slippery as glass from numberless little streams trickling over its sides, and, after a descent of five hundred feet, uniting with the impetuous torrent. We then had to skirt along the edge of a precipice, on a path so narrow, that while one leg grated uncom- fortably agamst the rocks, the other hung sheer over the abyss. Nor was this the only peril, for these numerous streams had, in their com'se over the path, worn it away in many parts. In one place, the only track ascended a nearly perpendicular rock for eight feet, with nothing but little ledges, in wliich the sagacious mule stuck the points of her hoofs. At last the mass of projecting rock approached the other side of the abyss, and here a few poles had been thrown across to serve as a bridge. Five hundred feet below, the torrent dashed over huge masses of rock in its wild career, hedged in by hardy little thorn-trees of a deej) mournful green, which managed to take root in the clefts and di'oop over the seething foam. • Some of these shepherds, on the distant heights of the Andes, are said to amass considerable wealth. In 1800, on the pampa of Quilcata, in the province of Parinacochas, UUoa relates that there was an old woman, named Ines Capcha Guamani, who possessed 20,000 head of sheep, and innumerable llamas. She lived with some shepherd-boys in a little hut, badly clothed ; and her only aliment was potatoes and cocoa. — Not. Sec, (App.) p. 616. JOUENEY TO CUZCO. 59 Above us, on one side rose the mountains, straight up for at least 2000 feet, with beautiful cascades descending in every direction, — some of them with a fall of full 800 feet — while on the other side was a lower and less abrupt range. The scenery at this point was magnificent beyond description. It was a momentous second or two that passed, as we ran over the slender poles, which rolled about at every step, and rendered a footing very unsafe. A league more of mountain road brought us to a narrow swampy plain, surrounded by hills, and in the face of a cliff in one of these was the cave of San Luis, where we passed the night. The cave, the lower part of which is of red sand- stone, supporting a mass of conglomerate rock, is twelve feet deep, six high, and perfectly dry and inhabitable. Next morning, leaving the plain of San Luis, we descended a cuesta, and entered a ravine, through which flows the river Hatun-pampa. The road passes close to the edge of its right bank, which is perpendicular, and about thirty feet high. The scenery was quite enchanting. Lofty mountains rise up on either side of the ra'S'ine, the upper halves perpendicular and pillared by the action of many water- falls, that course down in every direction ; and the steep lower slopes were clothed with rich pasturage, on which large flocks and herds were grazing, with here and there a shepherd's hut. At noon we reached the little village of Hatun- 60 CUZCO AND LENIA. sallu (Great Waterfall), so called from a cataract wliicli here thunders down into the river. From this spot, as we descended the ravine, the vegetation gradually began to increase ; beautiful wild flowers lined the sides of the path, and here and there a deep green potato patch on the side of the mountain, denoted the increase of inhabited spots. In the evening, we emerged from the ravine, and entered the broad plain of Hatun-pampa, where we passed the night in the hospitable farm of La Florida. The early morning in this comparatively temperate part of the sierra is enchanting. On every side was the busy move of rural life ; the pretty Indian giils with their arms round each other's waists, leading the flocks to pasture ; the cows being driven into the farms, the rapid river flowing through the centre of the busy scene, and the magnificent uplands rising on all sides, produced an effect of great beauty and enjoyment. On the plain there Avere large flocks of llamas and alpacas ; the latter being a smaller species of llama, already famous in Europe for the silky texture of its wool. In ancient times, the Incas wove beautiful fabrics from the alpaca wool, and it is now very largely imported into England. The first Englishman who ever manufactured it was a hatte/, who, in 1737, made hats in Lima of alpaca wool at a cost of $4 to $5, at a time when Parisian hats cost $12 to $16. Having made his fortune, he returned to England, leaving the trade in the hands of a Mestizo* named Felipe de Vera. * Mestizo, a caste between an Indian and a wliite. JOURNEY TO CUZCO. 61 From Hatun Pampa, a road of thirty miles, over a lofty range of mountainous puna or table-land, leads to the edge of the cuesta, at the foot of which is situated the city of Ayacucho. It appeared from this height a mass of red tiles nestling in a forest of fruit-trees, which extended up the sides of the mountains, while the view is bounded by the heights of Condorkunka, at the feet of which was fought the famous battle of Ayacucho. To the left were the ynde pampas of Cangallo, and lower down, but still at a considerable elevation above the city of Ayacucho, is the battle-field of Chupas. It is bounded on one side by the Lambras-huaycu, or ravine of alders, and on the other by a small stream which waters the wheat farm of Cochabamba. On this spot a famous battle was fought between young Almagro and his adherents, who had assas- sinated Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru, and Vaca de Castro, the representative of the King of Spain. Almagro, a hot-headed youth, the avenger of his father's death, had marched from Cuzco ; and Yaca de Castro came forth from Guamanga,* accompanied by the corregidor, Don Pedro Alvarez Holguin, the same cavalier who had taken Guatimozin prisoner in the lakes of Mexico. The two armies met on the 16th of September, 1542, and a furious and bloody encounter followed. The battle was long doubtful ; but at length Castro was victorious, and out of 850 Spaniards that Almagro brought into the field, 700 were killed. The victors * Guamanga, the old name for Ayacucho. 02 CUZCO AND LIJIA. lost about 850 men; and among them was the Corre- gidor Holgum, who was buried in the little church of San Cristoval, at Guamanga, which was built by Pizarro, and still exists. On the defeated side, the famous Greek gunner, Pedro de Candia, one of the fourteen who crossed the line with Pizarro, on the Isle of Gorgona, was among the slain. From the plain of Chupas, a long and weary cuesta leads down towards the cit}'-, and passing down a steep street, surrounded by thickets of prickly pears, we entered Ayacucho, where I was received with the greatest kindness by the prefect, Don Manuel Tello, and his sisters. The most ancient mhabitants of this part of Peru were the warlike tribe of Pocras who, imder their chief Anco-hulluc, made a desperate resistance against the invasion of the Incas. Defeated in the fierce battle of Yahuar-pampa, the Pocras were again ahnost anni- hilated by the armies of the Inca Viracocha, at Aya- cucho ; and subsequently, when serv^mg out rations of llama's flesh to his troops, the Inca gave a share to a falcon that was soaring over his head ; exclaiming, " Huaman-ca," (take it. Falcon !) a name that has ever since been given to the district. When the Spaniards conquered the country, Pizarro founded the city of Guamanga on the 24th of June, 1539, and it became the capital of a province, and the seat of a corregidor, under the viceroys. The towji is hemmed in on thi*ee sides by steep mountains descending from the pampa of Cangallo, ^Jaich, wherever it is possible, -aa?e covered with fields JOURNEY TO CUZCO. 63 of maize, and nearer the town are large fruit-gardens, and thickets of prickly pears. The streets of Ayacucho are built at right angles, sloping gradually from north to south. In the centre is the great square, or plaza mayor, and on its south side are the handsome cathedral, built of limestone with two towers, and a broad front, the cabildo or court- house, and the university. The three other sides consist of private houses, with handsome arcades, and stone pillars supporting circular arches, the ground- floors being let out as shops. Above the arcades are broad covered balconies, leading into the rooms occupied by the families of the principal j)eople of the town, and in the rear there is always a large court- yard. In the early morning the plaza presents a most animated and picturesque appearance. It is covered with huge parasols, consisting of a pole stuck in the ground, and supporting a frame-work roof, thatched with matting. Under these, the Indian girls sit with their fruits, vegetables, cloth, shoes, and other mer- chandize, spread out for sale, while numbers of persons of both sexes pass to and fro, amidst the labyrinth of gigantic umbrellas. The dress of the women is graceful, and of the most brilhant colours. Next the skin they wear a cotton petticoat, over which is a shirt of crimson, sky- blue, or purple, made of wooUen stuff. Round the shoulders a mantle is worn, trimmed with gay ribbons, and secured across the chest by a large silver pin. The hair is dressed in two long .tail plaits, and on the head I 64 CUZCO AND LmA. is a piece of cloth called chuciipa, folded square, like the head-di'esses of the Roman peasantry. The men usually dress in a coarse blue jacket and a pair of black woollen breeches, with sandals of un- tanned llama's hide, turned up round the sides, and secured with strips of leather. Many of the market people come on foot from con- siderable distances, the women carrjdng their babies on their backs in bundles called ccepi and the young men using a walking-stick for support in passing up and down the wearisome ravines. The south part of Ayacucho was formerly broken in two by a deep ravine ; but, in the first year of this century, the Spanish intendente, Don Demetrio O'Higgins, spanned it with a number of well-built stone arches. On the west side of the town, at the foot of the mountains, is an avenue of double rows of willow trees, bordered on one side by the rapid torrent of Lambras-huaycu, and on the other by fruit- gardens. It is the fashionable promenade in the cool of the evening. There are more than twenty churches in Ayacucho, '^11 built of stone, and generally with handsome towers. A bishopric was estabUshed here by a bull of Pope Paul v., on the 20th of July, 1609, and Fray Agustin de Caroajal was installed first bishop in 1615. Since his time there have been twenty-five bishops, of whom only twelve have been natives of Spain. There have been several bishops of some celebrity in Guamanga. Don Cristobal de Castilla y Zamora, a natural son of King Charles II. of Spain, was installed \ JOUKNEY TO CUZCO. 65 in 1679, and became famous for his zeal in converting the wild Indians of the primaeval forests. He also founded the university of San Cristobal, and expended $70,000 of his private fortune upon its endowment. Another remarkable bishop was Don Diego Ladron de Guevara, who completed the cathedral, and was afterwards, 1713-16, bishop of Quito, and viceroy of Peru. The Jesuits had a handsome church and cloister in Guamanga, now used as a college for yomig priests, and another seminary for boys has lately been esta- blished by government. The monasteries, seven in number, were all suppressed at the time of the inde- pendence, and now a wretched pittance is allotted for one chaplain to officiate in their respective churches, some of which are very handsome, that of San Domingo especially so. In those of Santa Clara and San Fran- cisco de Assisi a sermon is preached twice a week in^ Quichua, the language of the Indians. There are two nunneries, Santa Clara and Santa Teresa, the former of which was the scene of a strange romance. In 1617, a young ensign in the Spanish army having slain his adversary in a duel, fled to the bishop's palace for sanctuary. His name was Don Alonso Diaz Ramirez de Guzman, and he confessed to several other murders of the same fashionable kind. From various circumstances, however, the suspicion of the bishop was aroused ; and, after undergoing an examina- tion, the youthful dueUist proved to be a woman. A fuU confession then followed : her name was Dona Catahna 66 CUZCO AND LIMA. • de Erauso, a nun of the convent of San Sebastian, in Guipuzcoa, whence she had escaped, and, di*essed in man's clothes, embarked for the New Workl. Landing at Payta, she eventually attained the rank of ensign, and became famous as the greatest duellist in Peru. The bishop placed her in the convent of Santa Clara, whence she was subsequently sent to Lima with a guard of six priests, and placed in another convent, where she remained for two years, and was finally transmitted to Spain. It is added, that the pope even- tually granted her permission to wear man's clothes, and she went out to Mexico as an officer in the viceroy's guard. The name of Guamanga was changed to Ayacucho by the republican government after the decisive victory in 1824. Here is the prefecture of the department, and the superior court of justice, consisting of four vocales, and a fiscal, whose judgments are enforced by a police force of about forty soldiers. The prefect in 1853 was, as has been before stated, Don Manuel Tello, a gentleman possessed of extensive estates in the vicinity, principally producing wheat and. vegetables. His house in the plaza belonged, in the last centmy, to Don Cypriano Santa Cruz, whose brother, the dean of Guamanga, founded the convent of Buena Muerte and the church of Santa Anna. On a dark stormy night in 1760, a baby was found at the door of Don Cypriano's house, and was taken in and adopted by the benevolent dean. The child received the name of Jose Santa Cruz, and became a colonel of militia at JOURNEY TO CUZCO. 07 Cuzco. Subsequently he removed to La Paz ; and, marrying the daughter of the Indian chief Calomana, became the father of Don Andres Santa Cruz, who was many years President of Bolivia, and, from 1836 to 1839, Protector of the Peru-Bolivian confederation. Three widowed and one married sister reside with Don Manuel Tello. The eldest, Dona Josefa,* refused the hand of General Narvaez, the famous Spanish mmister, when serving as a subaltern in Peru under the Vicero}'^ Laserna. The third sister, Dona Manuela, is married to Colonel Ormasa, and suffers the deepest grief during the unavoidable absence of her husband at Lima. The evening assemblies of the wit and beaut}'- of Ayacucho, at the house of the prefect, are most agree- able. The young ladies of this sierra town are re- markable for their beauty, intelligence, and kindness of disposition ; and their names will ever find a place in the memory of the traveller who has enjoyed the privilege of their society. Dona Micaela, the youngest sister of the prefect, is "the widow of the gallant General Zubiaga, to whom she was married when only thirteen. In 1842, he wa,s sent with a detachment to the valley of Xauxa, where he encountered the troops of the usurper, Torico, under Colonel Lopera, at a place called Inca-huasi, and was mortally wounded. On receiving the sad intelligence, his devoted young wife mounted a mule, and, heedless of the perils and dangers of the road, arrived in time * The lamented death of this excellent lady took place in the end of the year 1853. r 2 68 CUZCO AND LIMA. to receive his last words, and lie expii-ed in her arms. Dona Micaela is very religious, and devoted to the instruction of the Indian servants, and to strict and frequent attendance at sermons and confession. The former, indeed, were sufficiently attractive, owing to the eloquence of Dr. Taforo, a learned Chilian mis- sionary, who preached in the cathedral nearly every evening, and roused the good people of Ayacucho to a feeling of admiration for the beauty of his language, and a deep sense of the error of their ways. Twenty miles to the north of Ayacucho is the pretty little town of Quanta. The intervening country, though broken up by deep ravines, is, for the most part, well cultivated and populous. About half-way is the village of Paceay-casa, surrounded by thickets of prickly pears, fig-trees, the lucumo, an agi-eeable fruit on a large tree, paltas or alligator pears, and the paccay, whence the village derives its name. This fruit grows in great abundance on a very tall tree, and consists of a long pod containing large black seeds, embedded in a sweet, juicy sort of cotton, which is very delicious. The houses of the Indians, in the vicinity of Aya- cuchoi are built of unhewn stones, with damp earth in the interstices, and roofed with red tiles on a frame- work of maguey poles. This graceful plant grows in great abundance. Rising up to a height of fifteen feet, the pole forms a useful timber for many purposes, and the sharp -pointed leaves are very strong, yielding a fibre which is twisted into ropes of various sizes. JOURNEY TO GUZCO. 69 The food of the Indians consists of eggs, potatoes, and yuca (jatophra manihot), a long root in shape like a i^arsnip, boiled together in a pot. The country also yields abundance of wheat, and the flour is sold at %l the fanega. Maize, too, is much cultivated, and made into many kinds of cakes, a sweetmeat called huminta, and a kind of hasty -pudding called masamora, a very favom'ite dish. The leaf of the coca-plant, and chicha (a fermented liquor from maize), flavoured sometimes with various fruits, may be numbered among the luxuries of the Indians. They have knowledge also of the medicinal qualities of certain plants; making use, among others, of a warm beverage from the flowers of the scarlet salvia for curing coughs. The roads in the sierra are very picturesque, inde- pendent of the magnificence of the surrounding scenery. The llamas, met at every turn, with their long, graceful necks and expressive faces, journeying leisurely along before their Indian masters, form a remarkable feature. They come into A3'acucho in droves, and are capable of bearing great fatigue, and going a long time without food; but their average day's journey is onlj^ fifteen miles, and they carry about fifty pounds as a load. The graceful Indian women, too, trudging along the road, with theii' babies slung on their backs, and their taper fingers busy spiunmg cotton, form a charming foreground to the view. The Indians of the neighbourhood of Ayacucho are very clever and expert in carving figures out of a \; 70 CUZCO AND LIjMA. beautiful white alabaster, and are also famous for their skill in working silver filagree ornaments. The pay of the day-labourer averages about nine shillings a week ; but out of this nearly four per cent, has to be paid in the shape of an infamous and tyrannical capi- tation-tax.* Quanta is a pleasant little town, consisting of a plaza, with a few streets leading from it, and sur- rounded by fruit-gardens. To the eastward, the lofty mountain range of Yqui- cha rises up behind the town in cultivated slopes, and terminating in snowy peaks. Behind them is the wild country of the Yquichanos, consisting of snow-clad mountains, intersected by ravines and inaccessible fortresses, admirably adapted for defensive warfare. This Indian tribe of Yquichanos fought fmiously in defence of the royalist cause, and at the time of the battle of Ayacucho, garrisoned the town of Guanta. Firm in their loyalty, and scorning to jdeld to the republic, they retreated to their mountains ; but, in 1828, they again issued forth, defeated a republican regiment of infantry, and once more occupied Guanta. They then advanced upon Ayacucho, proclaiming Ferdinand VII. ; but, on the 18th of November, were defeated by the citizens on the Pampa del Ai'co, aided by the republican Morochucos, or Indians of Cangallo. The president, Gamarra, in 1833, made an attempt to subdue them, but his troops were unable to penetrate into their country. Retreating from ravine to ravine, * The Government of General Castilla has this year, 1S55, abolished this capitation-tax. JOURNEY TO CUZCO. 71 they hurled down huge stones upon the enemy, and at length succeeded in driving the republican soldiers from the territory of Yquicha. To this day they preserve entire independence of the authorities of the RepuhHc, proclaim their alle- giance to Ferdinand VII.,* are governed by alcaldes, or justices of the peace, elected by themselves, and no tax-gatherer dares to enter their country. At the same time, however, though refusing to sub- mit to the capitation or any other tax, they punctually pay their tithes to the priests who come amongst them, // and treat a single stranger with courteous hospitality. They now come into Guanta to procure cotton and other commodities, in exchange for their wool and vegetables. I saw several of them in the plaza, who were distinguished by an upright gait, independent air, and handsome features. It is thus that the true lovers of liberty have ever fought on the side of loyalty and honour, while repub- licans and self-styled liberals have proved the greatest enemies of real freedom. France, under the influence of its democratic liberality, crushed, after a glorious resistance, the peasantry of La Vendee. Spain, ruled by a gang of democrats, and supported with men and money by the liberal government of England, succeeded in over- whelming the gallant defenders of the liberties of the Basque Provmces. But the Yquichanos in Peru have been more fortunate in their resistance to democi:atic * They had not in 1853 heard of his death, and of the accession of Isabella H. 72 CUZCO AND LIMA. tyranny, and have succeeded in permanently resisting the oppression of the republican government. They are, in all respects, a most interesting people, and an honour to the Indian races of South America ; disproving, to some extent, the heartless opmion of many Europeans, that it is decreed by Providence that the aboriginal tribes of the New World must shortly be entirely extermmated. At the foot of the mountains which bound their territory, to the westward, the independence of Peru was decided ; and I started with Colonel Mosol, who had been in the battle, to examine the field, on the 18th of February. Having traversed the Pampa del Arco, an extensive plain on the east side of the city of Ayacucho, we descended into the deep valley of the Pongora, and passed several thriving farms. That belonging to Don Manuel Tello, called La Tortura, is surromided by fig-trees, vines, and fields of alfalfa. Further on are the estates of Glorietta and Santo Domingo, Avith corn- mills over the river ; and on the surrounding hills wheat is extensively cultivated. Crossing the river Pongora, the path winds up a long and lofty cuesta, leading to an elevated plain covered in many places with laurel-bushes, bearing a yellow flower called cliilca. A five miles' ride brought us to the little village of Quinoa, inhabited by Indians, and ornamented with rows of alder-trees, tall bushes of fuchsias, and fields of potatoes. The Indian alcaldes or authorities of the village/ distinguished from their brethren by staves of office ! JOURNEY TO CUZCO. 