Of the fortress and palace of Atahuallpa, there also remain but few vestiges in the town, which now contains some beautiful churches. Even before the close of the sixteenth century, the thirst for gold accelerated the work of destruction, for, with the view of discovering hidden treasures, walls were demolished and the foundations of buildings recklessly undermined. The Inca’s palace is situated on a hill of porphyry, which was originally cut and hollowed out from the surface, completely through the rock, so that the latter surrounds the main building like a wall. Portions of the ruins have been converted to the purposes of a town jail and a Municipal Hall (Casa del Cabildo). The most curious parts of these ruins, which however are not more than between 13 and 16 feet in height, are those opposite to the monastery of San Francisco. These vestiges, like the remains of the dwelling of the Caciques, consist of finely-hewn blocks of free-stone, two or three feet long, laid one upon another without cement, as in the Inca-Pilca, or fortress of the Cañar, in the high plain of Quito.
In the porphyritic rock there is a shaft which once led to subterraneous chambers and into a gallery, (by miners called a stoll,) from which, it is alleged, there was a communication with the other porphyritic rocks already mentioned;—those situated at Santa Polonia. These arrangements bear evidence of having been made as precautions against the events of war, and for the security of flight. The burying of treasure was a custom very generally practised among the Peruvians in former times; and subterraneous chambers still exist beneath many private dwellings in Caxamarca.
We were shown some steps cut in the rock, and the footbath used by the Inca (el lavatorio de los pies). The operation of washing the sovereign’s feet was performed amidst tedious court ceremonies[[123]]. Several lateral structures, which, according to tradition, were allotted to the attendants of the Inca, are built some of free-stone with gable roofs, and others of regularly shaped bricks, alternating with layers of siliceous cement. The buildings constructed in this last-mentioned style, to which the Peruvians give the name of Muros y obra de tapia, have little arched niches or recesses. Of their antiquity I was for a long time doubtful, though I am now convinced that my doubts were not well-grounded.
In the principal building, the room is still shown in which the unfortunate Atahuallpa was confined for the space of nine months, from the date of November, 1532[[124]]. The notice of the traveller is still directed to the wall, on which he made a mark to denote to what height he would fill the room with gold, on condition of his being set free. This height is variously described. Xerez in the Conquista del Peru (which Barcia has preserved to us), Hernando Pizarro in his letters, and other writers, all give different accounts of it. The captive monarch said, “that gold in bars, plates, and vessels should be piled up as high as he could reach with his hand.” The dimensions of the room, as given by Xerez, are equivalent to 23 feet in length and 18 in breadth. Garcilaso de la Vega, who quitted Peru in 1560, in his twentieth year, estimates that the treasures brought from the temples of the Sun in Cuzco, Huaylas, Huamachuco, and Pachacamac, up to the fatal 29th of August, 1533, the day of the Inca’s death, amounted to 3,838,000 ducados de oro[[125]].
In the chapel of the town jail, which, as I have mentioned above, is erected on the ruins of the Inca Palace, a stone, stained, as it is alleged, with “indelible spots of blood,” is viewed with horror by the credulous. It is placed in front of the altar, and consists of an extremely thin slab, about 13 feet in length, probably a portion of the porphyry or trachyte of the vicinity. To make an accurate examination of this stone, by chipping a piece off, would not be permitted. The three or four spots, said to be blood stains, appear in reality to be nothing but hornblende and pyroxide run together in the fundamental mass of the rock. The Licentiate Fernando Montesinos, though he visited Peru scarcely a hundred years after the taking of Caxamarca, gave currency to the fabulous story that Atahuallpa was beheaded in prison, and that traces of blood were still visible on a stone on which the execution had taken place. There appears no reason to question the fact, since it is borne out by the testimony of many eye-witnesses, that the Inca willingly allowed himself to be baptized by his cruel and fanatical persecutor, the Dominican monk, Vicente de Valverde. He received the name of Juan de Atahuallpa, and submitted to the ceremony of baptism to avoid being burnt alive. He was put to death by strangulation (el garrote), and his execution took place publicly in the open air. Another tradition relates that a chapel was erected above the stone on which Atahuallpa was strangled, and that the remains of the Inca repose beneath that stone. Supposing this to be correct, the alleged spots of blood are not accounted for. The fact is, however, that the body was never deposited under the stone in question. After the performance of a mass for the dead and other solemn funeral ceremonies, at which the brothers Pizarro were present in deep mourning(!), the body was conveyed first to the cemetery of the Convento de San Francisco, and afterwards to Quito, Atahuallpa’s birthplace. This removal to Quito was in compliance with the wish expressed by the Inca prior to his death. His personal enemy, the crafty Rumiñavi, from artful political motives, caused the body to be interred in Quito with great solemnity. Rumiñavi (literally the stone-eye) received this name from a defect in one of his eyes, occasioned by a wart. (In the Quichua language rumi signifies stone, and ñavi eye.)
