The Conquest assisted by the Horse. 501 entertaining less fear of the Spaniards, and listening more to the mistaken notions of Mayzabilica. Saddled or not saddled, however, in the wars between the Spaniards and the Indians, the horse did not play a subordinate part; the horse made the essential difference between the armies; and if, in the great square of Madrid, there had been raised some huge emblem in stone to commemorate the Spanish conquest of the New World, an equine, not an equestrian figure would appropriately have crowned the work. The arms and the armor might have remained the same on both sides. The ineffectual clubs, and darts, and lances might still have been arrayed against the sharp Biscayan sword and deadly arquebus; the cotton doublet of Cusco against the steel corslet of Milan; but, without the horse, the victory would ultimately have been on the side of overpowering numbers. The Spaniards might have hewn into the Peruvian squadrons, making clear lanes of prostrate bodies. Those squadrons would have closed together again, and by mere weight would have compressed to death the little band of heroic Spaniards. In truth, had the horse been created in America, the conquest of the New World would not improbably have been reserved for that peculiar epoch of development in the European mind when, as at present, mechanical power has in some degree superseded the horse, that power being naturally measured by the units contained in it of the animal force which it represents and displaces. CHAPTER V. AGREEMENT FOR ATAHUALLPA'S RANSOM. FERNANDO PIZARRO'S JOURNEY TO THE TEMPLE OF PACHACAMÁC. MESSENGERS SENT TO CUSCO.-ARRIVAL OF ALMAGRO AT THE CAMP OF CASSAMARCA. ARLY the next morning after the capture of Atahuallpa, the governor (from henceforth we may well call Pizarro the governor, and on his furrowed forehead might have been placed the potent diadem of the Incas) sent out thirty horsemen to scour the plain and to ransack the Inca's camp. At midday they returned, bringing with them ornaments and utensils of gold and silver, emeralds, men, women, and provisions. The gold in that excursion produced, when melted, about eighty thousand pesos. There was one thing which the Spaniards noticed in this foray, and reported to Pizarro. They found several Indians lying dead in the camp who had not been killed by Spaniards (they knew their own marks); and, when Pizarro asked for an explanation of this circumstance from the Inca, he replied that he had ordered these men to be put to death because they had shrunk back from the Spanish captain's horse. This Spanish captain was Fernando de Soto, who, in his interview on the preceding day, had indulged in sundry curvettings, to impress upon the Peruvians a just appreciation of the prowess of the horse. Such little traits—and there are several of them in Atahuallpa's Pizarro's Treatment of his Prisoners. 503 (Sweet Valor's) conduct-tend to diminish the sympathy which we might otherwise have had for him. In truth, in this melancholy story, it is difficult to find any body whom the reader can sympathize much with. Fernando Pizarro is said to have behaved well to the natives, and at this period of the Conquest he always makes a creditable appearance; but, to any one who knows what direful mischiefs he will hereafter give rise to, his name suggests the ideas of discord and confusion. On the present occasion, the governor showed some consideration and mercy. Many of his men wished him to kill the fighting men among their prisoners, but he would not consent to this. They had come, he said, to conquer these savages, and to instruct them in the Catholic faith, and it would not be fitting to imitate these cruel people in their cruelties. Those Peruvians, therefore, whom the Spaniards did not choose for slaves were set at liberty. Pizarro renewed with Atahuallpa the preaching of the previous evening. His discourse was probably more intelligible than that of the priest, Vicente de Valverde, of whom the earliest traveler (not a Spaniard) in those parts slyly observes, when describing the interview between the priest and the Inca, that Valverde must have supposed Atahuallpa to have suddenly come out as some great theologian.* Pizarro, besides explaining matters of faith, instructed the Inca in political affairs, informing him how all the lands of Peru and the "rest (of the New World) belonged to the Emperor, Charles the Fifth, whom Atahuallpa must henceforth recognize as his superior lord." The dis * "Ratus fortasse Attabalibam repenté in magnum aliquem theologum evasisse."-BENZONI, Hist Nov. Orbis, lib. iii., cap. 3, p. 280. 504 Agreement for Atahuallpa's Ransom. pirited Inca replied that he was content to do so; and, seeing that the Christians collected gold, he said that what they had hitherto got was little, but that for his ransom he would fill the room where they then were up to a certain white line which he marked upon the wall, and which was about half as high again as a man's height, between eight and nine feet. som was to be paid in about two months. This ran Pizarro did not fail to make many inquiries of Atahuallpa about the state of his dominions, and the war between his brother and himself. The Inca told him that his generals were occupying the great town of Cusco, and that Guascar Inca was being brought to him as a prisoner. It was an oversight in Pizarro, and one which Cortez, Vasco Nuñez, or Charles the Fifth would never have committed, that the Spanish governor did not send at once to secure the person of the deposed Inca.* It must not be supposed, however, that the Spanish commander remained idle after his capture of Atahuallpa. He founded a church; he raised and strengthened the fortifications of Cassamarca; and he endeavored to ascertain what were the movements and intentions of the Peruvians. Still, it was not to secure the person of Guascar Inca-and we must therefore conclude his fate to have been set * If, however, Xerez is accurate, Guascar must have been put to death very soon after Atahuallpa's capture, and Pizarro at once informed of the fact. "Entre muchos Mensageros, que venian á Atabaliba, le vino uno de los que traian preso á su Hermano, á decille, que quando sus Capitanes supieron su prision, havian iá muerto al Cuzco. Sabido esto por el Governador, mostró que le pesaba mucho: i dijo que era mentira, que no le havian muerto, que lo trujesen luego vivo: i si no, que él mandaria matar á Atabaliba. Atabaliba afirmaba, que sus Capitanes lo havian muerto, sin saberlo él. El Governador se informó de los Mensageros, i supo que lo havian muerto."-F. DE XEREZ, Barcia, Historiadores, tom. iii.,) p. 204. tled before then-but to make sure of the promised gold (which metal soon was to become so plentiful that the Spaniards would shoe their horses with it), that the governor determined to send his brother Fernando, after two months had passed, to collect the remainder of the ransom, and also to observe the Peruvian armies which were said to be approaching Cassamarca. Before this, the governor had sent to his town of San Miguel to inform them there of his successes; and on the 20th of December he received a letter from that town, telling him of the arrival, at a port called Concibi, near Coaque, of six vessels containing a hundred and sixty Spaniards and eightyfour horses. The three largest of these vessels, with a hundred and twenty men, were armed and commandVOL. III.-Y |