73 encircled by small copper bands, the number of which denotes the period the bearer has occupied his post, came out to receive us ; and the hospitality of the kind and simple inhabitants was profuse and un- affected. Ayacucho is 10,240 feet above the level of the sea, and Quinoa is about 800 feet higher, or 1626 feet above the great St. Bernard. The famous battle-field is within a quarter of a mile of the village, and on rather higher ground. At the time of the battle, the sea was commanded by an insurgent squadron under Lord Cochrane, and Lima was occupied by the Columbian general, Bolivar; so that the Sj)anish army had been for some months confined to the interior, comj)letely cut off from com- munication with the mother country. The rebel, or, as it is now called, the patriot army, consisting of about 7000 men, had retreated before the royalists under the Viceroy Laserna, who advanced from Cuzco ; several skirmishes had taken place, and eventually the rebels occupied the village of Quinoa on December 6, 1824. Guamanga and Quanta were in the hands of the Spaniards, and the insurgent forces possessed not a foot of ground, except that on which they actually stood. The range of heights called Condor-kunka (the condor's neck), are very preciijitous, and rise abruptly from the little plain which slojjes down towards Quinoa. The plain is of small extent, about a mile broad, bounded on the south by the profound and almost perpendicular ravine of Hatun-huayccu, and on the 74 CUZCO AND LEVIA. north, by the smaller and gently sloping valley of Veuda-mayu, through which runs a little stream bor- dered by alder and molle trees. This streamlet, after a course of about a mile, east and west, makes a sharp turn, and divides Quinoa from the field of battle. In a corner, where the valley of Vendamayu approaches the mountains of Condor-kunka, is the Ayacucho (or corner of dead men), where five hundred years before, the Inca Viracocha had routed the Pocras Indians. On the 7tli of December, the Columbian general, Sucre, commander-in-chief of the patriot army, esta- blished his head-quarters at the ruined chapel of San Cristoval, on the plain of Ayacucho ; with General Lara, and three Columbian battalions as his centre. The left wing, under General Lamar, was composed of five battalions of Peruvian infantry ; the cavalry con- sisting of two Columbian, two Peruvian, and one Cliilian squadron under the English general Miller, and one small piece of artillery. The riglit, imder the gallant j'oung General Cordova, who only counted twenty-six years, composed of four Columbian battalions of infantry, was posted with its right flank resting on the verge of the ravine of Hatun- huayccu. Meanwhile, the royalist army had made a long circuit by the callages of Paccay-casa and Guamangilla, and at last, on the 8tli of December, had occupied a position on the steep heights of Condor-kunka, in front of the patriot forces. The SjDaniards were about 11,000 strong under the Viceroy Laserna, who, with General Yillalobos, occupied a position on the left. JOURKEY TO CUZCO. 75 opposite Cordova's division, with eleven pieces of artil- lery that had been dragged over the mountainous road at an immense sacrifice of mules' lives. These guns were planted above the plain, in a place called Chicchi-cancha, on the edge of the ravine of Hatun- huayccu. General Canterac, a Frenchman in the Spanish service, was in the centre with two divisions, and on the right wing, at the head of the valley of Vendamayu, was the indefatigable and gallant General Valdez, whose fame was, alas, subsequently tarnished by his cruelties in the Carlist war. During the night, Sucre held a council of war, in which it was unanimously resolved to fight on the morrow, as their provisions were failmg, and their ammunition nearly expended. So hungry, indeed, was the army, that the sign and countersign of the night was, " Pan y queso " (bread and cheese). At about midnight, young Cordova marched silently across the plain, scrambled up the heights with about a hundred men, and poured a volley into the royalist watch-fires, which caused the death of Brigadier Palomares, who was sleeping, and several others. A wooden cross now marks the spot where he died. Early in the morning, the two armies beat to arms ; the Viceroy descended from the heights and took up a position on the plain, while Valdez, with the object of taking the rebels in the rear, while Laserna and Canterac attacked them in front, advanced do^vn the valley of Vendamayu. He had forced his way almost to the rear of the ruined chapel of San Cristoval, with a division of infantry, and the cavalry regiment of 76 CUZCO AND LIMA. San Carlos, when he was met by the Peruvian division under Lamar, and a desperate struggle ensued; but Lamar was reinforced by one of Lara's regiments, while Miller, with the whole patriot cavalry, charged Valdez in the rear, who was soon overpowered, and surren- dered with all his forces. La the meantime, Cordova had advanced across the plain with his four battalions, reserving their fire to the last moment. The artillery discharged a few volleys on them, but with too much elevation, and the i:»atriots dashing forward, took the guns, and after a short but deadly struggle, routed the division of Villalobos. Cordova then attacked the Viceroy, who was making an attempt to reinforce Valdez with his cavahy. Not having room to charge, they were assailed by Cordova's infantry and thrown into confusion. The Viceroy fired at a rebel sergeant, who returned the compliment, wounding Laserna in the nose, and was about to run him through, when lie cried out " Hold ! I am the Viceroy," and was taken prisoner. He afterwards gave the sergeant a hundred dollars for sparing liis Kfe. During tlie battle, Canterac, with the royalist centre, had never attempted to descend from the heights, or engage in the action, and when he saw the Viceroy taken prisoner, he hoisted the white flag, and came down to capitulate. This treachery or want of courage, decided the fate of the battle ; for if, at any time, during the day, Canterac had reinforced Laserna, Cordova must have been overpowered ; and the united forces of Canterac, JOURNEY TO CUZCO. 77 Laserna, and Villalobos would have fallen on the main body of the rebels while yet engaged in a doubt- ful struggle with Valdez. Besides the Viceroy, Canterac, and Valdez, the rebels captured eleven Spanish generals with a pro- portional number of other officers, among whom were Espartero and Narvaez, then serving as subalterns, but who have since become so conspicuous in the modern history of Spain. A capitulation was signed on the field of battle, by which the Spanish officers, and all the men who desired to do so, were to be embarked and sent to Spain at the expense of the Peruvian government. During the night af^er the battle, a fearful storm of rain, with thunder and lightning, ushered in the first dawn of the republic of Peru. By a cm-ious coinci- dence the Viceroy Laserna was created by Ferdinand VII., Conde de los Andes, on December the 9th, 1824, the very day of the battle of Ayacucho. Thus terminated the Spanish power in South America, which, however, can hardly be said to have been destroyed, but only concluded at Ayacucho. Columbia, Buenos Ayres, and Chile were already inde- pendent ; and in 1820, the treason of the Spanish army, 20,000 strong, when ordered to embark at Cadiz, had almost in itself caused the destruction of the great colonial empire of Spain. It is worthy of remark, that not (^nly did England send out ample supplies of money and arms to South America, but that also the valour of her sons was mainly instrumental in securing the independence of 78 CUZCO AXD LIMA. the South American republics. It was the steadiness of the British legion that gained the battle of Cara- bobo,* and decided the independence of Columbia ; and the cavalry charge of the Englishman Miller at Aj'acucho, procured the great victory which destroyed the remnant of Spanish dominion in Peru. Returning from the field of battle to the city of Aj^acucho, I prepared to continue my journey towards Cuzco : and took leave of the prefect, Don Manuel Tello, and his excellent family, whose warm-hearted hospitality and kindness had far exceeded anythmg that an unknown stranger could have expected to receive. From Ayacucho, the road leads to the south-east, down deep quehradas, or ravines, full of the most beautiful wild flowers, such as lupins, fuchsias, calceo- larias, salvias, and heliotropes, with water-mills for corn, and farms surrounded by patches of wheat and barley in their depths. The whole extent of this comitry is capable of cul- tivation, and might sustain more than ten times the present population. It is now only occupied here and there by small wheat estates and villages, while the two post houses of Pucavilca and Matara aiford shelter to travellers on the road from Ayacucho to Cuzco. Leaving Matara, and passing through a little copse of acacias, we commenced the ascent of the Condor- kunka range by a most dangerous path, which, travers- ing the rocky and snow-covered summit, led down to * June 1821. JOURNEY TO CUZCO. 79 the little village of Ocros, which is shut in by perpen- dicular mountains. The following morning we continued the descent into the deep valley of Puma-cancha, through which flows the great river of Pampas, a tributary of the Yucayali. Gradually leaving the temperate regions of the sierra, in two hours we entered a hot and tropical valley covered with close underwood, and tall stately aloes, with huge forest trees rising up here and there. Flocks of green parrots were screaming shrilly over our heads, and brilliant little humming birds were sucking the honey from the scarlet salvia, and other beautiful flowers. In a narrow place, about twenty yards broad, a bridge of sogas, or ropes made of the twisted fibres of the maguey, had been thrown across the river Pampas. Six sogas, each about a foot in diameter, stretched across the river, and were set up on the other side by a windlass : across these were secured other smaller ropes covered with matting, and forming a light bridge, which was considerably lower in its centre than at the extremities ; and, as we passed over it, the sogas vibrated to and fro in a particularly disagreeable manner. This bridge has to be renewed several times a year ; and vast numbers of labourers die annually of the fevers that prevail in this moist and tropical vale. In the 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 that Peru has lately 80 CUZCO AND LIMA. suffered from, as commanding the main road to Cuzco. After riding down the valley of Pama-cancha for three leagues, we began the ascent of the lofty cuesta of Bombon, which is more than two leagues long, and covered with alder, molle trees, and sweet flowering shrubs, while the rugged peaks of the ridge rose up in rocky pinnacles on either side of the road. Beyond these mountains is a fertile valley, in which is situated the pretty village of Chincheros : and another range separates this valley from the equally productive one of Uripa. Nature lavishes all her beauties on these delightful valleys of the Andes ; lovely flowers clothe the pasture lands, groves of shady trees overshadow the huts of the Indians, clear rippling brooks flow through the verdant fields, and the sur- rounding mountains are covered with vegetation. Leaving the lovely and peaceful vale of Uripa on the left, we entered a narrow gorge between steep and grassy heights ending m irregular peaks, through which a noisy torrent was murmuring over the huge masses of rock that formed its bed. The sides of the road were lined with little thickets of molle trees and ornamental shrubs ; tall fuchsia-trees covered with graceful crimson flowqiL's overtopped the surrounding bushes, while the ground was carpeted by heliotropes, blue and scarlet salvias, calceolarias, and other flowers. After ascending a long cuesta from this gorge, the road enters upon a wide elevated puna covered with ychu, or long grass, where flocks of vicmlas were feeding in the distance. JOUENEY TO CUZCO. 81 As we came to tke end of this vast pampa, which is more than four leagues in breadth, a tremendous thunder-storm burst over the opposite range of moun- tains, between which and that we were now descending was the narrow and fertile vaUey of Moyobamba, The storm, which pealed forth in loud and threatening tones, and sent out brilliant forked lightnmg from its black recesses, passed rapidly away to the north-west without touching us, and in the evening we reached the little post-house of Moyobamba. This was a little hut with no furniture, but with a fire burning in the centre ; and a delicious supper of milk, potatoes, eggs, and chocolate, added to the fatigue of a long journey, enabled me to sleep soundly on my mule's clothes amidst a promiscuous pile of men, women, and children. Next morning, after for three leagues descending a narrow ravine, with a torrent dashing over an uneven bed many feet below us, we turned the point of a steep cliff, and came in sight of the broad and lovely valley of Andahuaylas. This is one of the most beautiful vales in the sierra. Rmniing nearly due east and west, it contains three small towns about a league distant from each other, — Talavera, Andahuaylas, and San Geronimo. Through its centre runs a little river lined on each side by lofty poplars and 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. 82 CUZCO AND LIMA. The town of Andaliuaylas, which, hy the road, is 102 miles from Ayacucho, consists of a plaza with a handsome stone church, and a fountain in the centre ; and a few streets leading from it. On the mountains that rise up on the north side, is the house of the hos- pitable sub-prefect, Don Jose Maria Hermosa, sur- rounded by poplar trees. Soon after my arrival at Andahuaylas, I was joined by Dr. Don Francisco de Paula Taforo, the famous Chilian preacher, who had lately been exercising his function at Ayacucho, and was now on his road to Cuzco. In the evening of March 12th, he preached an eloquent sermon on the seven petitions of the Lord's Prayer. At its conclusion the Indian population of Andahuaylas crowded to kiss his hand ; though, knowing only their native Quichua language, they had not understood a word of the discourse, which was delivered in Spanish. The Indians of Andahuaylas are a tall and generally handsome race, and many of the women are beautiful. The population of the valley is about 6000. Owing to the presence of the famous preacher, the remainder of the journey to Cuzco was one continued triumphal procession; messengers were sent forward to *,nnounce our approach, and the peoj)le of the villages came out on the road to meet us. Leaving San Geronimo, we passed over an elevated plain, and entering the rich vale of Argama, had breakfast at the post-house. The road then hes over a range of mountains carpeted with sweet flowers and shrubs, that separates the vales of Argama and Pincos, JOURNEY TO CUZCO. 83 tlie latter being much deeper, and containing several sugar estates. Tlie mountain scenery of this road is so grand and magnificent, that it would requii'e a perfect master of the art of description to pourtray its excessive beauty. At the summit of the range, be3^ond Pincos, there is a small table-land on which is situated the ancient fortress of Curamba. It is a small square fort of solid masonry in three terraces, the outer wall being twelve paces on eacli side. The upper terrace on one side is approached from the plain by an inclined plane ; and a short distance to the south-west are the extensive ruins of a considerable town, the whole overgrown with grass and small shrubs. It was probably erected by an inde- pendent tribe of Indians, previous to the conquest of this part of the country by the Incas. Descending a long cuesta, we entered the village of Huancarama,* which is situated in a fertile and populous valley, inclosed on all sides by spurs of the Andes. The church, which is half unroofed, and without pave- ment, still possesses a high altar covered with plates of silver beautifully worked, though otherwise in a very neglected state. As we left Huancarama, crowds of pretty young Indian girls lined the road, and covered us with roses and other • flowers. Having completed the ascent of a lofty range, we came in sight of the extensive valley of Abancay, covered in its whole length by fields of sugar-cane, and bounded on every side by ranges of * In tlie time of tlie Spaniards there was a mine of saltpetre at Huan- carama. (Not. Sec. App. p. 616.) a 2 84 CUZCO AND LIMA. steep mountains : while far in the distance, deeply imbedded in foliage, was the town of Abaneay. A steep and stony road conducted us from a tem- perate to a tropical climate ; and stopping at the sugar estate of Carhua-cahua, we were refreshed by some delicious lemonade. The cane here is smaller, and not so good as that on the coast ; and the mill, with very simple machinery, is worked by water. Such are the riches of the Sierra of Peru, that it is capable of supplying itself with the productions of every kind of climate : thus the valleys yield a sufficient quantity of sugar for the consumption of the inhabit- ants, and are capable also of producing abundance of grapes, coffee, chocolate, rice ; and cotton is grown in the deeper ravines of the montaiia; and extensive crops of wheat, barley, maize, and potatoes are raised on the sides of the Andes ; while the fleeces of the alpacas and vicunas would easily clothe the inhabitants with the finest cloth. Passing down the valley of Abaneay, by several rich sugar estates, each containing a large and productive fruit garden, we arrived at the place where the great f river of Pachachaca crosses the centre of the valley, and divides the department of Ayacucho from that of Cuzco. In the bottom of a deep ravine it flows rapidly but silently onwards to swell by its waters the mighty Amazon, and is , spanned by a handsome stone bridge of great age, at a considerable height above the stream. Sfi Crossing the Pachachaca, we reached the town of Abaneay, after dark, and were received into the house JOURNEY TO CUZCO. 85 of the hospitable sub -prefect, Don Paulino Mendoza, a nephew of the Bishop of Cuzco. Abancay is a pretty little town, with an agreeable society of beautiful young ladies, and is studded with large fruit gardens, and many venerable and stately' cedars. To the south-west, and close to the town, there is a deep ravine, with its sides covered with beautiful flowers, through the bottom of which runs the river Abancay, a tributary of the Pachachaca. On the oppo- site side, a range of mountains rise almost immediately from the river, td such a height, that their rocky sum- mits are covered with eternal snow ; while here the varied productions of a country doubly blessed by nature may be seen at one casual glance. Near the summits were large flocks of alpacas grazing on the long ychUii and directly beneath them were herds of cattle, and flocks of sheep. Lower down were ex- tensive patches of wheat, barley, and potatoes ; then followed broad fields of maize, apple and peach-trees, and pricldy pears ; and at the foot of the mountain were fields of sugar-cane, oranges, citrons, pine-apples, and all the rich fruits of the tropics ; and the whole prospect was enlivened by the picturesque and comfort- able huts of the Indians, scattered in every direction. On a hill to the north of Abancay is an ancient fort, now almost concealed by the numerous creepers and small shrubs that cover its mouldering walls. It is called Huaccac-pata, or the " hill of lamentation," the scene of some desperate strife in former ages, possibly the spot where Alvarado, the general of Pizarro's troops. 80 CUZCO AND LIMA. was defeated by the followers of Almagro, on the 12th of July, 1587. In the mornmg of the 17th of March we left Abancay, accompanied for more than a league by the sub -pre- fect, and about thirty other mounted cavalleros of the place, dressed in holiday attire, who bade us a warm farewell. Having crossed a range of mountains, on the summit of which there is a ^??o?a table -land more than two leagues in breadth, we passed down into the rich valley of Curahuasi, where there is a small Indian village surrounded by large sugar estates. In one of these we were hospitably received, and entertained at a dinner where the board gToaned under the weight of successive j^ucheros* and other dishes, followed b}' a profusion of exquisite fruits, and a liqueur flavoiu'ed with citron. After dinner we went forth to hear Dr. Taforo preach a sermon in the little village church. It was, though formerly possessed of some architectural pre- tensions, in a deplorable state of dilapidation, and entirely without a roof, except a sort of shed over the high altar. It was the feast of " Nuestra Senora de los Dolores," and ^he altar was lighted up with more than a hundred I tapers, while an ugly doll, with six tin swords stuck into a crimson heart outside her gown, represented the Virgin. * The puchero is one of the standard dishes of Pern, consisting of a giant I round of meat filled with every description of vegetaliles and stuffing. • The chiijje, a still more agreeable dish, is like an Irish stew, with eggs, and sometimes cheese. JOURNEY TO CUZCO. 