Descendants of the Inca still dwell in Caxamarca, amidst the dreary architectural ruins of departed splendour. These descendants are the family of the Indian Cacique, or, as he is called in the Quichua language, the Curaca Astorpilca. They live in great poverty, but nevertheless contented and resigned to their hard and unmerited fate. Their descent from Atahuallpa, through the female line, has never been a doubtful question in Caxamarca; but traces of beard would seem to indicate some admixture of Spanish blood. Huascar and Atahuallpa, two sons of the great Huayna Capac (who for a child of the Sun was somewhat disposed to free-thinking)[[126]], reigned in succession before the invasion of the Spaniards. Neither of these two princes left any acknowledged male heirs. In the plains of Quipaypan, Huascar was made prisoner by Atahuallpa, by whose order he was shortly after secretly put to death. Atahuallpa had two other brothers. One was the insignificant youth Toparca, who in the autumn of 1533 Pizarro caused to be crowned as Inca; and the other was the enterprising Manco Capac, who was likewise crowned, but who afterwards rebelled: neither of these two princes left any known male issue. Atahuallpa indeed left two children; one a son, who received in Christian baptism the name of Don Francisco, and who died young; the other a daughter, Doña Angelina, who became the mistress of Francisco Pizarro, with whom she led a wild camp life. Doña Angelina had a son by Pizarro, and to this grandson of the slaughtered monarch the Conqueror was fondly attached. Besides the family of Astorpilca, with whom I became acquainted in Caxamarca, the families of Carguaraicos and Titu-Buscamayca were, at the time I visited Peru, regarded as descendants of the Inca dynasty. The race of Buscamayca has since that time become extinct.
The son of the Cacique Astorpilca, an interesting and amiable youth of seventeen, conducted us over the ruins of the ancient palace. Though living in the utmost poverty, his imagination was filled with images of the subterranean splendour and the golden treasures which, he assured us, lay hidden beneath the heaps of rubbish over which we were treading. He told us that one of his ancestors once blindfolded the eyes of his wife, and then, through many intricate passages cut in the rock, led her down into the subterranean gardens of the Inca. There the lady beheld, skilfully imitated in the purest gold, trees laden with leaves and fruit, with birds perched on their branches. Among other things, she saw Atahuallpa’s gold sedan-chair (una de las andas) which had been so long searched for in vain, and which is alleged to have sunk in the basin at the Baths of Pultamarca. The husband commanded his wife not to touch any of these enchanted treasures, reminding her that the period fixed for the restoration of the Inca empire had not yet arrived, and that whosoever should touch any of the treasures would perish that same night. These golden dreams and fancies of the youth were founded on recollections and traditions transmitted from remote times. Golden gardens, such as those alluded to (Jardines ó huertas de oro), have been described by various writers who allege that they actually saw them; viz., by Cieza de Leon, Parmento, Garcilaso, and other early historians of the Conquista. They are said to have existed beneath the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco, at Caxamarca, and in the lovely valley of Yucay, which was a favourite seat of the sovereign family. In places in which the golden Huertas were not under ground, but in the open air, living plants were mingled with the artificial ones. Among the latter, particular mention is always made of the high shoots of maize and the maize-cobs (mazorcas) as having been most successfully imitated.
