506 Arrival of Messengers to Atahuallpa.

ed by Pizarro's partner, Diego de Almagró; and the other three were caravels with thirty volunteers from Nicaragua. The governor wrote to welcome Almagro, and to beg him to come on to Cassamarca.

Meanwhile, continually, messengers and men of great authority kept arriving to see their master Atahuallpa. Among others came the chief of the town of Pachacamác, and the guardian of the great temple there. The latter was put in chains by Atahuallpa, who, according to the Spaniards, seems to have been quite a recreant from his own religion, for he is made to say that he did this because the guardian of the temple had advised him to make war upon the Christians, and had declared that the idol had said to him that the Inca would kill them all. "I wish to see," the Inca is reported to say, "if he whom you call your God will take this chain off you." What is more certain is, that Atahuallpa, who was a man of much intelligence, made rapid progress in learning how to play chess and games with dice-a part of the mission of the Spaniards which was sure to find a ready acceptance from the Indians. There is one remark attributed to the Inca which is very natural. Of all the things which the Spaniards showed him, there was nothing he was so much pleased in looking at as glass; and he said to Pizarro "that he wondered much that, since in Castile they had plenty of such a beautiful material as glass, they should fatigue themselves in traversing foreign lands and seas in search of metals so common as gold and silver.”*

* "Se plurimùm mirari quòd quum in Castella rei tam pulcræ copiam haberent, pervestigandis metallis adeò vilibus auro et argento, peregrinas terras et maria obeundo semetipsos fatigarent.”—BENZONI, lib. iii., cap. 5, p. 291.

His Account of the Roads and Bridges. 507

It was on the day of the Epiphany, 1533, that Fernando Pizarro set off from Cassamarca with twenty horsemen and some arquebusiers. There is a minute account of his journey, written by the king's veedór,

Miguel Estete, who accompanied him; and Fernando himself has also given a short account of it. Every where they found signs of riches and of civilization.

508

Peruvian Sacrifices.

On his route, Fernando obtained leave from the governor to go to the city of Pachacamác, in reaching which he had to journey along the great roads. For fifteen days he went by the upper road, and the rest of the time by the road on the sea-coast. "The road of the Sierras," he observes, "is a thing to see, for in truth, in a land so rugged, there have not been seen in Christendom such beautiful ways, the greater part being causeway." He speaks of the bridges, some of which, on a certain great river, were made of rope; and at each passage of the river there were two bridges, one for the common people, and the other for the Inca and the chiefs. Moreover, it appeared that the Peruvians had arrived at that point of civilization denoted by the existence of tolls, which were collected at these bridges. Fernando Pizarro was every where well received with dances and festivals; nor did the Peruvians fail to supply him with what was requisite for his journey, bringing llamas, maize, chicha (a kind of intoxicating drink made from maize), and fire-wood. He noticed that account was kept of the delivery of the provisions by removing the knots in the quippus, or making them in another place. He confirms the general remark, which has been made before, of the superior civilization of the inhabitants of the Sierras as compared with that of the men in the plains.

Much has been said about Peruvian sacrifices; and it has been decided that they were, occasionally, human sacrifices; it is but just, therefore, to note what Fernando Pizarro says in reference to this subject when speaking of the abodes of those virgins who were dedicated to the worship of the sun. "Some of these houses are for the worship of the sun, others for that of Cusco the Ancient, father of Atabaliva; the sacri

Peruvian Sacrifices.-Reach Pachacamác. 509 fice which they make is of llamas, and they prepare chicha to pour upon the earth."*

I can not but think it will be found that the original worship of the Peruvians, or at least their worship at its best, was devoid of human sacrifices, although in places distant from the centres of civilization, Cusco and Pachacamác, and in times long subsequent to those of the first Incas, when their rule may have become less beneficent and more despotic, human sacrifices were made on certain occasions connected with family events in the great families, and perhaps periodically in the remote districts.

On Sunday, the 30th of January, after traversing for some miles a country abounding in groves and populous villages, Fernando Pizarro reached Pachacamác, where he was well received by the inhabitants. It is interesting to read the account given by the first man from the Old World—a man, too, of great intelligence-who saw the celebrated temple and city of Pachacamác. He found that the Indians did not like to speak of this temple (“mosque" he calls it), so deep was their reverence for it; and that the whole of the surrounding territory paid tribute, not to the monarch at Cusco, but to the temple. The town was very large, and contained great buildings; but, as the veedór mentions, it seemed to be a very ancient town, with much of it in ruins.† This statement is important, as it tends to confirm the story of the ancientness of the

* "Estas casas son unas para el sacrificio del Sol, otras del Cuzco Viejo, padre de Atabaliva; el sacrificio que hacen es de ovejas, é hacen chicha para verter por el suelo."-Carta de FERN. PIZARRO in QUINTANA, Apend. á la Vida de F. Pizarro, p. 183.

+ "El Pueblo parece ser antiguo, por los edificios caídos, que en el ai: lo mas de la cerca está caido." See Report of Miguel Estete, quoted in XEREZ, Barcia, tom. iii., p. 299.

510

Fernando's Account of Pachacamác.

religion of Pachacamác. The temple itself was also large, with ample courts and extensive precincts. In

a great court outside the temple were the houses of the sacred virgins, who made the same sacrifices as in other places. No man might enter the first court of the temple without having fasted twenty days, and to gain

admission to a higher court it was necessary to fast for a whole year. In this court the "bishop" of the temple, in a sitting posture and with his head covered, received the messengers from the caciques when they had completed the year's fast. There were other ministers of the temple who were called "Pages of God." The messengers declared their wants to the bishop; then these pages of the idol (Fernando Pizarro calls him "the devil") went into an inner chamber,