87 Though the night was pitch dark, and a shower of ram was falling, the church was crowded with Indians of both sexes, and of every age, and presented a strange and interesting scene. The bright light, with clusters of attentive and admiring faces grouped round the altar, contrasted forcibly with the profound darkness of the body of the church : whilst, over head, the black clouds drifted heavily across a pale powerless moon, and the roofless gable of the western end stood out boldly against the threatening sky. By the altar stood the tall figure of the Chilian preacher, in a satin cassock, fitting close to the body ; exciting his audience by the earnest expression of his pale and handsome face, and his graceful theatrical declamation, rather than by his words ; for few of the Indians understood any language but their native Quichua. He descanted with great eloquence and command of language on the subHme perfections of our Lady of Grief, and pointed to her as the star of hope to which the storm-tossed mariner must look for protection and guidance, amidst the furious waves and lowering clouds of this nether world. When he concluded, the Indians rushed forward to kiss his hand, and it was a disjiuted point among the higher dignitaries of the village, whether they were visited by an avatar of St. Paul, or of St. Luis Gon- zaga. They are a simple and kind-hearted people, as indeed are all the Indians I have met with since leaving Yea ; and whether under the roof of the prefect, or educated landowner, or in the hut of the poorest 88 CUZCO AND LIMA. Indian in the wild ravines of the Andes, I invariably encountered, as a solitary and unknown traveUer, the same corcUal reception and profuse hospitaHty. Taking our departure from Curahuasi, we approached the banks of the gi^eat river Apurimac, and prepared to enter that charming land in the centre of whose moun- tain-girt plains is Cuzco, the city of the Incas. $' CHAPTER IV. CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INCAS. On ^e morning of March the 18th, 1853, I crossed the river Apurimac, and entered the -territory which once composed the empire of Manco Ccapac, the first Inca of Peru. In the end of the eleventh century, the great law- giver, with his august spouse, appeared on the banks of the lake Titicaca, and startled the untutored Indians of the Andes from their long sleep of barbarism and ignorance. Advancing with numerous followers to the north- ward, along the course of the Vilcamayu, he eventually established the centre of his dominion in the plain where now stands the city of Cuzco, forming a com- pact little kingdom around it, which was extended by his successors over a vast territory, six hundred miles in breadth, and two thousand five hundred in length. The empire, as it existed in the reign of Manco Ccapac, only extended from the Apurimac on the west to the Paucar-tambo on the east, a distance of about ninety miles, and measured eighty miles from north to 90 CUZCO AND LIMA. south. This tract of country, situated nearly three hundred miles from the sea, and intersected by lofty chains of mountains, enjoys every advantage that the prodigal hand of Nature can supply. Through its centre the river Vilcamayu winds amongst fertile vales, enjoying an Italian climate, and rich with the produce o| the regions of the sun. Its northern and eastern frontiers border on vast tropical forests, abounding in all the productions of the torrid zone ; Avhilst on the slopes of the Andes and its offshoots are vast plains covered with pasture, or waving with crops of cereals and potatoes ; and still higher uj), on the chilling peaks and gTassy table -lands, large flocks of vicunas and alpacas yield a wool which is woven into fabrics finer and softer than silk. In the centre of this favoured region Manco Ccapac founded the city of Cuzco, while on each frontier he erected a fortress and a palace : Ollantay-tambo on the north, Paccari-tambo on the south, Paucar-tambo on the east, and Lima-tambo on the west, near the river Apurimac ; and it was through tliis latter place that I approached the city of the Incas. On a beautiful morning we reached the verge of the precipice which forms the western bank of the Apu- rimac, and descends perpendicularly down for several hundred feet, to where the mighty stream rolls onward to the Amazon. The descent down a narrow and dangerous path to the rope bridge that spans the river, was a work of time and caution. SKppery, uneven, and so narrow, that in many places while one leg pressed against CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INCAS. 91 the rock, the other dangled over nothing; one false step would have hurled the mule and rider down the yawning ahyss. At last the precipice became so perfectly perpendicidar, that a sort of tunnel had been excavated in the solid rock about forty feet long, tlie end of which was the entrance to the bridge. In a place about thirty yards broad, the bridge of sogas, constructed in the same way, as that over the river Pampas, was thrown across the Apurimac. It spanned the chasm in a graceful curve, at a height of fuU three hundred feet above the river, which, though very deep, dashed and foamed noisily along between the might}' barriers that confined it on either side. Hence the name Apurimac, " the great speaker ; " for the Indians thought that in the roaring of the waters some oracle of deep and wondrous import was sent forth. The passage being accomplished, I descended to the banks of the river, at a point where a ravine conveyed a little brook to swell its waves, and here I gazed upon this mighty stream, one of the chief feeders of the Amazon. On either side of the river the mountains rise up quite perpendicularly, to a height of three thousand feet, with the eddying waves laving their bases, and their sides so smooth that a blade of grass could not find root on any part of them. Across the terrific abyss, three hundred feet above the stream, was thrown the frail bridge of sogas, which at this distance looked like a single thread, whose weakness formed a strilcing contrast to the mighty powers of Nature that surrounded it. ^:f 92 ■ CUZCO AND LIMA, The ascent of several leagues of a steep and winding road brought us to the village of INIollepata, and the following day we entered the town of Lima-tamho. The station which in former times guarded the western frontier of the dominions of the first Inca, is now a little town situated in a long and narrow valley, hounded on either side by lofty mountains. Fields of maize and fruit- gardens cover the plain, and andeneria, or terraces of the time of the Incas, faced with stone, and arranged one above the other, well stocked with potatoes and yucas, skirt the sides of the hills. The delightful town of Lima-tambo consists of a square with a large plane-tree in the centre, and a row of tall willows fronting the church, which forms its south side. A few streets leading from it terminate in gardens of well-laden fruit-trees. The houses are tenanted almost entirely by an Indian population, and ,look neat and comfortable. The excellent and kind-hearted old parish priest of Lima-tambo, a Franciscan friar named Esquibias, received us witli the warmest hospitality ; and a dinner was spread for us in the stone corridor pf his house, which looked out upon a garden stocked with fine flowei'S- and lusQJ^;^ fruit..-«f'^-- jjlt was refreshing to h^ar^ of the g^ood de,e(Ig>o.£ old Friar Esquibias, from his parishioners; of his having expended the whole of his little patrimony in restoring 'i the church, and performing deeds of charity to the poor; of his kindness to the sick and needy, and of his devotion to his duties. •i CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INCAS. 93 About two miles from Lima-tambo are the ruins of the ancient palace of the Incas. It was situated in a delightful spot commanding a fine view of the valley ; but only two walls, and the face of the stone terrace on which the palace was built, are nowremaining. The walls are respectively twenty and forty paces long, forming an angle, and fourteen feet high. They are built of limestone, with the stones, though of various shapes and sizes, beautifully fitted into each other, without cement of any kind, and lookmg to this day angular and fresh. At intervals there are recesses in the walls about a foot deep and eight feet high; and the interior of the palace is now an extensive fruit - garden. Leaving the valley of Lima-tambo, we commenced the ascent of a range of mountains covered with beau- tiful flowers, which brought us to a broad and elevated, but fertile plain, with large farms scattered over its surface. After riding two leagues over this well- cultivated tract of country, we turned round the end of a range of rocky hills, and came upon the vast plain of Surite, the scene of two memorable battles — one in the time of the Incas, and the other fought by the Spanish conquerors, each of which, for the time, decided the fate of Peru. The plain of Surite * is bounded by mountains, at whose feet are numerous towns and villages, as well as tiers of andeneria. The plain itself is a broad swampy * Called also the plain of Tatuar-pampa, of Xaquixaguana, andof Anta. The latter is a small town, capital of the province of the same name, situated near it. 94 CUZCO AND LliVIA. pasture, traversed by a stone causeway, raised about five feet above the level, perfectly straight, and two leagues in length. We had hardly reached half-way across it, when a dark mass of clouds, heavily charged with rain, came rolling over the hills from the south-east. The graceful white egrets, which abounded in the swamp, left off their search for worms, and screaming shrilly, whirled in wayward circles over the plain ; the great flocks of sheep, scattered in different directions in search of the richest pasture, ran for protection to a common centre, and collected in masses with their heads huddled together ; and the cattle left off grazing and lowered their heavy heads to receive the coming storm. At last the clouds burst forth in loud jjeals of thunder, the lightning flashed, and the rain fell in large heavy drops, while all the time the sun was shining brightly in the west. The lights and shades in the villages, and down the sides of the mountains, were very strilcing. In half an hour the storm passed away, leaving behind it a serene and lovely sky. Passing on across three fertile plains, separated from each other by low ranges of hills, and producing whea^ and every kind of vegetable, I reached the foot of a range of rocky heights as the sun set. The sky was deeply blue, without a single cloud, with a bright and silvery moon ; and as I arrived at the summit of the pass, it threw its pale mournful rays over the city of Cuzco, spread out in the plain below. Cuzco ! city of the Incas ! cit}^ where, in by-gone CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INCAS. 95 times, a patriarchal form of government was com- bined with a high state of civilisation ; where works were conceived and executed, which, to this day, are the wonder and admiration of the wanderer; where a virtuous race of monarchs ruled an empire, equal in size to that of Adiian, exceeding that of Charlemagne. Cuzco ! the hallowed spot where Manco's golden wand sank to its head into the ground ; the favoured city, whose beautiful temple surpassed in splendour the fabled palaces of the Arabian Nights ; where the trophies of victories, won on battle-fields from the equator to the temperate plains of Chile, were collected; where songs of triumph resounded in praise of Ynti, the sacred deity of Peru, — of Quilla, his silvery spouse, — of the beneficent deeds of the Incas. Cuzco ! once the scene of so much glory and magnifi- cence, how art thou fallen ! What suffering, misery, and degradation have thy unhappy children passed through since those days of prosperity ! Where now is all thy power, thy glory, and thy riches ? The barbarous con- queror proved too strong. Thy vast and untold treasures are once more buried in the earth, hidden from the avaricious search of thy destroyers : but thy sons, once the happy subjects of the Incas, are sunk into slavery. Mournfully do they tread, with bowed necks and downcast looks, those streets wliich once resounded with the proud steps of their unconquered, generous ancestors. The city of the Incas, whose history is rendered classic in the simple narrative of Garcilasso de la Vega, 96 CUZCO AND LIMA. the historian of his fallen family ; in the elegant pages of Kobertson; and the he art -stirring epic of Eiiescott; deserves a large share of interest from the student of history, as one of the only places in the world, where the patriarchal form of government, combined with civilisation, was brought to a high state of perfection. Manco Ccapac, who founded Cuzco, about the year A.D. 1050, was the progenitor of an illustrious line of potentates, unconquered warriors, the patrons of architecture and of poetry. Among them, we have Inca Rocca, the founder of schools, whose Cyclopean palace still remains, a monument of by-gone great- ness ; Yiracocha, the Inca with florid complexion and flaxen locks, whose massive citadel still frowns from the Sacsahuaman hill; Pachacutec, the Solomon of the New World, whose sayings are recorded by the pious care of Garcilasso ; Yupauqui, who performed a march across the Chihan Andes, which throws the achievements of Hannibal, Napoleon, and Macdonald into the shade ; Huayna Ccapac, the most chivalrous and powerful of the Incas, whose dominion extended from the equator to the southern confines of Chile, from the Pacific to the banks of the Paraguay; and lastlj^ the brave young Manco, worthy namesake of his great ancestor, who held out in a long and unequal struggle against the Spanish invaders, and whose talent and valour astonished even the soldiers of Gonsalvo de Cordova. But he was defeated ; the sun of Peruvian fortune, which for a few years had hn- gered on the horizon, sank in a sea of blood, and the CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INCAS. 97 ill-fated Indians fell under the gi'inding yoke of the pitiless Goths. Situated in 13° 31' south latitude, and 73° 3' west longitude, Cuzco is at an elevation of 11,380 feet above the level of the sea, 2000 feet above the great St. Bernard ; and thus, though only 800 miles from the equator, it experiences a temperate climate, and in the depth of winter, snow often falls over the city, and covers its plazas with a white mantle. Cuzco stands at the head of a valley, nine miles in length, and varying from two miles to a league in breadth, running n.w. and s.e., and bounded on either side by ranges of mountains at a considerable elevation above the plain. The valley is covered with fields of barley and lucerne ; and, besides many very picturesque farms and country-houses, contains the two small towns of San Sebastian and San Geronimo. The city is at the n.w. end of the valley, a little more than a mile and a half in length, from the foot of the mountain -range on the east to that on the west, and about a mile in breadth. On the north side the famous hill of Sacsahuaman rises abruptly oter the city, divided from the hills on either side by two deep ravines, through which flow the little rivers of Huatanay and Eodadero. The former stream flows 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, 98 CUZCO AND LIMA. which sej)arates the city from the little eastern suburb of San Bias to the south of the Gardens of the Sun.* The principal part of the ancient city was built be- tween the two rivers, with the great square in the centre, and to the westward of the Hiiatanay are two more fine squares, of the Cabildo, and of San Francisco, east and west of each other. The houses of Cuzco are built of stone, the lower story being usually constructed of the massive and im- posing masonry of the time of the Incas, while the upper, roofed with red tiles, is a modern super- structure. The streets run at right angles, and present long vistas of massive buildings, rendered mteresting from their air of antiquity, with handsome chm'ch-towers rising here and there, and the view down those running north and south terminating in the steep streets rising up to the lower part of the hill of the Sacsahuaman, with the hoary old fortress of the Incas crowning its summit. Having thus brought the reader to the ancient city of Cuzco, the most interesting spot in the New World, I propose to introduce him to those ruins which tradition points out as the most ancient, and to continue the studjji of each Incarial edifice of note, with the history attached to it, and the deeds recorded of its founder, * 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 th habit of frequently breaking its bounds, as its name implies, which is composed of two words, Hatun, a year, and Ananay, an ejaculation of weariness, indicating the fatigue expressed at tiie yearly necessity of re- pewing its banks. I CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INCAS. 99 until the time when the city was occupied and meta- morphosed by the conquering Spaniards. The state of Cuzco under Spanish rule, and the structures erected by the Spaniards, will then attract our attention ; and, finally, its present state, and the condition of its inhabitants, will complete the story of the old Incarial city. On the 22nd of March, 1853, I ascended the steep street up the Sacsahuaman hill, so perpendicular in its ascent as to be built in the form of a staircase, and reached a small level space, overlooking the town, and immediately under the precipitous cliff on which the citadel is built, where the extensive ruins of the Col- campata, said to be those of Manco Ccapac, the first Inca, are still to be seen. The view from this point is extensive and beautiful. The city was spread out beneath like a map, with its numerous handsome churches rising above the other buildings; and its great square, with the market crowded with Indian girls sitting under their shades, before little piles of merchandise, or passing to and fro, like a busy hive of bees. Beyond is the long fertile plain, with the little towns of San Sebastian and San Geronimo ; and, far in the distance, rising above the ranges of mountains that bound the valley, is the snowy peak of Asungato, standing out in bright relief against the blue sky. On the eminence where I stood rose the ruins of the palace of the first Inca. On a terrace built of stones of every conceivable size and shape, fitting exactly one into the other, eiglity- H 2 100 CUZCO AND LIMA. four paces long, and eight feet high, is a wall with eight recesses, resembling those in the Inca palace of Lima- tambo ; and, in the centre of the lower wall, a mermaid or syren, now much defaced by time, is carved in relief on a square slab. In one of the recesses a steep stone staii'case leads up to a field of lucerne, on a level with the upper part of the wall, which is twelve feet high, and thus forms a second terrace. On the other side of --;, the field are ruins of the same character, parts of a very extensive building, or range of buildings. They con- sist of a thick stone wall, sixteen paces long and ten feet six inches in height, containing a door and window. The masonry is most perfect ; the stones are cut in par- allelograms, all of equal heights, but varying in length, with the corners so sharp and fine that they appeared as if they had just been cut, and, without any kind of cement, fitting so exactly that the finest needle could not be introduced between them. The doorposts, of ample height, support a stone lintel seven feet ten inches in length, while another stone six feet long forms the foot. The foundations of the building are to be traced to the s.E. for twentj^-six paces, but are almost entirely demolished. Behind these remains are three terraces, built in the rougher style of masonry used in the first walls, and planted with alders and fruit-trees. Such are the rums which tradition, since the time of the conquest, has pointed out as the remains of the palace of the first Inca of Peru.* * One tradition, however, assigns them to a later period, and to the Inca Pachacutec. It IS related that there was a great earthquake at the commencement of VJi CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INCAS. 101 Here he is said to have chosen the site of his resi- dence, the more readily to overlook the building of his city, and the labours of his disciples ; and from this point he contemplated the gradual rise of those noble biuldings which still adorn the now fallen city of Cuzco. The story of his strange and sudden appearance, of his introducing a new and foreign civilisation, and establishing a complicated system of religious worship^ and a well- organised government, is told in nearly the same words by most of the chroniclers of the time of the Spanish conquest. The truth of this tradition has been doubted by many, but all writers agree that,' a few centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards, some superior being, or race of beings, far advanced in the civilisation of some distant land, made their appear- ance on the table-land of the Andes, assuming the government of the people of the soil, and declaring themselves to be Children of the Sun, and entitled to the adoration and obedience of the former in- habitants. Some circumstances, indeed, would warrant the conclusion that the civilisation of the Incas was indigenous, and of spontaneous development; but the mass of evidence is in favour of its foreign origin. his reign, which destroyed Cuzco ; and that he erected his palace on the Colcamimta, to overlook the work of rebuilding. The word Pacha-cutec may be translated "the earth overturned ; " but it may also be rendered "time changed," or reformed ; and Garcilasso de la Vega assigns it this higher meaning, declaring that this Inca took it, on account of the great reforms, in the computation of time, effected in his reign. 102 CUZCO AND LIMA. Wlience then came the mysterious lawgiver of Peru, and his sister sjiouse ? Many are the theories and conjectures that have been hazarded on this interesting subject. Mr, Ranking, in an erudite work published in 1827, has no doubt whatever thatManco Ccapacwas a son of Kublai-Khan, the first Chinese emperor of the Yuen dynasty, and that he conquered Peru with a brigade of elephants. Montesinos, an old Spanish chronicler, declares that he came from Armenia, about 500 years after the deluge ; and still wilder theorists have given him an Egyptian, a Mexican, and even an English origin.* There can be but little doubt, however, that from some unknown cause, probably from the influence exercised by civilised strangers, three South American nations, about the same time, and without communica- tion with each other, assumed a degree of civilisation far above that of all other American tribes, and the traditions concerning its origin bear strong points of resemblance. On the table-land of Anahuac, Quetzalcoatl aj>peared to teach arts and sciences to the nation of Toltecs, whose remains are probably identical with the late discoveries of Mr. Stephens at Axmul and Palenque ; and Quetzalcoatl was afterwards worshijiped by the Mexicans as a god. * Berreo, Governor of Trinidad, who was taken prisoner by Sir Walter Raleigh, asserted that there was a tradition stating that the Incas would be restored by an Englishman. It was said, also, that Inca Manco Capac was a corruption of Ingasman Cocapac, or the blooming Englishman. — See Raleigh's Conquests of Guiana, iv. ; also Miller's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 217. CUZCO THE CITY OF THE IXCAS. 