The son of Astorpilca assured me that underground, a little to the right of the spot on which I then stood, there was a large Datura tree, or Guanto, in full flower, exquisitely made of gold wire and plates of gold, and that its branches overspread the Inca’s chair. The morbid faith with which the youth asserted his belief in this fabulous story, made a profound and melancholy impression on me. These illusions are cherished among the people here, as affording them consolation amidst great privation and earthly suffering. I said to the lad, “Since you and your parents so firmly believe in the existence of these gardens, do you not, in your poverty, sometimes feel a wish to dig for the treasures that lie so near you?” The young Peruvian’s answer was so simple and so expressive of the quiet resignation peculiar to the aboriginal inhabitants of the country, that I noted it down in Spanish in my Journal. “Such a desire (tal antojo),” said he, “never comes to us. My father says that it would be sinful (que fuese pecado). If we had the golden branches, with all their golden fruits, our white neighbours would hate us and injure us. We have a little field and good wheat (buen trigo).” Few of my readers will I trust be displeased that I have recalled here the words of young Astorpilca and his golden dreams.
An idea generally spread and firmly believed among the natives is, that it would be criminal to dig up and take possession of treasures which may have belonged to the Incas, and that such a proceeding would bring misfortune upon the whole Peruvian race. This idea is closely connected with that of the restoration of the Inca dynasty, an event which is still expected, and which in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was looked forward to with especial confidence. Oppressed nations always fondly hope for the day of their emancipation, and for the re-establishment of their old forms of government. The flight of Manco Inca, the brother of Atahuallpa, who retreated into the forests of Vilcapampa, on the declivity of the Eastern Cordillera; and the abode of Sayri Tapac and Inca Tupac Amaru in those wildernesses, are events which have left lasting recollections in the minds of the people. It is believed that descendants of the dethroned dynasty settled still further eastward in Guiana, between the rivers Apurimac and Beni. These notions were strengthened by the myth of el Dorado and the golden city of Manoa, which popular credulity carried from the west and propagated eastward. So greatly was the imagination of Sir Walter Raleigh inflamed by these dreams, that he raised an expedition in the hope of conquering “the imperial and golden city.” There he proposed to establish a garrison of three or four thousand English, and to levy from “the Emperor of Guiana, a descendant of Huayna Capac, and who holds his Court with the same magnificence, an annual tribute of £300,000 sterling, as the price of the promised restoration to the throne in Cuzco and Caxamarca.” Wherever the Peruvian Quichua language prevails, traces of the expected restoration of the Inca rule[[127]] exist in the minds of many of the natives possessing any knowledge of their national history.
We remained five days in the capital of the Inca Atahuallpa, which, at that time, numbered only 7000 or 8000 inhabitants. Our departure was delayed by the necessity of obtaining a great number of mules to convey our collections, and of selecting careful guides to conduct us across the chain of the Andes to the entrance of the long but narrow Peruvian sandy desert called the Desierto de Sechura. Our route across the Cordilleras lay from north-east to south-west. Having passed over the old bed of the lake, on the pleasant level height of Caxamarca, we ascended an eminence at an elevation of scarcely 10,230 feet: and we were then surprised by the sight of two strangely-shaped porphyritic mounds called the Aroma and the Cunturcaga. The latter is a favourite haunt of the gigantic vulture, which we call the Condor; kacca, in the Quichua language, signifying the rocks. The porphyritic heights just mentioned are in the form of columns having five, six, or seven sides, from 37 to 42 feet in height, and some of them are crooked and bent as if in joints. Those which crown the Cerro Aroma are remarkably picturesque. The peculiar distribution of the columns, which are ranged in rows one above another, and frequently converging, presents the appearance of a two-storied building, roofed by a dome of massive rock, which is not columnar. These erupted masses of porphyry and trachyte are, as I have on a former occasion remarked, characteristic of the ridges of the Andes, to which they impart a physiognomy totally different from that of the Swiss Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Siberian Altai.