103 In the mountainous regions around Bogota, Bochica, a child of the Sun, came mysteriously among the Muysca nation, teaching men to build and sow. He introduced a complicated system of computing time, correcting the lunar year, by inserting an intercalary month at the end of every three years, and also calcu- lating time by means of cycles. As was the case in Japan, he appointed two princes, the one over ecclesi- astical, and the other over civil affairs, and even- tually withdrew from public life, to a holy valley near Tunja. Lastly, about the same time, Manco Ccapac, and his spouse. Mama OcUo Huaco, also children of the Sun, appeared in Peru, and founded a mighty empire. By some they were said to have appeared first on the banks of the great lake of Titicaca,* by others to have issued from a cave near Paccari-tambo ; f but, however that may be, all agree in ascribing to them the introduction of every useful art the Peruvians possessed, of an enlightened government, of unproved social intercourse, and of a comparatively pure religion. / Comparing the institutions, customs, ceremonies, and religion of the Incas, with those of various Asiatic nations, there is little room to doubt that the emigrants represented by Quetzalcoatl, Bochica, and Manco Ccapac, found their way to the shores of South and Central America, from China, and other parts of Eastern Asia ; and this is now the generally received * Garcilasso de la Vega, Commentarios reales, lib. ii. cap. xv. xvi. t Acosta, lib. vl. cap. xix. Also, see a sermon published in the Quichua language, by Dr. Avendaiio, in a.d. 1648, 104 CUZCO AND LIMA. opinion of those antiquaries who have paid attention to the subject* The government established by the Incas, though in form a despotic theocracy, was mild and patriarchal in effect. The Inca was the father of his people ; their comfort, their work, their holidays, were all under the rigid supervision of his officers, and one of his proudest titles was Huaccha-cuyac, " the friend of the poor." The ceremonies of religion were intimately inter- woven with the working of government, and the course of every-day life ; and the spread of their institutions over the surrounding countries, either by gentle or violent means, was the great duty of the children of the Sun. The four somewhat mythical successors of Manco Ccapac, namely, Rocca the valorous, Yupanqui the left-handed, Mayta the rich, and Ccapac Yupanqui, rapidly spread the doctrines of the religion of the Sun, and increased the extent of their dominions ; iintil, at the accession of Inca Rocca, the empire of the Incas, called by them Ttahua-ntin Suyu, or the four provinces, * Schlegel, in his Miscellaneous Works, (Bohn, ch. iv. p. 4.53,) says, ' ' It is clearly proved that the founders of the Peruvian kingdom migrated from th| east of Cliina, and the Indian isles.'' Dr. Wiseman, in his Connection between Science and Revealed Religion, Lectiu-e ii. p. 86, holds the same opinion. Humboldt, also, in his Researches ; and, finally, Don Mariano Rivero, an eminent Peruvian antiquary, in his Antique- dades Peruanas, X!ap. i. p. 17, says : "No admite duda que Bochica y Manco Ccapac eran sacerdotes Budistas que, por su doctrina superior, y civilizacion, consiguieron sefiorear los animas de los indigenes, y elevarse a la supremacia politica." CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INCAS. 105 reached from Ollantay-tambo to the southern borders of lake Titicaca. The remains of the palace of this Inca are situated in the present calk del triunfo, near the gi'eat square of Cuzco. The walls are constructed of huge masses of rock, of various shapes and sizes, one of them actually having twelve sides ; but fitting into each other with astonishing exactitude, though their exterior faces are rough. The stone is a dark slate-coloured lime- stone. Inca Rocca was the founder of the Yacha-huasi, or schools for the instruction of noble youths, near which his palace was built. He was a monarch of some renown, both as a warrior and a legislator, and ex- tended the dominion of the Incas to Huancarama and Andahuaylas. Don Mariano Eivero believes Rocca to have been the first Indian prince of the Inca race, placed on the throne by the foreign reformer, generally known as Manco Ccapac* On the walls of .what I believe to have been the Yacha-huasi, or schools founded by Inca Rocca, now the church of San Lazaro, are many serpents carved in relief on the stones ; and the same designs are to be seen on a stone lintel in the walls of the palace of Huayna Ccapac, and on many other Incarial buildings. Some other specimens of sculpture on the buildings of the Incas still remain. /Besides the figure, already noticed, in the palace of Manco Ccapac, there are four very curious figures in relief, on large slabs, in a house supposed to have once been occupied by the Inca * Antiquedadea Peruanas, cap. iii. p. 63, 106 CUZCO AND LIMA. historian Garcilasso de la Vega. Tliey have evidently been removed from their ancient positions, and now fonn the door-posts to an empty room. On the two upper slabs, which are three feet ten inches in diagonal length, are carved the figm:es of two monsters with the heads of women and bodies of birds, resembling the harpies of Virgil. They stand boldly out from the stone ; and the feathers of the body, wings, and tail, as well as the hair which is thrown back behind the ears, are accurately and artistically executed. On the two lower slabs are figures, designed with equal skill, representing monsters with scales, and long tails curled up behind their backs. These interesting pieces of sculj)ture bear the evidence of great age ; and many of the same kind, as indeed is hinted by Garcilasso de la Vega and other chroniclers, were probably destroyed through the wanton vandaHsm of the Spaniards. We have enough left, how- ever, to give an idea of the ornamental part of the masonry of the Incas. ^ The walls of their palaces were built of huge stones of a dark slate colour, with recesses and doors at certain intervals, the sides of the doors approaching each other and supporting large stone lintels/ The sida walls were pierced with small square windows, as is seen in the ruins of Manco Ccapac's palace, and the whole was that died with the ychu,or long grass of the Andes. The interior consisted of several spacious halls with smaller rooms opening into them, and the interior walls were adorned with golden animals and flowers, CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INC AS. 107 executed with much skill and taste.* Mirrors of a hard stone highly polished, with concave and convex surfacesjt hung on stone pegs, while in the numerous recesses Avere utensils and conopas f of gold and silver, fantastically designed. The couches were of vicuna cloth of the softest and finest texture, and the seats used by the Incas, called tiana, were plated with gold. The dresses worn by the Incas and their courtiers were very splendid, and there still exist at Cuzco pictures painted at the time of the Spanish conquest, representing the Incas in full costume. They -'are always represented in a"*^fine cotton tunic, secured round the waist by a figured cloth belt. A golden breastplate or sun hangs round the neck, and a long flowing robe descends from the shoulders to the ground. Some of the nobles wore head-dresses of egret's feathers, but the reigning Inca is always represented m the crimson llautu or fringe, and the two black and white wing-feathers of the majestic falcon coraquenque. The nustas, or princesses, wore a long mantle, called lliclla, secm-ed across the bosom by a large golden pin. I have seen a golden breastplate or sun, and one of these toims or pins, now in the possession of General Echenique, the late president of the republic. The breastplate is of pure gold, and the figures upon it are * Garcilasso de la Vega, lib. vi. cap. i. + Ulloa, vol. i. lib. vi. cap. xi. X Cor.oi'^as were household gods, representiug llamas, mazorcas of maize, kc. 108 CUZCO AND LIMA. stamped, being convex on the outer side. The pin ia also of thin gokl, and the figures are cut upon its flat surface. The fabrics woven in the time of the Incas were of cotton, or of the silky wool of the vicuna. The threads were spun on a small hand-spindle, and the art of dyeing in various colours was well understood. Their vases of gold, silver, earthenware, and stone, were remarkable for their ingenious shapes, and many of them for the graceful elegance of their form. They were frequently moulded or cut into the shape of birds, ■ fishes, quadrupeds, and human beings, some of them being double, and others even quadruple.* ' The Inca Rocca is supposed to have given the first great impulsive movement to these various arts, which were brought to some degree of proficiency by his descendants. When that great monarch was gathered to his fathers, his son, the melancholy Yahuar-huaccac, who shed tears of blood at his bu-th, ascended the throne. This period seems to have been the turning-j)oint in the rise of the Incarial Empire. A spirit of aggression and conquest seems already to have made itself manifest in every direction, but as yet the government was far from strong, though its forces were compact and concentrated ; and a vast league of the neigh- bouring tribes to the westward, even up to the mari- * Immense numbers have been dug up in the various h uacas, or burial- places, throughout Peru. There are fine collections of them in the mu- seums of Cuzco and Lima, and also in private houses. There is also a tolerably good collection of Peruvian pottery in the British Museum. CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INCAS. 109 time Cordillera, ajspears to have been made for its overthrow. The time was well chosen. A weak and imbecile prince had just assumed the reins of government, and his son had, for some misconduct, been banished from the court, and from all share in affairs of state. But the young prince was evidently a man of no common stamp. Sent to attend the llamas destined as sacrifices to the Sun, on the elevated plains of Chita, he passed his time in meditation. The table-land of Chita, near Cuzco, consists of long grassy slopes inter- spersed with small lakes, whose tranquil surfaces are skimmed by numerous water-fowl. The sky is generally cloudless, and of a deep blue ; and under its lovely vault, at the foot of one of those giant boulders of granite which strew the plain, the young prince was wont to lie down and meditate for hours. One day, at high noon, when all nature was lulled into silence, an august spirit, with flowing golden hair, appeared before him. The spirit revealed to him the mighty league that threatened the empii-e, and bade him arise and head the armies of the Incas. The prince was roused to energy, he assumed the name of the spirit Viracocha (the foam of the sea), and descended to Cuzco with news of the revolt. Meanwhile, the vast armies of the rebels, headed by the vahant Anco-hualluc, chief of the Pocras, and swelled by the followers of the chiefs of Anda- huaylas and Huancarama, and the tribes of Huancas and Chancas, advanced rapidly towards the city of the Incas, whose dominion was threatened with destruction. no CUZCO AND LIMA. Tlie faint-hearted Yahuar-liuaccac went moaninet away towards Muynas, followed by a few old coun- cillors, while his son Viracocha collected the chivalry of the Incas, unfurled the rainbow banner, and went forth to meet the enemies of his house. The army of the Incas was divided into companies of tens, hundreds, five hundreds, and thousands, each under a particular officer ; and five thousand were com- manded by an Hatun-apu, or general. The different tribes of which the army was composed, were distinguished by turbans of various colours, and the government supplied the men with coarse cotton tunics called auasca, and usutas, or sandals. They were armed with clubs, a weapon like a morn- ing star, bows and arrows, slings, and axes of copper hardened with tin or silica.* The insurgent forces were drawn up on the great plain near Lima-tambo, where a fierce contest took place ; and the Pocras and Chancas fought with such desperate valour, that the battle long remained doubtful. But the loyal men of Chumbivilicas were marcliing rapidly to the assistance of the Incas ; descending from the southern hills, they dashed impetuously on the right flank of the enemy, who, believing that the very stone* had risen up against them, fled in confusion towards the Apurimac. Thousands were left dead on the plain, which, since that eventful day, has been * Humboldt says that an ancient Peruvian instrument found near ViJca- bamba contained the following proportions of copper and tin : — Copper . . .0-94 Tin . . . . 0-06 CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INCAS. Ill called Yahuar-pampa, or " the field of blood." The victorious Viracocha, having thus dispersed the foes that threatened the extinction of his race, bore himself nobly towards the vanquished, and even restored their leader Anco-hauUuc, to his command over the Pocras, who dwelt in the country where now stands the city of Ayacucho. The Incarial army then marched to the westward, bringing all the scattered tribes under subjection, up to the feet of the maritime Cordillera, and restoring order and tranquility. The remnant of the warlike Pocras were, shortly afterwards, utterly routed near the frowning heights of Condor-kunka, at a place which from that time has been called Ayacucho, or "the heap of dead men:" and here, in after years, a crowning victory over the Spaniards, in 1824, ensured the independence of Peru. Such miexpected and vast successes raised the youthful Viracocha to the very summit of popularity^ His aged father, Yahuar-huaccac, abdicated the throne in his favour, and retired to a palace, about ten miles south of Cuzco, called the rumicolca, whose massive ruins are still to be seen on either side of the road to Puno. Firmly seated on the throne, and married to a princess, who was called from her white complexion Buntu, or the egg ; the fair-haired Viracocha ordered a temple to be erected in honour of the Spirit, whose revelations had caused the successful issue of the great battle of Yahuar-pampa. The ruins of this edifice may be seen, at the present 112 CUZCO AND LIMA. day, at a place called Caclia, near the banks of the Vilcamayu, and about a hundred miles from Cuzco. According to Garcilasso de la Vega, the temjile was of quadrangular form, built of solid masonry, with a door on each of the sides ; and in the centre, there was a statue of the Spirit, in long flowing robes, and leading some strange animal by a chain. From that time, the name of Viracocha was deified, and became to the Inca Indians an expression of all that was most powerful and heroic in nature. To this day it is the word, in the Quichua language, equivalent to " a gentleman " in Enghsh. The Inca now felt the paramount necessity of erecting some strong defensive barrier against any futm"e attack J land accordingly the great fortress on the hill of Sacsahuaman, whose colossal ruins, still visible above the the city of Cuzco, are an eternal monument of its fallen greatness, and a silent testimony of the boldness of conception with which the children of the Sun were gifted, was commenced by order of the great Inca Viracocha. On the eastern end of the Sacsahuaman, crowning a steep cHff, immediately above the palace of Manco Ccapac, there are three terraces, one above the other, built of a light-coloured stone, in the same stjde of masonry as the terraces on the Colcampata. The first wall, fourteen feet high, extends in a semi- circular form round the hill for 180 paces, and between the first and second terraces there is a space eight feet wide. The second wall is twelve feet high, and the thii'd is ninety paces round its whole extent. Above ml CUZCO THE CITY OF THE ESTCAS. 113 it, are many carefully hewn stones lying about, some of them supporting tliree lofty wooden crosses. This was the citadel of the fortress, and in its palmy days it was crowned by three towers connected by sub- terraneous passages, now entirely demolished. The outlines of the tower called paucar-marca were traceable near the north end of the third terrace ; the round tower, or moyoc-marca, was in the centre ; and the third, or saclacc-marca, at the south end. From the citadel to its western extremity, the length of the table-land of the Sacsahuaman is 535 paces, and its breadth in the broadest part 130 paces. On the south side, the position is so strong and impregnable, that it required no artificial defence, bounded as it is by a perpendicular ravine, descending from the table -land to the little river Huatanay, which flows down towards the city. The position is defended, on part of its north side, by a steep ravine, through which flows the river Roda- dero, and which extends for 174 paces from the citadel in a westerly direction. Here, therefore, the position only required a single stone breastwork, which is still in a good state of preservation ; but from this point to the western extremity of tlie table -land, a distance of 400 paces, nature has left it entirely undefended, a smooth plain extending in front of it to the rocky heights of the Rodadero. From this point, therefore, the Incas constructed a cyclopean line of fortification ; a work which fills the mind with astonishment at the grandeur of the conception, and the perfect manner of its execution. 114 CUZCO AND LIMA. It consists of three walls, the first averaging a height of eighteen feet, the second of sixteen, and the third of fourteen, the first terrace being ten paces broad and the second eight. The walls are built with salient and retiring angles, twenty-one in number, and corresponding with each other in each wall, so that no one point could be attacked without being commanded by others. The position is entered by tliree doorways, so narrow that they only admit of one man to pass at a time ; one of the doorways at the east, one at the west end, and a third in the centre, called respectively the ttiu puncu, or gate of sand, the Viracocha puncu, and the Acahuana puncu. But the most marvellous part of this fortification is the huge masses of rock of which it is constructed (one of them being sixteen feet in height, and several more varying from ten to twelve feet), yet made to fit exactly one into the other, and forming a piece of masonry almost unparalleled in solidity, beauty, and the peculiarity of its construction, in any other part of the world. ( The immense masses at Stonehenge, the great block in the tomb of Agamemnon at Ai'gos, and those inj the Cyclopean walls at Volterra and Agrigentum, ' ai^ wonderful monuments of the perseverance audi energy of the people who raised them; but they fall immeasurably short, in beauty of execution, to the fortress of Cuzco, where the huge blocks are fitted into each other, though of unequal sizes, and various shapes, with as minvite accuracy as is to be seen in th( mosaics of ancient Rome. CUZCO THE CITY OF THE IN CAS. 115 Viewed from a little distance, the great fortress of Cuzco has a most striking effect. The walls, formed of a dark slate-coloured limestone, are now overgrown with cacti, a small kind of iris, calceolarias, broom, and other flowers ; and flocks of sheep and llamas wander along the deserted terraces. During the long course of years which this stupendous work took in erecting, it lasted through the lives of four successive architects or engineers, namely, Apu Hualpa Pdmachi,* Inca Maricancha, Acahuana Inca, after whom one of the gates was named, and Calla- cunchay. The three lines of fortification were successively defended, with intrepid valour, against the ferocious Spanish conquerors under Juan Pizarro; and as the brave patriots retreated behind the second and third walls, they left heaps of their comrades who had fallen gloriously in defence of their country's freedom, to attest the courage and obstinacy with which the positions had been defended. Finally, the gallant band of heroes retreated to the citadel, where they made their last stand against the Spaniards. The venerable Inca noble, who commanded them, performed prodigies of valour with his huge battle- axe ; and when he saw that all was lost, and that Hernando Pizarro had forced the position, scorning to surrender, he wrapped his mantle round his head, and hurled himseK down the precipice into the Colcampata. The little plain in front of the north side of the * Literally, the " great talking cock." I 2 IIG CUZCO AND LIMA. fortress is bounded by enormous masses of limestone, called the rocks of the Rodadero. The strata have in the course of ages been formed into polished grooves, now rendered perfectly smooth from the many genera- tions of boys and girls who have been m the habit of rolling down them. This is still the favourite amuse- ment of the youth of Cuzco of both sexes. The citizens form parties of pleasm'e to the Bodadero rocks, and reclining among the beautiful wild flowers, drink chicha out of huge tumblers, sing Quichua songs, and look down upon the mighty fortress of their ancestors. On the summit of the Rodadero, a succession of steps, with two stone seats, is hewn out of the solid rock, and from these seats the Incas are said to have watched the progress of their gigantic imdertaking. The country to the northward is probably the quarry whence the huge quarters of rock, which form the fortress, were conveyed ; for there are still masses of rock cut into steps, seats, and other shapes, as if, after their almost superhmnan laboiu' was completed, the giant race which had accomplished it, had amused itself by exercismg its ingenuity on the remaining stupendous materials, as if they had been formed of some far more plialfte substance. In one place there was a deep excavation, probably used as a well, faced with masonrj^ in a perfect circle. It is evident that a people who could not only succeed in moving such ponderous masses from great distances, but also hew them into every variety of shape, and smooth their surfaces with such wonderful accurac}', CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INCAS. 117 that they fit the one into the other like mosaic work, must have been possessed of a degree of skill and mechanical knowledge, wliich raises them high in the rank of civilisation. During the reign of the Inca Viracocha, the great fortress was completed. He died about a.d. 1370, and was succeeded by his son the Inca Pachacutec. CHAPTER V. CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INCAS. The name of Pacliacutec signifies the " Reformer," and to this prince is attributed the adoption of an improved system of computing time; a completion of the fabric of religious ceremonial, with which the govern- ment and whole social life of the peojde were so inti- mately interwoven ; and a reorganisation of the Yaclia- huasi, or schools founded by the Inca Rocca. With consummate policy the feelings of the people were enlisted in favour of the theocratic rule of the Incas, and their most venerated deity was known as the ancestor and benefactor of their rulers. Ynti, the Sun, was to them the soul of the universe, the fountain whence flowed all the blessings they enjoyed, the ripener of their harvests, the cheering watcher of their labours, the producer of their beautiful flowers, and the• Acosta . . lib. VI. cap. xxi. Tupac Inca lupanciui, J CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INCAS. 12!) conceived by man without the aid of revelation, was in reality confined in its purity to the royal family, and the nobles and philosophers of the court. The people, however, preserved a belief in the guiding providence of God, in all the cares and duties of life. To this day great heaps of stones are to be seen by the road-side on some of the loftiest passes of the Andes, piled up by successive generations of way- farers, who, as they reached the summit of the steep ascent, cast a stone by the way- side, and exclaimed, " Apachicta muchhani," — "I thank God that I have reached thus far." The Indians also generally believed that every created tiling had its Mama, or spiritual essence ; a creed which seems to have been universally prevalent with almost every people in the world. Thus the Romans had their Penates and Lares, the gods of theu' homes ; the Grecians, their deities of the wood, the fountain, and the forest-tree ; and even the sober-minded English once acknowledged the exist- ence of those mermaids, witches, and fames, that were supposed to pervade nature, and envelope it in a sort of spmtual second self. So also the ancient Peruvians had their Huacas, or miracle-working tombs of heroes, and their Canopas, or household gods. The latter were innumerable, and the various districts, villages, and Ayllus, or famihes, had their own peculiar deity. There was the Sara-canopa, or spirit of the harvest ; the Chacra-canopa, or spirit of the farm ; the IJama- 180 CUZCO AND LIMA. canopa, or spirit of the flocks, and many others. Many of these are constantly found at the present day, made of earthenware, stone, silver, and sometimes gold. The spirit of the harvest is represented as a little figure covered with mazorcas of maize. The belief in household gods remained long after the Spanish conquest, and is not yet uprooted from the imaginative minds of the Indians, who still cherish their Canopas in the more secluded dells of the Andes. There is a curious report extant, written by Don Pedro de Villa Gomez, Archbishop of Lima, in 1649, in a pastoral letter, containing a series of questions to be put by the priests, which denote the various kinds of suj)erstitions prevalent in Peru at that time. Among them we find the following : — " What is the name of the principal Huaca you all pray to in this place ? " " What Huaca do you pray to, to protect the crops, the potatoes, and the farm ? " " What springs or lakes do j^ou worship? " " What Huaca do you address when you go to work in the mines, factories, or farms, that the Spaniards may not ill-treat 3'ou '? " " We must also ask what feasts they celebrate, at what seasons, and with what ceremonies ? " " What dead bodies of Chuchus (twins), or Chacpas (childi'en born feet first), have you in your houses, and where are they hid ? " " Who cut the hair of your children ? and who keeps it ? " "It must also be asked, with tact and prudence. CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INCAS. 131 how many children have been concealed, that they may not be baptized ? " - "^ The Incas, however, engrafted their purer religion on the grosser indigenous belief of their people, by means of the constant ceremonies and hohdays, in which they joyfully took a share. The system of religious observances appears to have been brought to its greatest perfection by the Inca Pachacutec, who also added largely to the efficiency of the schools, liberall}^ patronised the learning of the Amautas, or wise men, and the minstrelsy of the Haravecs, or poets, and devoted much attention to the civil government of his people. He was the first Inca who spread his arms to the shores of the Pacific, conquering the vales of Nasca, Yea, Caiiete, Pachacamac, and Rimac, and bringing into subjection the great king Chimu, who ruled over the valley where now stands the city of Truxillo. Pachacutec was the Peruvian Solomon, and was not less celebrated for the wisdom of his sayings, than for his warlike achievements. "Euvy," said he, "is a worm that consumes the entrails of the envious ; and he that envies the wise and good is like the spider that sucks poison from the sweetest flowers." " He who attempts to count the stars, not knowing how to count the quipvs, is deseiwing of ridicule." "Auger and passion admit of reformation, but folly is incurable." " Impatience is a sign of a vile mind." This prince is said to have attained the great age of a hundred years, and died probably in about a.d. 1400, leaving his throne to his eldest son, the young Inca Yupanqui, ah'eady renowned in war. K 2 132 CUZCO AND LIMA. Yupanqui brought an immense tract of the tropical forests, to the eastward of the capital, under subjec tion, and made successful attempts to colonise part of those fertile valleys which border on some of the great tributaries of the Amazon, especially in Paucar- tambo. His son, the famous Tupac Inca Yupanqui, in 1453, led an army across the sandy desert of Atacama, drove all before him in his victorious advance through Chile to the banks of the Maule, and finally, crossing the Chilian Andes by a pass of unequalled difficulty and danger, he returned in triumph to Cuzco. Meanwhile, young Huayna Ccapac, the heir to the throne, had spread the fame of the Incarial arms to the banks of the Amazon ; and in a succession of triumphant campaigns round the stupendous volcanoes of Chimborazo and Cotopaxi, had conquered the kingdom of Quito. On the accession of Huayna Ccapac, the empire of the Incas had attained to its greatest extent. From the sultry valleys of the Amazon to the temperate plains of Chile, from the shores of the Pacific to the swampy sources of the Paraguay, tlieir rule had ex- tended ; so that in the space of little more than four centuries their empire had swollen, by successive con- quests, from the little compact territory round Cuzco, to these vast dimensions. Order and civilisation advanced hand in hand with their arms, and good roads soon connected the remotest parts of the empire. The city of Cuzco, at the time of the accession of i^m:^ CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INC AS. 133 Huayna Ccapac, was at the zenith of its splendour and prosperity. It was divided, at this period, into Upper or Hanin Cuzco, and Lower or Hurin Cuzco. In the centre was the great square, including the three plazas of the modern city, called the Huacay-pata, or hill of plea- sure, through which ran the river Huatanay, crossed by numerous stone foot-bridges. On the east side were the palaces of Viracocha, Pachacutec, and Inca Eocca, and the Yacha-huasi, or schools ; and on the south, on the side of the modern church of the Jesuits, was the palace of Huayna Ccapac. The other sides were occupied by the houses of the Inca nobility. In the Huacay-pata, the dramatic representations ■ took place, and here it was that the people danced in a circle extending round the whole open space, each man holding a link of an immense golden chain, to commemorate the birth of Huayna Ccapac's eldest son, who was afterwards called Huscar, or the chain. A curious picture of this dance, nearly contempo- raneous with the Spanish conquest, is to be seen in the church of Santa Anna at Cuzco. From the centre of the Huacay-pata, looking towards the north, could be seen the old palace of the first Inca on the Colcampata, with the mighty fortress towering above it; and to the south was the Ccuri- cancha, or Temple of the Sun, the AcUa-huasi, or convent of virgins, and the Rimac-pampa, where the royal ordinances were proclaimed. Round the principal localities were the suburbs of the city, inhabited by various tribes from every part of the 134 CUZCO AND LIMA. empire, ruled by native caciques, and dressed in their characteristic costumes, which must have given a gay and interesting appearance to the busy thoroughfares of the beautiful city. On the north side were the suburbs of the Holy Gate, Huaca puncu, of Quilli-pata, and of Pichu. On the west, that of Ca3^au-cachi, where there were two fountains issuing from the mouths of silver serpents (cuUqui machachuay). On the south were those of Pumap-chupa (the lion's tail) and Rimac-pampa : and on the east were those of Mmiay sencca (loving nose), Tococachi (window of salt), Puma-curcu (lion's beam), where the menagerie of the Incas was kept, Cantut- pata (the flowery hill), and lastly, of the Colcampata. In these suburbs dwelt Indians from every part of the empire ; natives of Chile, Pasto, Canaris, Cha- chapoyas, Huancas, Collas, and of the forests of the far east; so that the population of Cuzco became a miniature of that of the whole empire. From Cuzco, as a gTeat centre, the roads ramified through every part of Ttahua-ntin-suyu. Four high- ways went forth — east, west, north, and south — to the four great provinces into which the empire was divided, viz. : Anti-suyu, Cunti-suyu, Cliincha-suyu, and Colla- suyu. The principal road from Cuzco to Quito, carefully macadamised, — and to form which, suspension bridges were thrown over rivers and chasms, valleys were filled up, and hills cut through, — has been the theme of admiring wonder to the people of Europe, from the days of Zarate to those of Prescott. CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INCAS. 135 Roads of the same construction led to the south, to the east, and to the shores of the Pacific ; with tambos or inns at convenient distances, and royal storehouses of clothing and food for the use of the Incarial armies when on the march, and of the chasquis, or govern- ment-messengers, who performed journeys on foot with incredible rapidity. It is said that the Inca Huayna Ccapac «at6 fresh fish at Cuzco, which had been caught the day pre- viously at Luriii, on the coast of the Pacific ; a distance of more than three hundred miles, over the most mountainous country in the world. The greatest order prevailed throughout the public establishments, and special officers were placed over all the gTeat government-works. The Nancamayoc superintended the roads, the Chaca-camayoc the bridges, and so on through every department; all under the supervision of the Inca governors of the provinces. Huayna Ccapac, the greatest of the Incas, brought the civil government and the numerous subordinate arrangements it involved, to the highest state of per- fection. In his reign the country prospered ; the people were contented and happy; and his own family, which had increased to several thousands, looked up to him with respect and adoration. The descendants of each successive reigning Inca were looked upon as a distinct branch of the royal family, under the name of Ayllus, all claiming Manco Ccapac as their common ancestor. The sons or royal princes were called aiiqui, and became governors of provinces, led forth mitimaes, . or VjQ cuzco and lima. colonists, to distant parts of the empire, encouraged the cultivation of poetry, or became priests in the service of the Smi ; wliile the princesses, called hustas when maidens, and i:)allas when married, adorned with their beauty the imperial court at Cuzco, or became virgins in the temples of the Sun.* Huayna Ccapac himself was the most chivalrous of princes, and it was his boast that he had never refused anything when asked by a woman. Like the ancient Persians and the noble-hearted Normans, the Incas ever treated the fair sex with courteous respect ; and the devotion of Huayna Ccapac to the fair princess of Quito was the main cause of the fall of the empii'e of the Incas. His first wife was Rava Ocllo, by whom he had his heir Huascar, Prince Manco, and many other sons and daughters. Subsequently, he became enamoured of the beautiful Zulma, daughter of the last Scyri or King of Quito ; and the latter years of his life were spent in her society, at the palaces of Tumebamba, Cayambe, and Latacunga in that country, which have been minutely described by Ulloa and Humboldt. In one of these palaces, the great monarch expired in the year 1525 ; having, by his last act, at the insti- gation of the lovely Zulma, whose charms proved irre- sistible, divided the empire between Huascar, his rightful heir, and Atahualpa, the offspring of his beloved mistress. This ruinous measure led to the dismemberment * The wife of tlie reigning luca was called the Coya. CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INCAS. 137 of the empire. Atahualpa, headstrong and audacious, invaded the territory of liis half-brother, drove him from the throne, and by a succession of cruel butcheries, vainly attempted to exterminate the royal race. To this day his name is held in universal abhorrence by the Indians, and is generally known as Aucca, or the traitor. But the horizon was rapidly-clouding over. Comets, signs, and wonders had been seen in the heavens, and strange men with unknown power had landed on the coast. The Spanish conquest had commenced. It has been related with harrowing minuteness by the old chroni- clers, and by the modern historians, — Eobertson and Prescott. ^_ The brave but savage Pizarro, having advanced into the heart of the country, assassinated the traitor Atahualpa at Caxamarca, and by the superiority of the Spaniards in arms and knowledge, after a few battles, easily overran the countr3^ A thirst for gold was their ruHng passion ; murder and rapine their daily occupation. Having subdued the unhappy Indians, the Spaniards turned, Hke ravening wolves, upon each other. Pizarro, who had risen from the dregs of the people, and certainly displayed some great quahties, defeated and murdered his old companion Almagro ; and in his turn Pizarro was assassinated by Almagro's son. A year had not elapsed before the young Almagro was himself beheaded ; and another year saw the Spanish viceroy, Nuiiez de Vela, murdered by Gonzalo Pizarro, and the 138 CUZCO AND LIMA. hairs of liis beard stuck as trophies in the hats of his conquerors. Gonzalo was himself put to death by Pedro de la Gasca, an ecclesiastic who was sent out by the king of Spain to restore quiet to his newly-acquired colony. / But let us turn from these paltry and barbarous feuds, which have been already so fully detailed by the able pen of Prescott, and contemplate the fate of the proud old cit}^ of Cuzco, now alas ! shorn of its imperial power, and fallen into the hands of strangers. The rapacious invaders soon robbed the temples and palaces of their treasures, polluted the altars of the Sun, and demolished the pillars for denoting the time of the solstices, believing them, in their stupid ignorance, to be the idols of the Indians. / Then followed the great insurrection of Inca INIanco, who had succeeded to the empty honours of the throne, on the death, at Xauxca, of his unfortunate brotlier Huascar. He had at first allowed himself to be used as a tool by the Spaniards, and was crowned by Pizarro at Cuzco, as a vassal of Charles V. ; but the insults he was exposed to, and the cruel outrages* of tlie conquerors, at length aroused his indignation, and he- raised the standard of revolt. Worthy of his great namesfuce and ancestor, the fotmder of the empire, he defended the fortress of Cuzco with heroic constancy * The brutal savage Gonzalo Pizarro ordered Inca Manco's wife, a beau- tiful young girl, to be stripped and cruelly whipped l)y tlie soldiery, and then to be shot to death with arrows. The inhuman order was carried into execution. CUZCO THE CITY OF THE IXCAS. 139 against the Spaniards, besieged them in the city itself, and fought three glorious battles in the vale of Vilcamayu. But at length he was constrained to give up tlie unequal contest, and retreating into the tropical forests of Vilca-pampa, retained his independence with a few faithful followers. This brave young prince fell by the dastard hand of a Spanish deserter, who had fled to him for protection, and partaken of his hospitality, in 1553. Meanwhile the Spanish conquerors had become complete masters of the whole of Peru. During the civil wars of the invaders, the great square of Cuzco became the scene of many a bloody execution. Here old Almagro, after sustaining a doubtful contest with his former friend, sealed his life of crime, and mcked- ness with his blood : and on the same spot his young hot-headed son, the assassin of his father's murderer, also fell a victim to his ambition. Their remains noAV rest side by side in the church of Santa Merced. Here, too, Gonzalo Pizarro and the brave old Carbajal were beheaded by the cold and calculating La Gasca. When the news of the conquest of Peru and of the unbounded riches of its favoured soil reached the coui"t of Spain, thousands of adventurers flocked to that distant land, among whom were many cadets of some of the noblest families of the kingdom, — the Mendozas, Toledos, Zunigas, Sandovals, and Girons. The haughty cavaliers soon established themselves in the Incarial palaces, built second stories with broad trehssed balconies, and carved their armorial bearings over the lintels of the gateways. / 140 CUZCO AND LIMA. Swarms of clerg}^ both secular and regulars, flocked to Peru, thirsting for plunder, and for the blood of the poor Indians. First came the Dominicans, who spread the religion of Christ with fire and sword ; and one of their order, the cruel Valverde, an accomplice in the atrocities of the Pizarros, became the first bishop of Cuzco. They established their monastery on the ruins of the Temple of the Sun, in the year 1531 ; and shortly after- wards the cathedral was commenced on the site of the palace of Viracocha, on the east side of the great square. It has a very handsome fagade, with two massive stone towers, and is still one of the greatest ornaments of the city. The Dominicans were followed by the Franciscans, the Augustines, and the Mercedarios, who also founded extensive monasteries ; the latter with most beautiful cloisters, supported by elaborately carved stone columns and arches. Finally the Jesuits, introduced into Peru by the viceroy Castro in 1565, arrived in Cuzco. Their church, on the site of the palace of Huayna Ccapac, on the south side of the great square, with its richly carved front, lofty towers, and extensive cloisters, is by far the finest edifice of the kind in Peru. It was not long before nuns of the orders of Santa Clara, Santa Teresa, and Santa Catalina, supplied the places of the virgins of the Sun. The gorgeous and stately ceremonials of the church of Home now succeeded the festivals of the religion of the Sun ; and, in place of the happy songs and dances CUZCO THE CITY OF THE IN CAS. 141 of the Incas, long monkish processions paraded the streets of Cuzco. • Of these, the most important and magnificent was that on the festival of Corpus Christi, when, from the earliest period of Spanish ascendancy, a vast amount of wealth was yearly expended. In the little church of Santa Anna at Cuzco, there is a very curious series of pictures, contemporaneous with the conquest, illustrative of the procession of the corpus Christi, which hecomes very interesting as a record of the costumes of the Incas and Spaniards of the period. First march the four religious orders of Dominicans, Franciscans, Mercedarios, and Augustines, followed by the corpus under a splendid canopy, attended by a large body of priests and an old cavalier in black, with the order of Santiago on his shoulder — probably the governor of the city. Then follow the elders of each parish, accompanied by a huge car, in which their patron saint is seated, and preceded by an Inca noble in full national costume. The concluding picture represents the return of the corpus to the cathedral, with the whole Incarial family as spectators, splendidly dressed, with lofty plumes of egrets' feathers on their heads. The houses in the background have rich carpets hanging from the upper windows to the ground, while the balconies are adorned with pictures of various saints, and at intervals in the streets there is a triumphal arch raided over an altar plated with silver. The proud bearing of the stately Spanish knights 149 CUZCO AND LIMA. who had settled in Cuzco, and the costly dresses of the Inearial princes, added not a little to the interest of these religious ceremonies. The ancient royal family had fallen indeed from their high estate, but they still retained the respect, and, to some extent, even the reverence of their conquerors. Few ladies came from Spain during the first years of the conquest ; and the cavaliers, among whom were many men of rank and education, sought for wives among the princesses of the Indian royal family, whose illustrious ancestry they honoured, and whose beauty they beheld with rapture. The head of the family of the children of the Sun, the ill-fated heir to a now conquered and ruined land, had fled to the distant forests of Vilca-pampa, where he yet retained his independence. The family of the Incas, therefore, was represented in the city of Cuzco by a baptized younger son of the great Huayna Ccapac, named Paullu, who resided for many years after the Spanish conquest, among the ruins of the palace of the first Inca, on the Colcampata. To him the numerous members of the family who still resided at or near Cuzco, lingering among the desecrated and ruined abodes of their ancestors, and mournjjng over their fatherland, looked for protection as the ostensible representative of the Incas. Among these w^ere many Nustas or princesses, the daughters and nieces of Huayna Ccapac. These young ladies were very beautiful, at least the contem- poraneous pictures of several of tUem represent them as possessed of no common charms. But their fate CUZCO THE CITY OP THE INCAS. 143 was a sad and thorny one ; many of them were destined to marry the oppressors of their country, while others, leading mournful and secluded lives, beheld with breaking hearts the bondage and slavery of their people. The proud Spanish cavaliers, indeed, held it a high honour to be united with a daughter of the Incas, and eagerly sought a marriage with the fair Indian prmcesses. Francisco Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru, set .the example by marrying a daughter of the unfortunate Athaualpa, by whom he had a son, who died without issue. On her death, the proud upstart again sought a union with the noble blood of the Incas, and espoused secondly the young princess Inez Nusta, a daughter of Huayna Ccapac. Their daughter Francisca married, first her uncle Hernando Pizarro, and second^ a Spanish cavalier, Don Martin Ampuero, whose descendants still reside near Cuzco ; and were, as UUoa informs us, treated with honour by the Spanish viceroys, as representatives of the Incarial family. The Marquises of Montemira were descended from this marriage. About the same time, several other princesses formed alliances with Spanish cavaliers. Leonora Nusta, a daughter of Huayna Ccapac, married Don Juan Balsa ; and Maria Tupac Usca, a daughter of Prince Manco, was espoused to Don Pedro Ortoz de Orue, a native of Biscay, from whom descend the family of Justiniani, whose acquaintance I made during my sojourn in the vicinity of Cuzco. 144 CUZCO AND LIMA. Dona Beatriz Coya, another baptized daughter of Huayna Ccapac, was betrothed by her guardian, Prince Paullu, to a Spanish knight named Marcio Serra de Leguisano, whose alliance she long and fii'mly opposed. It appears that a painful mystery hung over the parent- age of the knight, similar to that which caused the gentle Sir Percy Shafton, of Walter Scott's well-known novel, so much uneasiness. It was whispered at Cuzco that his father was a tailor, and the young ilusta long refused to become a churl's wife. The persuasions and en- treaties of her guardian were alilce fruitless ; but at length, after a long conversation in the recess of a window, he extracted from her the reluctant and equivocal words, " Perhaps I will have him, and perhaps I will not ; " and with this half-consent she was married to the reputed tailor's son. Of this same knight it is recorded, that, in the division of the spoils of Cuzco, the massive golden sun, which was fixed in the great temple of the Ccuri-cancha, fell to his share, and that he gambled it away at pri- mero in one night. Another marriage took place between the Princess Beatriz Nusta, daughter of the Inca Syri Tupac, and Don Martin Loyola, a nephew of St. Ignatius, the founder of the order of Jesuits. A curious picture of their nuptials now hangs in the church of the Jesuits at Cuzco. The young princess, who is very beautiful, with long black hair hanging in plaited tails down her back, is dressed in a costly mantle, secured across the bosom by a golden topu, or pin in the shape of a spoon, set with jewels. CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INCAS. 145 By this marriage tliey had one daughter named Lorenza, who was created Countess of Oropesa in the Indies. She married Don Juan Borgia, a son of the Duke of Gandia ; and from them are descended the Counts of Orox^esa, Marquises of Lobayna, and Dukes of Gandia. Lastly, the noble knight Garcilasso de la Vega married a niece of Huayna Ccapac, and grand-daughter of the great monarch Tupac Inca Yupanqui, a beautiful young girl named Isabel Yupanqui Nusta. Garcilasso boasted as splendid a line of ancestors as the proudest grandees in Sixain. Among them was the dauntless hero who conquered the Moorish giant on the Vega of Grenada, from whom the family derived its surname. " Garcilasso de la Vega, They the youth henceforward call, For his duel in the Vega Of Grenada chanced to fall." Another of his ancestors fell fighting by the side of Edward the Black Prince at the great battle of Najara; and a third saved the life of King John I. of Spain, at the battle of Aljubarrota, by giving him his horse when his own had been killed ; hence the baUad beginning " Si el cavallo vos han muerto, Subid Rey en mi cavallo." Garcilasso de la Vega was a cousin of the famous pastoral poet of the same name, whose eclogues and silvas are well known to every Spanish scholar. By the marriage of this cavalier, who was one of the first conquerors of Peru, with the Inca princess, he had 146 CUZCO AND LIMA. one son, who became famous in after years as Garci- lasso Inca de la Vega the historian. The young Garcilasso was born at Cuzco in the year 1540, and received his education at the first school which was established there, in company with other noble youths of Incarial descent ; among whom were Francisco, the son of the conqueror Pizarro, and a son of Prince Paullu named Carlos, whose son, Don Melchor Carlos, went to Spain in 1602, was created a knight of Santiago, and granted a large pension. During his early years Garcilasso had heard from his mother and her relations the glorious story of the greatness of the empire of the Incas, and the sad account of its fall. The young man received with en- thusiasm the tales of his maternal relatives, and allowed his imagination to dwell with fervour on the romantic deeds of his ancestors ; their gorgeous religion, their patriarchal government, and their splendid conquests, while he mourned over the recital of their final over- throw. All these things were deeply impressed on his young heart, and in after years yielded abmidant fruit. In 1500 he went to Spain, and, after fighting for many years under the banner of Don Juan of Austria, he retired to Cordova and devoted himself to hterary pursuits. Then it was that the memory of the days of his youth at Cuzco returned to cheer the retired veteran, the tales of his childhood came back with vivid distinctness to his mind ; and, filled with love for the land of his birth, and with pride for his noble fore- fathers, he resolved to write the history of his ancestors the Incas of Peru. CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INCAS, 147 The first part of his " Eoyal Commentaries of Peru" was published in 1G09, and the whole work was com- pleted in 1616, the year of the author's death. Though accused of garrulity and inelegance by Ticknor, and of over-credulity by Prescott,* his work has ever remained the text-book of Peruvian histor}-, and at the present day no Peruvian of any education is without his Garcilasso. I have even seen it in one of the most wretched huts on the coast. It attained sufficient fame to receive both a French and an English translation ; and the latter, by old Sir Paul Rycaut, published in James II.'s reign, is to be found in many of the private libraries of England. Thus the History of the Incas was written by one of their own blood and lineage, who, seizing pen and ink, the previously unknown implements of the oppressors of his race, placed his work on record to immortalise the deeds of' his ancestors, and remain for posterity a trustworthy protest against the lying and garbled nar- ratives of the Spanish chroniclers. There is something deeply interesting in this historian, who has thus boldly placed his unfortunate countrymen in 'their true light, and left the world to judge between them and their tyrants. Let us now return to the sad narrative of the clouded fortunes of tlie Incas, whose last chief was soon to close his life in blood. In 1555 the Marquis of Canete, a scion of the noble * It is pleasant to find, however, that both Mr. Ticknor, in his "History of Spanish Literature," and Mr. Prescott, in his " Conquest of Peru," give, - on the ■5('hole, a ilattering notice of the work of the old Inca historian. L 2 148 CUZCO AND LIMA. Louse of Mendoza, arrived at Lima as viceroy of Peru. The distracted country, torn for many years by the wretched broils of its turbulent conquerors, had at length been restored to peace by the defeat of the rebel Fernando Giron at Pucara in 1554 ; and the Marquis entered upon his government under more propitious auspices than had been the lot of any of his pre- decessors. Having settled the rival claims of num- berless applicants for lands and employment, and executed severe acts of justice upon the rebels, he turned his attention to the Indians -and theii- fallen princes, unable to feel at his ease while the heir to the throne was at large in the forests of Vilca-pampa. Unlike most of his countrymen, the Marquis of Canete appears to have been humane and strictly honourable ; and he easily prevailed on the Inca princess, Beatriz Coya, who had married the tailor knight, to undertake a delicate mission to Vilca-pampa, and prevail upon her nephew, the Inca Sayri Tupac, who had succeeded his father, Prince Manco, to place himself under the protection of the representative of his catholic majesty. The persuasions of the embassadress were at first opposed by the tried and veteran councillors of the Inca ji but Sayri Tupac, who was of a mild disposition, at length yielded to her representations, and, leaving his retreat, accompanied her in a long an/1 tedious journey to Lima. He was there received, with regal pomp, by the Marquis of Caiiete and the Archbishop Geronimo de Loaysa. It was stipulated that the Inca should receive a grant of land and a pension, on CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INCAS. 149 resigning liis right of sovereignty into the hands of the viceroy. It was a cruel necessity which forced the young prince to resign his glorious inheritance ; and, as he signed away the rights of himself and his heirs to the empire of his fathers, a tear fell from his eye ; and, taking up a tassel of the golden fringe that bordered the table-cover, he exclaimed, " Behold, the whole of this velvet cover belonged to my fathers, and now they would satisfy me with a morsel of the gilded fringe ! " Eventually Sayri Tupac returned to Cuzco, and settled at Yucay, in the sweet vale of Vilcamayn, the favourite residence of his great ancestor, the Inca Viracocha. Bowed down by shame and melancholy, the lovely gardens, the delicious fruits, and refreshing baths of Yucay, all failed to revive his drooj)ing spirits, and he died in a few years, followed, shortly after- wards to the grave, by his brother, the Inca Cusi Tilu Yupanqui. The youngest son of Manco Inca, named Tupac Amaru, now succeeded to the empty titles of his brother. • He was of a very different character from the gentle Sayri Tupac, and, preferring the freedom of the wild forests of Vilca-pampa to the degrading gold of his conquerors, the young prince resolved to retain his independence in this remote corner of his dominions rather than endure the disgrace and shame of receiving a Spanish pension. Meanwhile, the Marquis of Canete dying in 1561, was succeeded by Lope de Castro, and in 1569 Don Francisco de Toledo arrived in Lima, as viceroy of Peru. 150 CUZCO AND LIMA. Toledo was the second son of the Count of Oropesa, of the same stock as Alva, the butcher of the Nether- lands. Cold and cruel, with a large, pale face, heavy under-jaw, hooked nose, and small black eyes, he owed his appointment to having found favour in the sight of Philip II. by a hypocritical affectation of religion. On his arrival at Cuzco, Toledo resolved that the unfortunate yomig Inca should no longer enjoy his freedom ; and accordingly Don Martin Loyola was despatched with a party of 250 men to Vilca-bamba to secure his person. Tupac Amaru fled down the river on the approach of the Spaniards, but liis pursuers gained upon him, and at length, faint from fatigue and want of food, he sur- rendered to Loyola, the husband of his niece, and was brought captive to Cuzco. Finding the harmless young Indian was in his power, the cruel Toledo, worthy of his relationship to Alva, determined to put him to death ; and the peti- tions and entreaties both of the Spanish cavaliers and the Indians of Cuzco to spare the life of the poor young Inca, who was guilty of no oifence, were alike meffectual. A scaffold was erected in the great square of Cuzco, and the viceregal fiend seated himself at a window to enjoy the sight. Then Tupac Amaru, followed by a crowd of priests, appeared upon the scaffold, while cries and lamentations from the Indians, who thronged the square and adjoining streets, resounded far and wide. The Inca raised his hand, and the tumult ceased. CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INC AS. 151 It was his last command, and it was obeyed. He then exclaimed — " Let it be proclaimed to all the world that I have done no wrong, and that I die only because it is the Ijleasm-e of the tyrant." Then kneeling down and claspmg his hands, he cried, " 0, God ! behold how mine enemies rob me of my blood!"* and his head was severed from his body, while a wild despairing cry re-echoed from the vast assemblage, and carried grief and mourning far away into all the valleys of the Andes. Thu^ fell j^oung Tupac Amaru, the last of the Incas, in the year 1571, and with him ended the glorious dynasty that had ruled over Peru for five hundred years. No j)rayer for vengeance was heard from his dying lips ; unlike Conradin of Naples in his conduct, though their fates were similar, he threw no glove mto the crowd ; but 3'^ears and years afterwards a cry was heard throughout Peru which made the Spanish tyrants tremble. His name once more was heard as a rallying cry, and, as will be seen hereafter, a terrible retribu- tion avenged the unjust death of the last of the Incas. In 1581 Don Francisco de Toledo resigned his government, and hastened to the court of Philip II., where he fomid a reception he had little bargained for. On entering the presence, he was told by that austere monarch, "that he had not been sent to Peru to behead kings," and coldly dismissed. It is said that * ' ' Ccollanap Pacliacamac ! ricuay auccacunac yahuamiy liichascaE- cuta." 152 CUZCO AND LIMA. he died a few months afterwards of chagrin and remorse. The fate of the remaining members of the family of the Incas is soon tokl. Many of them were forced to reside at Lima, where they did not live long, owing to the injm'ious effects of the climate. The few who sur- vived forwarded their claims to Philip III. in 1602, with a pedigree from the time of Manco Ccapac, attested by their signatures painted on an ell and a half of Chinese white taffeta. At the present day, the only survivmg descendants by a lineal male line which I have been able to trace out with accuracy, are Don Clemente Tisoc and his son, who reside at the little town of San Geronimo, near Cuzco. Don Clemente is said to be an expert botanist. One other member of the family of the Incas, who died only a few years since, is deserving of notice. This is Dr. Don Justo Sahuaraura Inca, who was descended both from Huayna Ccapac and from Pacha- cutec, and was born at Cuzco at the end of the last century. After receiving a good education, he entered into holy orders ; and, having performed the duties of a parish priest in several villages, and also those of a deputy to the Peruvian Congress of 1825, became Archdeacon of Cuzco in 1838. A few years before his death, the old Inca published a genealogical work, with portraits of the Incas, called "La Monarquia Peruana,"* in which, I believe, he was assisted by General Santa * "Recnerdos de la Monarquia Peniana, 6 bnsquejo de la liistoria de Ics Incas, por Don Justo Saliuaniura Inca." Paris, 1S50. CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INCAS. 153 Cruz. The work first appeared in Paris in 1850. Old Don Justo Inca left two nieces, who reside in a house surrounded hy alder-trees, near the banks of the river Huatanay, and on the site of the gardens of the Temple of the Sun. His nephew, Don Luis Eamos Titu Atauchi, is, I believe, a lawyer in Cuzco. Such is a brief account of the surviving members of the family of the Incas. Once mighty monarchs ruling over a vast empire, whose glory seemed imperish- able, the celestial race, by a sad reverse of fortune, were cast from their high position, and, in a few short years, beaten to the earth by cruel conquerors; and now their very name, though still honoured and beloved by the poor Indians, is well-nigh extinct, and survives only in two or three male descendants. Yet many a mightier dynasty may mourn a sadder fate, and at least the deeds of the Incas are im- mortalised in the literature of Europe ; for, from the chronicles of Zarate, Montesinos, Cieza de Leon, and Garcilasso de la Vega, have sprung the histories of Robertson and Prescott, the drama of Sheridan, and the romance of Marmontel. After the execution of Tupac Amaru, the spirit of the Indians was quite subdued, and the Spaniards obtained a complete mastery over their victims. Cuzco con- tinued to rank as the second cit}^ in Peru, and was inhabited by many noble Spanish families. During the viceregal times, their houses were furnished with great magnificence, many of them received titles of honour from the court of Spain, and in a short time the city was adorned with beautiful churches, and 154 CUZCO AND LIMA. handsome private houses. The University, a fine edifice, with spacious stone cloisters, was founded in 1598 by Don Antonio de la Raya, the fifth bishop of Cuzco ; and raised to the rank of a university by Vope Innocent XII., in 1692. It now numbers about ninety graduated doctors.* The Jesuits also founded the college of San Borja, for the education of the children of Indian nobles. The building is handsome, but the establishment has long since been suppressed, and its haUs are now used for a small boys' school. They are decorated with portraits of the Incas, painted on the walls. Since the establishment of independence in Peru, many of the families of Cuzco have become impo- verished or retired to Lima and other parts ; their fine houses have become dilapidated ; and as I passed along the streets, I found that many a handsome and elaborately carved doorway led to a court now inha- bited bj^ the poorest people, once the wealthy abode of some Spanish nobleman. The city and department of Cuzco f is now governed by a prefect appointed by the president of the republic, and on my arrival I was received with warm hospi- tality by the excellent General Don Manuel de la Guarda, in the cabildo, or government-house. The cabildo is a handsome stone building, erected on the ruins of an ancient Incarial edifice, which forms the * The university is dedicated to San Antonio Abad. t Tlie population of the department of Cuzco, in 184-5, was 300,700, and of the city and immediate neighbourhood, 58,300. The department contains 13 provinces. (See Correo Peruano, July 30, 1815.) CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INC AS. 155 ground -floor. It covers one side of a spacious square, in the centre of which there is a fountain ; and the ujDper story has a broad stone corridor running the whole length of the building, with open arches sup- ported by columns. The morning after my arrival was Easter Monday, an important festival in Cuzco, when thousands of young men and girls from the adjacent villages flock into the city, and a grand procession parades the streets. The family of General Guarda sat with me on the corridor, with several other ladies, provided with large baskets filled with scarlet salvias, which it is customary to shower over the procession as it passes. The whole square, and the neighbouring streets, were one vast sea of heads, all in eager expectation. At length the procession began to pass under the corridor into the square. First came a regiment of soldiers, followed by the members of the superior court of justice, the students of the colleges, all the religious orders, and the dean and chapter. ' Then followed the great object of adoration itself, called " Nuestro Senor de los temblores " (our Lord of the earthquakes), consisting of a colossal wooden crucifix, well carved and painted, which is said to have been presented to the cathedral of Cuzco by the emperor Charles V. Its pedestal was one mass of scarlet salvias, as were also the heads and shoulders of the people who formed the procession, and as they passed, we showered our supply over the crucifix in addition. These exhi- bitions are regarded by the poor Indians with the 156 CUZCO AND LESIA. greatest devotion, and supply the place of tlie worship of the Sun. It is a question which is the most idolatrous ! The higher dignitaries of the church at Cuzco are men of a very superior stamp. The Bishop Don Eugenio Jara y Mendoza is an aged and dignified prelate ; and I have seldom met a kinder and more agreeahle man than Don Manuel Carazas, the dean of the cathedral. To the rector of the university, Don Juhan Ochoa, I am indebted for a very curious drama of the time of the Incas ; and he appeared a learned and upright clergyman. Of the inferior clergy, how- ever, as much cannot be said. The friars, especially the Dominicans, are very dirty ; and the seculars, with a few honourable exceptions, are illiterate, and not infrequently immoral. The curate of the chm'ch of San Cristobal had the assurance to open a carved box in the sacristy, and show me a large cow's tooth, which he declared to be the tooth of that allegorical saint. Besides the clergy, the present society of Cuzco is not very large. At the head of it, are the prefect and his family, the commandant of poHce, and other officials. The men of law consist of six vocales and a fiscal, composing the superior court of justice, together with a few abogados, or barristers. Among these, is the clever and amusing Dr. Lliranda, w^ho makes impromptu speeches in verse at dmner-parties, and has translated "Hamlet" into Spanish. The resident foreigners consist of a Pohsh architect, a Frenchman, who teaches at the college, and an Italian, who is seai'ching for hidden treasure. CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INCAS. 157 The principal society of Cuzco, however, is to he found among the families of the landed proprietors, who live for a great part of the year on their estates, such as the Astetes, Artajonas, Novoas, and Nadals. The gTound-floor of the private houses, facing the street, is usually occupied hy shops, while the upper story, with folding-doors, opening on to a trelHsed balcony, is inhabited by the family. A broad door- way leads from the street into a court-yard, romid which the more private rooms extend. The houses frequently have a little garden behind, with tall clipped hedges, little statues, and beds of roses, pinks, heliotropes, fuschias, and salvias. The rooms are long and often very handsomely furnished, with old-fashioned chairs, cabinets inlaid with mother of pearl, and almost always a piano-forte.* The young ladies of Cuzco are, in general, very beautiful, with regular features, fresh oHve com- plexions, bright eyes, full of intelligence, furnished with long lashes, and masses of black hair, plaited in two tails. They are highly educated, as there is an excellent college for gii'ls ; f yet their complete seclu- sion gives them a simple and ingenuous manner ; and they are remarkable for their kind-hearted affabihty. The young men have also every opportunity of im- * As there are no wheeled vehicles of any kind, the pianos all have to be carried up from the coast on the shoulders of Indians. + Founded by General Bolivar in 1825. The Rector and Professor of arithmetic, morals, religion, and embroidery ,, of urbanity and sewing . ,, Gertrudis Araujo. ,, of geography and grammar ,, Andrea Bernal. -I ' J- is now Dona Antonia Perez. 158 CUZCO AND LEMA. proving their minds, both at the University and at the College of Science and Arts.* All those with whom I met, were civil, gentlemanlike, and intelligent. A museum and library was founded at Cuzco in 1848 ; the museum containing many Incarial antiqui- ties, and the library about 9000 volumes. There is also an alameda, or promenade with two double rows of alder-trees, along the banks of the Huatanay, and commanding a fine view of the convent of San Domingo, the former Temple of the Sun. The middle and lower orders of Cuzco, at the pre- sent day, are an industrious and talented race ; espe- cially famous for their skill in carving and carpentry. Some of the sofas, cabinets, and tables, richly carved and made of the beautiful woods of the Montana, are not surpassed in design and workmanship by the fur- niture of the drawing-rooms of London or Paris. A considerable quantity of coarse cloth is also woven in the neighbom-hood, and an extensive trade is carried on in cocoa, India rubber, and other articles from the adjacent forests. More attractive from the remembrances of the past than from its advantages in the present day, the beautiful city of Cuzco, almost entii-ely unknown to Englishmen, is one of the most interesting places in the world — interesting from its glorious associations, from the interest attached to every building, every rock, every hill in the city and its vicinity, from the splendid * The College of Science and Arts has a rector and vice-rector, and pro- fessorsliips of theology, law, mathematics, philosophy, Latin, Spanish, and French, drawing, and geograi^hy. The students wear cocked hats and black tail coats. CUZCO THE CITY OF THE INCAS. 159 ruins in which it abounds, and, above all, from the presence of the same race of people which raised it to its lofty pinnacle of gTeatness, and whose descendants now mourn for its fall. The picturesque dresses of the Indians, as they drive the large flocks of llamas through the streets, or sit on some grassy slope with their young wives by their sides, are very attractive. Their mournful and pathetic songs, accompanied by a little guitar, which are wafted across the silent fields ; and their sad and downcast looks, as they tend the flocks aromid the colossal fortifications of their ancestors, give this much-injured race an interest unfelt among many a more prosperous people. But there may yet be a futiu-e for Cuzco, which may raise it once more to its former glorious state ; and hope points to the eastward, to the inexhaustible fer- tility of its mighty forests, to the broad rivers which open a communication to the Amazon, to the enter- prise of the Saxon race, as the sources of its renewed prosperity. If once the vast rivers, whose feeders dash down from the Cordilleras around Cuzco, were thoroughly explored, what prodigious effects their navigation might produce on the industry and future prospects of the old city of the Incas ! The inhabitants of the in- terior of Peru would at length succeed in turning the adamantine barrier of the Andes, an inland navigation would waft her varied productions by a direct and easy route to the Old World, a short communication would be opened out between Cuzco and Em'ope, and 100 CUZCO AND LIMA. the city of the Iiicas would once more become the cajiital of Peru. That this is not a wikl theory, though the imagi- nation is ahnost lost in the grandeur of the trains of thought to which it gives rise, may be seen from the attention which the United States and the government of South America are even now giving to the subject ; and we may fairly indulge a hope that beautiful Cuzco, the city of palaces, the sacred abode of the children of the Sun, the beloved home of the Incas, may once more, and at no distant date, become a city of first-rate im- portance, and one of the chief emporiums of the rising inland trade of the continent of South America. " Se commueven del Incas las tumbas Y eu sus huesos revive el ardor, Lo que ve renovando a sus hijos, De la patria, el antiguo esplendor." LIST OF THE INCAS. (according to GARCILASSO INCA DE LA VEGA.) A.D. A.D. 1021 I. Manco Ccapac. 1475 XII. Huayna Ccapac. 1062 II. Sinchi Rocca. 1526 XIII. Huascar. 1091 III. Lloque Yupanqui. 1532 XIV. Inca Manco. 1126 IV. Mayta Ccapac. 1553 XV. Sayri Tupac. 115^ V. Ccapac Yupanqui. 1560 XVI. Cusi Titu Yupanqui. 1197 VI. Inca Rocca. 1562 XVII. Tupac Amaru, ob. 1249 1289 1340 VII. Yahuar-huaccac, VIII. Viracocha. IX. Pachacutec. 1571. Atabualpa, tbe traitor, 1400 1439 X. Inca Yupanqui. XI. Tupac Inca Yupanqui. is never admitted by the Peruvians into the list of their Incas. CHAPTER VI. QUICHUA— ON THE LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF THE INCAS. (See Appendix A.) The vale of Vilcamayu — the paradise of Peru — the favourite residence of the Incas, is one of the most delightful spots in this favoured land. The rapid river which forms it rises in the mountains of Vilcaiiota, and flowing rapidly through the department of Cuzco, leaving the city at a distance of about twenty miles on the western side, forms a junction with the Apurimac after a course of about 400 miles. The valley through which it winds is seldom more I than three miles in breadth, and is bounded on its eastern side by the snow-capped range of the Andes, and to the westward by a lower range of steep and > :, rocky mountains. Within these narrow hmits the vale '! of Vilcamayu enjoys a delicious climate, and the picturesque farms with their maize towers surrounded by little forests of fruit-trees ; the villages scattered here and there along the banks of the rapid river ; the bright green fields ; and the groves of trees, backed by the lofty mountains which rise abruptly from the valley, and are always canopied by a clear blue sky, combine to form a landscape of exceeding beauty. 108 CUZCO AND LIMA. One of the most delightful spots in this favoured vale, is the little town of Urubamba, with its avenue of poplars, its fruit-gardens, and pleasant meadows. It is about two miles from the village of Yucay, Avhere the ruins of the summer palace of the Incas are still to be seen, and a fruit-market is held in the square under the shade of some immense forest-trees. There is a house in Urubamba, with large airy rooms, and a stone corridor opening upon a beautiful flower garden with clipped box hedges, and masses of roses and jessamine. In the walls were little aviaries filled with singing birds, the bright yellow and black tuyas, and the warbling choccla-poccochis, the nightin- gales of Peru. At one corner of the garden is a Httle watch-tower, with a summer-house on the top, and beyond is a large grove of peach and nectarine trees, while the towering Andes bounded the view in front, piercing the clear blue sky with their snowy peaks. It was to this charming retreat that I retired, in April, 1853, to study the literature of the ancient Peruvians, while surrounded by the beautiful scenery of the beloved valley (Huayllu-pampa) of the Incas, and entertained by hospitable i)Gople who spoke their language in all its purity. 'J'he language of the Peruvians, which was spoken throughout the empire, and called by the Spaniards " La Lengua General," was the Quichua ; but it is said that in the time of the Incas, there was another language used only by the court, which has now dis- f apijeared. This may possibly have only been a purer dialect of the Quichua ; but at the same time there LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF THE INCAS. 168 are words in that language which have probably strayed from the court language of the Incas, which bear a striking analogy to corresponding Sanscrit words, and point with some significance to their foreign origin. Among these may be mentioned the resemblance between Ynti, the Sun, (in Quichua,) and Indra, the Hindoo god of the heavens. Raymi was the great Peruvian festival in honour of the Sun, and Rama was a cliild of the Sun in India. Sita, too, was the wife of Rama in the Hindoo mythology, and Citua was another Peruvian festival of the Sun. Other words have been mentioned by several authors as resembling in the two languages, and some of the numerals are also similar ; but it is impossible to say whether this apparent resem- blance is merely accidentalf or whether it is a proof of the Hindoo origin of the Incas. However it may be with regard to the court dialect, it is certain that the Quichua language was cultivated by the bards and sages from the earliest times, and was always used by the government, and introduced into the conquered provinces. The Quichua is one of the most widely spread of the South American languages, and possesses all the characteristics of that great family. From Darien to Cape Horn there are said to be from 280 to 300 languages, all of which have a similar grammatical construction, though the words are frequently entirely different. Of these, the two most extensively used are the Guarani, which is spoken in Paraguay, and in dialects more or less distinct is to be found throughout the M 2 164 CUZCO AND LESIA. Brazils, and along the banks of the Amazon ; and the Quichua which is spoken throughout the countries once formmg the empire of the Incas, from Quito to Tucuman, — either in its purity, or in the Aymara dialect, which is used on the shores of lake Titicaca, and m northern parts of Bolivia. There are several other dialects of the Quichua, such as the Quiteno, which is very impui'e, and full of foreign words ; the Yunca, the Chincha-suyu, spoken in the depart- ment of Junin ; the Cauqui, in Yauyos ; and the Cal- chaqui, in Tucuman. The Quichua language possesses gi'eat facility of expression, a complicated grammar, and, though pos- sessed of a copious abmidance of compound words, is capable of great energy and conciseness. It has a highly perfected conjugation, and declen- sions formed by particles added to the word ; while its system of numerals is so complete, that any arith- metical combination can be expressed. In common with the Semitic and other Asiatic tongues, the Quichua differs from the Indo-Gemianic languages, in forming its grammar, not by an internal change of the root or by flexion, but by adding certain particles to the root, as mere mechanical affixes. There is another remarkable peculiarity in the Quichua language, which adds much to the compli- cated conjugation of the verbs. This has been called by the Jesuit grammarians a verbal transition, and consists in the incorporation of tlie accusative, if a pronoun, as well as the nominative, into the verb itself; thus, "I love you," or "he loves me," becomes LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF THE INCAS. 165 one, instead of three words, as, munayqui, muna- huanmi. One more peculiar feature in the Quichua may be mentioned, and that is, that a man frequently uses a different word from a woman in speaking of the same person. Thus : — A brother, when speaking of his sister, says Panay. Sister , her sister, ,, Nanay. Sister , her brother , , Huauquey. Brother , his brother ,, Llocsimasiy. Father , his son ,, Churiy. Mother , her son ,, Ccari huahuay. Father , his daughter ,, Ususiy. Mother , her daughter , , Huarmi huahuay and there are also differences if they are the uncles or aunts that speak, or if they are on the side of the father or the mother. Frequently, various parts of a sentence in Quichua are united to the verbal root, and thus entire sentences may often be expressed by a single compound verb. An imjnense number of phrases and compound words are thus formed, which may be augmented ad infinitum and gives the language an uncommon richness and facility of expression. Though the Incas possessed no alphabet or mode of writing,* the well-known contrivance of the Quipus, * G. de la Vega indeed (lib. ii. c. xi.) mentions certain hieroglyphics used by the wise men of Cuzco. Rivero mentions hieroglyphics carved on rocks near Arequipa, and also in Huaytara, in the province of Castro-Vireyna. Dr. Von Tschudi also mentions some near Huara, on the coast of Peru. Montesinos, an old Spanish chronicler, asserts that in the first age of the Incas the use of letters was known, but that the art was lost in the reign of Titu Yapanqui V. Montesinos, however, is a notorious fabricator. In the last century, a European missionary found among the Panes 166 CUZCO AND LIMA. { ^ or metliod of counting and even recording events by means of cords, was equally ingenious and j original. The quipus of the Peruvians were of twisted wool, and consisted of a thick cord, with threads more or less fine, attached to the mam part. The smaller lines were covered with knots either single or double. The size of the quipus vary much, sometunes the main cord being five or six yards long, and at others not more than a foot; the branches rarely exceeding a yard in length, and being sometimes shorter. In the neighbourhood of Lurin, on the coast of Peru, a quipu was found which weighed twelve pounds. The different colours of the threads had different meanings ; thus, the red signified a soldier or war ; the yellow, gold ; the white, silver or peace, &c. In the system of arithmetic, a single knot signified 10, two single knots 20, a double knot 100, a triple knot 1000, and so on to higher numbers. But not only the colour and mode of combming the knots, but also the lapng up of the strands of the cord, and the distances of the threads apart, were of great importance in reading the quipus. It is probable, that in the earliest times, this inge- nious contrivance was merely used for enumeration, as the shepherd notches the number of his sheep on a stick ; but in the course of time, the science was so Indians who inhabit the banks of tlie Yucayali, some manuscripts on paper formed from the leaves of the plantain, with hierogl^ijhics and separate characters, containing, according to the Indians, the history of their ancestors. LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF THE INCAS. 1G7 much improved, that the initiated were able to knot historical records, laws, and decrees, so that the great events of the empire were transmitted to posterity ; and, to some extent, the quipus supplied the place of chronicles and national archives. The registry of tributes, the census of populations, the lists of arms, of soldiers, and of stores, the sup- phes of maize, clothes, shoes, &c. in the storehouses, were all specified with admirable exactness by the quipus ; and in every town, of any importance, there was an officer, called the quipu-camayoc, to knot and decipher these documents. Rivero tells us, that there have been repeated attempts to decipher those quipus which have been lately found, but that they have all been frustrated from the fact that each knot represents a particular idea ; and also from the absence of any verbal com- mentary as to what subject the quipu treated of, infor- mation which was required even by the most practised quipu-camayoc. The Quichua language, however, owes its beauty and elegance, more to the traditional ballads and dramas of the bards, than to the records of the quipu-camayocs. The Amautas, or wise men, who, in their dramas and other compositions, immortalised the historical events of their country, held a high position in the Incarial court ; and the Haravecs or elegiac and lyric poets cultivated the Muses with some success. The compositions of the latter are probably of most ancient date, and the poetry of theii' yaravis or elegies 168 CUZCO AND LIMA. certainly reached to some degree of perfection. Their subject is usually forgotten love, or the recital of some mournful catastrophe ; and they are written in four syllable lines, sometimes alternating with three, ^he ancient Peruvians were fond of music, using chanrares or castanets, and the huancar or drum in their triumphal processions and ceremonies ; while the pincullu or flute, and the tinya, a species of guitar, were used as accompaniments to the haravis and love- songs of their poets. Garcilasso de la Vega has preserved two fragments of Incarial poems, which are curious from their great antiquity. The first appears to be an imaginative piece addressed to the Moon, in which her brother, the Sun, by breaking a vase, is supposed to cause the fall of rain and snow. Stunae Nusta Turallay quim Sunuy quita Paquiy carcan . Hino mantara Cunununan YUapantac . Camri Nusta . Unuy Quita ^Paracta munqui Ca nimpiri . Chichi munqui Riti munqui Pacha rurac A Viracocha Cay hiuapanca • Churan ssunqui Cona ssunqui . Beautiful Princess ! thy brother thy urn has broken. For that blow (it thunders) there flashes around (and bolts fall) thunder and lightning. But thou, Princess ! pouring forth, dost di-op rain, and again dost drop hail, dost drop snow. The Maker of the Earth, Viracocha, hath committed and entrusted this office to you. LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF THE INCAS. 169 The second is merely a fragment of a love-song, in- tended for the flute or the guitar. Caylla llapi . , . .To the song Pununqui . . . . . you will sleep. Chaupi tuta . . . .In dead of night Hamusac , . . . . I will come. But the poets of the Incarial court were capable of far higher flights in the regions of poesy, than these meagTe specimens would mdicate ; and luckily, on^ or two of their dramatic compositions, taken down from the mouths of the Indians, soon after the con- quest, have been preserved to the present day. The most famous of these is the tragedy of " Ollantay," composed in the time of the Inca Yu- panqui, a copy of which I was informed was in the possession of Don Pablo Justiniani, the priest of Laris, and a descendant of the Incas ; whose secluded little village, perched like an eyrie in one of the remote recesses of the eastern cordillera of the Andes, I determined to visit. Leaving Urubamba early one April morning, I com- menced the ascent of the mountains by a zigzag path, bordered on either side by sweet and graceful flower- bearing trees and bushes. The views from difi"erent points of the road, looking down on the vale of Vilca- mayu were most striking ; but as the ascent continued, the trees gave place to long grassy patches, and before reaching the summit of the pass, I rode round the shores of a silent lake, whose surface was skimmed by the large wliite water-fowl. The summit of the pass was covered with snow, 170 CUZCO AND LIMA. and after a long descent, the road led through wide- spreading pasture lands, where here and there a shep- herd's hut might be seen, and near it, a little Indian gui tending a flock of alpacas, and singing one of her plaintive national songs. After many miles of wild pasture country, the way enters a long ravine, with lofty mountains rising up on every side, at the end of which the little village of Laris, with its tall church steeple, appear amidst a gi'ove of flowermg trees and bushes. I passed into the courtyard of the old priest's house, and found him reading his breviary in a small rose garden, with a Coraquenque, the sacred bii'd of the Incas, whose ■\\ing feathers in the tiu'ban of the reigning prince were the symbols of royalty, seated on a perch before him. The first greeting of the old man was not very friendly, but on hearing the motive of my visit his manner completely changed, and he conducted me into his house, with every demonstration of kindness and hosi^itality. Bound his sitting-room a series of full-length por- traits of the Incas were hung, and long strings of the skins of birds of the most brilliant plumage, crossed each other in every direction. I was now tete-a-tete with a descendant of the Incas. Don Pablo Justiniani was descended from a CavaHer who married a daughter of the Princess Maria Usca, a grand- daughter of the great Inca Huayna Ccapac, and his paternal ancestry was still more brilHant. He sprang from that famous Genoese family, one of whose LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF THE INCAS. 171 scions was a Doge of Genoa, and another com- manded the Genoese contmgent when Constantinople was besieged by Mahomet II. He is caUed in his pedigree Juan the Valorous, but Gibbon rather in- sinuates he should have been called John the Coward.* This family traces its descent from the Emperor Justmian. Don Pablo was deeply interested in everything con- nected with the history of the Incas, and brought out a huge manuscript volume containing, together with numberless ancient Quichua songs, the famous tragedy of which I was in search. The old priest was very handsome, with an eye full of enthusiasm, and was possessed of great conversa- tional powers. Besides the kitchens, his house con- sisted only of a long sitting-room, with a small chamber at each end, one inhabited by himself, and the other by his pretty niece. My bed was made up in a corner of the sitting room : and while my days were occupied in copying the most valuable specimens of Quichuan literature, I walked out in the evenings, and bathed in the natural hot-springs about a mile distant, so famous for their salubrious qualities.f Don Pablo informed me that the dramas in the time * Cfibbon, vol. vi. chap. Ixviii. + The beneficial effects of these thermal springs of the Andes were well known to the Incas, and were used by them for the cure of diseases, as well as for recreation. They were called in Quichua conic puquio. Their baths or tanks were frequently of silver, and were called armana huasi. Those in the palaces of Cuzco and Yucay were adorned with silver figures, and the mouth of the pipes usually represented some bird or animal with water issuing from its mouth ; when vertical, they were called havaca, and when horizontal, paccha. 172 CUZCO AND LIMA. of the Incas were acted before the court, in the great square at Cuzco ; that the custom was kept up long after the Spanish conquest, and that he himseK could remember havmg seen, when a very little boj^ a Quichua tragedy acted by Indians in the town of Tinta. The drama in his possession, which tradition says was performed before the Court of Huayna Ccapac, is called "Apu Ollantay," and is undoubtedly the most valuable specimen of the literature of the Incas in existence. It is said to have been first reduced to writing shortly after the conquest, by Spanish priests, from the mouths of the Indians. Several of the old manuscripts are still preserved in Cuzco, and that from which I took my version, was copied from a curious manuscript * in the possession of Dr. Valdez, by Don Pablo's father. I had the opportunity of collating it with a copy in possession of Dr. Rosas, the priest of Chinchero, and with the edition published by Dr. Von Tschudi in his great work on the Quichua language.! The events on which the drama is founded took place during the reign of the Inca Pachacutec ; and the plot hinges upon the unlawful love of a young chieftain named Ollantay, who was brave and handsome but not of royal lineage, with the Princess Cusi Coyllur (the joyful star), a daughter of the Inca. The play commences with a colloquy between Ollan- tay and his servant Piqui Chaqui, or the swift of foot,+ * Now in possession of Don Narciso Cuentas, of Tinta. + Kechua Sprache. 2 vols. Vienna, 1853. t Literally, "flea-footed." LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF THE INC AS. 173 in a street at Cuzco. Ollantay in a gilded tunic, with a macana or war-club in his hand, opens the conversation. Ollantay. Piqui Chaqui ! hast thou beheld The Princess Cusi Coyllur iu the palace ? Piqui Chaqui. The Sun, our Deity, forbids it. Know you not that it is iinlawful To look upon a daughter of the Inca ? Ollantay. And know you not that nothing Can move my love for the tender dove ] 0, by what road shall my heart go, That it may seek the Palla ?* Piqui Chaqui. The Devilf has perplexed you, And you wander in your speech. J Are there not plenty of other young girls. Who would love you, before you are old 1 Should the Inca hear of your love, He would chop you into mince-meat. Ollantay. Silence ! speak not to me of punishment, Else will I lay my macana across your back. Piqui Chaqui. Away then, Piqui ! fall not by his hand. Fall not like a dog. Away, Piqui ! Each day, each night, he shall miss me ; The year shall not see me in his presence. Ollantay. Go then — leave me ! Piqui Chaqui ! Lead forth the dances of straw With the light-footed girls on the mountains. But for me — though enemies attack me. Though traitors stand on every side, Yet will I embrace my Cusi Coyllur. Piqui Chaqtii. If the Devil § should stand by you? Ollantay. Him also would I spurn with my foot.|| Piqui Chaqui. You never yet saw the tip of his nose, How then dare you speak to him ? U Ollantay. Cease your nonsense, Piqui ! while I speak. What if you could hide this bright flower, Perchance my sweet Coyllur might see it. And, thinking of me, speak to herself aloud ! * Princess. + Supay. + Muspaha, to go mad. § Supay. II Eustu, to stamp. H Mana senccata ricuspan Cunan ceancca rimascanqui. 174 CUZCO AND LIMA. Piqiii Chaqui. Still perplexing yourself concerniug Coyllur. How can I help you ? Each day you grow more sad for this girl. You forget alike the worship of Ynti,* And the duty you owe to Quilla.'i' Ollantay. You know her by sight ? How beautiful, how joyful she is. But now you walked past her, And beheld her ever lovely and joyful. Piqui Chaqui. Indeed I know her not by sight. + . I have indeed passed by the palace. But never entered its precincts, Or beheld the Princess. Ollantay. Do you assert, then, that you never saw her ? Piqui Chaqui. I have only beheld, in their secret abodes, The bright and adorable stars § of night. Ollantay. Go then with this flower to a star ; That star most lovely of all. More beautiful even than Ynti ! Peerless amidst the hosts of heaven. Piqui Cliaqui. If it should be possible, I will bribe some old man or woman ; I will be awake || and try it. And your token shall be cai'ried to the Palla. I then consent to be your messenger, Though I am but a poor orphan. U At this point the conversation is broken off by the entrance of the Huillac Umu, or High Priest of the Sun, in a black mantle, with a knife in his hand, who thus soliloquises : — Huillac Umu. 0, living Sun ! I watch your course. As it moves downwards in the heavens; * For you are now preparing A thousand sacrificial llamas. Their blood shall flow for your glory. For you, too, is gathered the herbs of the field. Glory to thee, living Sun ! I * The sun. + Manan noccacca recsimancha. ± Ricchacussau. § The moon. II Coyllur is a star. 11 Huacchataaca. LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF THE INCAS. 175 Ollantay. I will speak to this gazer. 0, mighty Prince ! 0, Huillac Umu ! The whole people know thy power, Receive then my praises. Huillac Umu. brave Ollantay ! thy speech awakens me Fi'om meditations on the bright Deity. Ollantay then acquaints the Priest of his deep love for the Princess, and after firmly resisting the prudent councils of that dignitary, the Huillac Umu at length determines to try if a miracle will cure his love. Huillac Umu. Bring me that flower. Behold that it is quite faded. Thus, though entirely dried up, It shall weep. Come here. \_Presses it and water flows out. Ollantay. More easy would it be for water To spring from a dry rock, And not even for that Would I desert my love. Accordingly, on occasion of one of the great cere- monies of the court, the young lover determined to seek the consent of the haughty Pachacutec, for a marriage with his daughter. He besought the Inca in moving terms for the hand of the beloved Cusi Coyllur ; but the stern monarch was inflexible ; the young general was sharply rebuked for his presumption, and the Inca with his train of courtiers passed awaj^, leaving Ollantay ,. overwhelmed with grief and disappointment. The unfortunate Cusi Coyllur was also reproved by her father, and sent into confinement in i\\e Aclla-huasi, or convent of the Virgins of the Sun, where she was attended in her sorrow by her ever tender mother, the Coya Anavarqui, who in vain attempted to console her. 176 CUZCO AND LBIA. Here she gave utterance to the following touching lament. (See Appendix A.) (Tmsi Coyllur. Ay Nustallay ! Ay Mamallay ! How can I fail to mourn, How can I fail to weep 1 My father so dear to me, My guardian so beloved, In all these days and nights, In this my tender age, Has quite forgotten me, Without asking for me. Ay Mamallay ! Ay Nustallay ! Ah, my adored lover ! In the morning that I came here The day became dark ; The sun seemed obscure in the heavens. As if it were shrouded with ashes. The clouds of burning fire Announced my grief. The resplendent star Chasca * Spread out its rays. All the elements were weary, And the universe was tired. Ay Mamallay ! Ay Nustallay ! Ah, my adored lover ! f In the meanwhile OUantay was left on the solitary spot in the Cusipata, where a few minutes before a crowded throng of all the nobles of the land had witnessed one of the most imposing ceremonies of the Incarial court. " Alas, Princess ! alas, Cusi Coyllur ! my dove ! " he exclaimed, " thou art lost to me for ever." Then the thoughts of rebellion and defiance began to stir themselves in his agitated breast, as he thus soliloquised : — OUantay. Ah, Cuzco ! ah, beautiful city ! From this day to the end of time • Venus. + Ay huayllucciscay Cozallay LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF THE INCAS. 177 Thou art filled with my enemies. Thy perverse bosom will I tear ; Thy heart will I give to the coudors. Oh, enemy ! Oh, Inca, my enemy ! Thousands of Antis will I entice ; I will pass my soldiers in review, And will distribute arrows. Lo ! where on the Sacsahuaman hill, My men are gathering like a cloud ; There shall they raise a flame, There shall you sleep in blood. You shall fall at my feet, luca ! Then shall it be seen If my valleys shall be taken from me. If thy proud neck cannot bend. It is impossible that then, as now, You will say, " My daughter is not for you, For you this cannot be." You will not say this, when pensive and sad, You seek life on your knees before me. Appearing amidst his army in Anti-suyu, Ollantay declared his wrongs in a nervous and eloquent speech ; and led by a general named Urco-huarancca, the troops rose in rebellion, and declared Ollantay Inca. Placing him in a tiana, or throne, they took off his yacollo, or mantle, and invested him with a royal robe ; the llautu, or fringe only worn by the reigning Inca, was placed around his brow, and with one accord the insurgents shouted, — Honor to the Inca Ollantay ! Honor to the Inca ! Honor to the Inca ! Long may he live ! Long may he live ! While the great army of the Anti-Suyu, or eastern quarter of the empire, was breaking out in open rebeUion under the impetuous Ollantay, a cruel fate overtook her for whom he risked his life and proved traitor to his sovereign. 178 CUZCO AND LLVIA. A few months after the imprisonment of Cusi Coyllm", the illicit love between her and her adored OUantay, produced a child — a girl who received the name of Yma Sumac (liow beautiful). The rage of the old Inca at .this unmistakeable evidence of disobedience to his will knew no bounds. His daughter was cast into a dungeon beneath the Aclla-huasi, and all the prayers of her mother Ana- varqui for a mitigation of the punishment were sternly refused. Meanwhile the insurgent army advanced down the vale of Vilcamayu, and from Urubamba a defiant message was sent to his sovereign by his once devoted general. OUantay finally halted at a part of the valley well adapted for his purpose, where he commenced those gigantic buildings which remain to astonish future ages, and which have ever since been known by the name of OUantay-tambo. On arriving at this point in the drama, I bade fare- well to Don Pablo Justiniani, the kind old priest and learned antiquary, and trotting once more across the Andes, proceeded down the vale of Vilcamayu, and arrived at Ollantay-tambo, about twenty miles from Urabamba, where I was hospitably received by the excellent Seiiora Artajona, and her daughter Rufina. The house, standing in the midst of fruit-gardens and fields of maize, was situated immediately beneath the extensive ruins, and the pleasant stone corridor looked out upon a charming view. Here I was enabled to conclude my study of the i! LANGUAGE AND LITEEATURE OF THE INCAS. 179 drama under able tuition, and while wandering amongst the buildings erected by its hero. In this part of the vale of Vilcamayu the scenery is eminently picturesque ; the valley itself is scarcely a league across, covered with fields of maize, with the broad and rapid river running through its centre ; while on either side dark masses of mountains rise up almost perpendicularly, to such a height, that but a narrow portion of the azure vault smiles down upon the peaceful scene between them. At the point fixed on by the insurgent chief Ollantay for the site of the fortress and city whose erection he contemplated, a ravine called Marca-cocha descends from the bleak pampas of the Cordillera to the vale of Vilcamayu, and at the point of junction two lofty masses of rock rise up abru]3tly in dark and frowning majesty. Between these two mountains, at the entrance to the ravine of Marca-cocha, is the town of Ollantay-tambo, and on the eminence on the western side there still exist the remains of the fortress of Ollantay, the most astonishing monument of antiquity in Peru. The rock itself is composed of a dark limestone, faced to the south and east with masonry. At a height of about 300 feet is a small plateau covered with ruins apparently left in an unfinished state. Remarkable for their enormous size, and the perfect accuracy with which they are cut, are six huge slabs of granite standing upright, and united by smaller pieces fitted between them : each block being full twelve feet in height. At their feet are other blocks of the same N 2 180 CUZCO AND LEMA. material, in one place formed into the commencement of a wall, but all of amazing size, and at the same time most accurately shaped. This spot aj)pears to have been intended as the principal part of the citadel. Behind it, and built up the steep sides of the mountain, are numerous ruined buildings of small stones plastered over with a yellow mud, with gables at the ends, and apertures for doors and windows ; and still further to the west a flanking wall of the same material rises up from the level plain to near the summit of the mountain, which is very steep, and indeed difficult of ascent, thus defending the fortress on that side. On the east side of the position, and immediately below the principal ruins, are a succession of stone terraces, the upper one being approached by a handsome doorway with an enormous granite lintel. The wall of this terrace, which is built of polygonally shaped blocks fitting exactly into each other, contains recesses two feet high, and one foot deep, and when the inner sides are tapped with the finger, it produces a pecuUar metallic ringing sound. In front of these terraces, a succession of well con- structed andeneria, sixteen feet deep, and faced with ma|onry, descend into the plain. Once they were covered with sweet creeping flowers, and sown with maize and quinoa, producing a lovely effect, and suppljdng the fortress with provisions, but now they are left to ruin, and overgrown with cactuses and heliotrope. On the other side of these andeneria, which are still strikingly beautifid, the masses of rock rise up almost LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF THE INCAS. 181 perpendicularly to a dizzy point, on wliicli is placed a huge block called the Ynti-huatana, or place for observing the sun. The most wonderful part of these vast remains is the distance from which the stones that compose them have been conveyed. The huge blocks of granite of such wonderful dimensions, and yet so beautifully cut, are built on a steep hill composed of limestone, and the nearest granite quarry is at a distance of nearly two leagues, and. at the other side of the river. From this point, which is high up the face of the momitain, these enormous quarters of rock, after they had been accuratel}'^ cut, were conveyed down to the river, across it, and then along the banks to the foot of the fortress, a distance of nearly a league, where they were brought into their present position: yet by dint of untirmg perseverance, and great engineering ability, this extra- ordinary labour was accomphshed. Our information is too limited to enable us to form any certain opinion as to the means used for the achievement of this gigantic enterprise ; but there is yet sufficient left to give conjecture a strong appear- ance of probability. The tools of the time of the Incas which have been discovered and analysed are usually of copper, with a certain per centage of tin or silica as hardening matter, but it is evident that these would have been quite insufficient to cut and shape such material as gneiss or granite. The first rough shape may have been given by these instruments, but the planing and poHshmg was 182 CUZCO AND LEVIA. probably effected by rubbing with other stones and with powder, and the finishing touches were given by means of an herb containing silica. When however it is remembered that these huge blocks were cut into various angles, to receive the dovetailings of their neighbours with the most perfect accuracy, no mean notion will be entertained of the skill and ingenuity of the Incas. When they were perfectly shaped, the stones had to be conveyed down the mountain to the banks of the Vilcamayu, probabl}^ by means of sogas, or huge cables of the twisted fibre of the maguey, passed round them, and manned by thousands of Indians. The river then presents an almost insuperable ob- stacle, and it is far from easy to conceive how the stones could have been conveyed across it, at a point where it is twenty yards in width, very deep, and dashing along with furious rapidity. But the Incas, by some contrivance, overcame also this difficult}', and finally conveyed the granite blocks along the right bank, for two miles, to the fortress, placing them at length in their present positions. On the road there are still two immense blocks that never reached their destination, which place the route traversed by the others beyond a doubt. They are well kno'RTi as the famous Saycusca-rumi-cuna, or tired stones. The one nearest the fortress is nine feet eight inches long, seven feet eight inches broad, and four feet two inches deep. It is beautifully cut, and has a groove three inches deep round it, apparently for passing a rope. The other is twenty feet four inches in length. LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF THE INCAS. 183 fifteen feet two inches broad, and three feet six inches deep, like a huge beam. Such is the present state of these wonderful ruins, giant efforts of a race of men whom no difficulties could daunt, and whose half-achieved ambition it seems to have been to turn the proud Andes them- selves into mere terraced pleasure-gardens and e3'rie- like fortresses. At the foot of these Cyclopean works is a court sur- rounded by buildings, supposed to have been the palace of Ollantay. The Mailay-racay, or court of petitions, as it was called, is sixty paces square, and is surrounded by buildings of gravel and plaster, each containing a lofty doorway near twelve feet high, surmounted by a huge stone Imtel. Their interior consists of large chambers openmg into each other. The Manaj^-racay is divided from the little town of Ollantay -tambo by a limpid stream, tributary of the Vilcamayu, which flows through the ravine of Marca- cocha, and is crossed by the arch of a bridge. Ollantay-tambo consists of a few streets leading to pleasant shady lanes, and a square lined with tall willows. Built as it is, of huge blocks of granite, the little town has an air of quiet and solemn antiquity. On its eastern side, and opposite the fortress, is ^nother mass of rock towering up to a lofty point — lichf with the Ynti-huatana, form two giant portals to le regions of eternal snow — the mighty pinnacles of 'the Cordilleras wdiich rise up in the rear. This western mountain is called the Pinculluna, or 184 CUZCO AND LIMA. "place of the flutes," and halfway up it, in an almost. inaccessible position, are three buildings, which tradition says were used as a convent of Virgins of the Sun. On one side of these buildings are three terraces about four yards broad, on which the doors of the con- vent opened, and they perhaps supplied its lonely inmates with food and flowers. From this point too they might view one of Nature's loveliest scenes, the fertile valley with its tall trees, its noble river, and its mountain barriers fringed with cultivated terraces. Poor caged birds, perched up above the world, from which they were for ever secluded, but to which many of them would doubtless have gladly returned ! About a hundred yards beyond the convent, the Pinculluna becomes quite perpendicular, and forms a yawning precipice some 900 feet high, descending sheer into the valley — the Tarj^eian rock of Ollantay. It was used as the huarcuna, or place of execution, and there is a small building lil^e a martello tower on its verge, whence the victims were hurled into eternity. But perhaps the most wonderful, if not the most interesting part of these stupendous remains, is a work which excited my astonishment more even than the great fortress, the palace of the IMaiiay-racay, or the convent of the Pinculluna. About half a mile up the ravine, on the west side, the cliff becomes steep, and the bare rock juts out in several j)laces; and here the indefatigable workmen have cut huge se pies, broad steps up to them, and galleriBB^IPctin them, out of the sohd rock. One is called the Nusta- tiana, or throne of the princess ; and another the Inca i LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF THE INCAS. ]85 misana, from its close resemblance to a modern altar. Such were the works on which the rebel chief, Ollantay, was ceaselessly employed for about ten years, dm-mg which time he gTadually collected an immense army of Anti and Tampa Indians. The aged Inca, Pachacutec, made few attempts to dislodge liis rebel- lious subject, for he required ease and quiet after the toils and anxieties of a long and glorious reign. His son, too, the yomig Yupanqui, was many hundreds of miles away with the flower of tlie Incarial army, adding vast territories to the empire along the shores of the Pacific ; and bringing into subjection the great King Chimu, whose power extended from the river Rimac almost to the bay of Guayaquil, and whose capital (now Truxillo) was so rich, that shortly after the Spanish conquest, 135,547 castellanos de oro were dug out of one huaca in its vicinity. At length the aged Pachacutec died, after a reign of sixty years (a.d. 1340-1400), and Inca Yupanqui returned in triumph to Cuzco, where he was crowned with unusual pomp. The sceptre of the Incas had now fallen mto very different hands — into the firm and energetic grasp of one of the greatest warriors that the Children of the Sun had yet produced ; and the youthful monarch at once began to assemble his veterans to crush the |iiflH^flH|Lfin insurgent who for ten years had dared 'to ral^lj^tandard of revolt within three days' march of the capital of the empire. Such was the position of affau's at the opening of the 186 CUZCO AND LIMA. last act of the cli-ama ; wlien a new character appears upon the stage. Eumi-iiaui, or he of the stony eye, the general of Colla-suyu, the southern quarter of the empire, was a man of a cold and unforgiving nature, who had long nourished an unrelentmg hatred against OUantay. In one of the earlier scenes, there is a very charac- teristic dialogue between tliis worthy and the faithful servant of the rebel chief. Piqui Chaqui had gone secretly to Cuzco to collect news, and, accidentally meeting Rumi-iiaui in the street, displays some clever- ness in evading his questions. Eumi-flaui. Whence, Piqui Chaqui, have you come ? Do you seek au early death, Joined with tlie traitor Ollautay ? Piqui Chaqui. Being a native of Cuzco, I have come to my home. I no longer wish to remain In yonder dull ravine. Sumi-naui. How goes it with this OUantay 1 Piqui Chaqui. I am spinning this heap of wool. Rumi-naui. What heap ? what wool 1 Piqui Chaqni. Do you ask me ? If you will give me that shirt, I will tell you. Rumi-n%ui. I will give you a thick stick, And shut you in the pillory. Piqui Chaqui. 0, don't frighten me so. Rami-niui. Then speak quickly. Piqui Chaqui. But you will not listen. I am turning blind ; H * My ears are getting deaf ; My grandmother is dead ; And my mother is alone. Rumi-iiaui. Where is OUantay 1 tell me ! Piqui Chaqui. My father is away from home, And the paccays * are not ripe ; I have a long walk to go to-day. * A fruit. w^i LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF THE INCAS. 1H7 Rumi naui. If you vex me again, I will cudgel your life out of you. Piqui Chaqui. Ollantay ? Ob, be is at work. OUantay 1 be is raising a wall, To last for ever. Unable to extract any very satisfactory information j from the servant, Rmni-fiaui determined on a treacherous plan by which he hoped to betray Ollantay into the hands of the young Inca. Cutting off one of his ears, and mutilating his face, he fled to the rebel camp, as if he wished only to escape from the cruelty of the Inca.* Ollantay appears to have been completely taken in, and received his former enemy with all the confidence of a generous and un- suspecting disposition. The traitor's scheme succeeded but too well ; while Ollantay and his army were engaged in the celebration of some great festival, he sent secret information to the Inca, who fell upon them with his veteran troops, took them completely by surprise, and Ollantay, Urco- Huarancca, and the other rebel chiefs, were led in triumph to Cuzco. Meanwhile the unfortunate young Princess Cusi Coyllur had lingered for ten long years in the dungeon of the AcUa-huasi; while her lovely daughter Yma Sumac, unconscious of the existence of her mother, had been brought up in the same convent, under the care of a virgin named Pitu Salla, who was also her •• mother's gaoler. One day the young Yma Sumac happened to follow * Like the Zwirvpov (Trp