[281] “Y como estan sin sentido, algunos toman las mugeres que quieren, y llevadas a alguna casa, usan con ellas sus luxurias, sin tenerlo por cosa fea; porque ni entienden el don que esta debaxo de la verguença, ni miran mucho en la honra, ni tienen mucha cuenta con el mundo.”
[282] This account of the great Ynca road from Quito to Cuzco is quoted at length by Garcilasso de la Vega (i, lib. ix, cap. 13).
Zarate, the Accountant, was equally impressed with the grandeur of this work. He says that “the road was made over the mountains for a distance of five hundred leagues. It was broad and level, rocks were broken up and levelled where it was necessary, and ravines were filled up. When the road was finished it was so level that carts might have passed along it. The difficulty of this road will be understood when it is considered how great the cost and labour has been in levelling two leagues of hilly country in Spain, between Espinar de Segovia and Guadarramar, which has never yet been completely done, although it is the route by which the Kings of Castille continually pass, with their households and their court, every time they go to or come from Andalusia.” Zarate was Comptroller of Accounts for Castille from 1528 to 1543, and in 1544 he went to Peru to hold the same office. He was an educated man and an eye-witness, so that his testimony is valuable. Historia del Peru, lib. i, cap. 10.
Velasco, who was a native of Riobamba, near Quito, measured the breadth of the great road of the Yncas, and found it to be about six yards in one place, and seven in another. He says that the parts cut through the living rock were covered with a cement to make the surface smooth, while the loose places were paved with stones and covered with the same cement, in which he observed very small stones, not much larger than grains of sand. To cross ravines the road was raised with great pieces of rock united together by cement; and he adds that this cement was so strong that, where torrents had worked their way through the embankments, the road still spanned the ravines in the form of bridges. Hist. de Quito, i, p. 59.
[283] This captain was a native of Estremadura and a follower of Pizarro. He was distinguished for his valour at the defence of Cuzco, when that city was besieged by the Indians; but seems subsequently to have gone over to the party of Almagro, who left him as his governor of Cuzco, when he marched towards Lima after his return from Chile. He had charge of Gonzalo Pizarro and other prisoners, who broke loose and forced Rojas to accompany them. On arriving at the camp of Pizarro near Lima, the marquis, notwithstanding his desertion, gave Rojas a large estate in Charcas. In the war between Gonzalo Pizarro and Gasca, he went over to the latter and was given command of his artillery. Immediately after the fall of Gonzalo he was sent as treasurer to Charcas, where he died.
[284] These Cavalleros played a very conspicuous part in the conquests and civil wars of Peru. For an account of Alonzo de Alvarado, see my Life of Enriquez de Guzman, p. 109 (note); of Diego de Alvarado, Ibid., p. 124 (note).
[285] Garcilasso de la Vega was born, of noble parentage, in the city of Badajos, in Estremadmura. His great-grandfather was Gomez Suarez de Figueroa, the first Count of Feria, by Elvira Lasso de la Vega. This lady was a sister of the famous Marquis of Santillana, the charming poet, and founder of the great family of Mendoza. She was a maternal granddaughter of that Garcilasso who in 1372 received the surname of “de la Vega,” in memory of a famous duel fought with a Moorish giant before the walls of Granada:—
“Garcilasso de la Vega
They the youth thenceforward call,
For his duel in the Vega
Of Granada chanced to fall.”
The lady’s paternal grandfather was Don Diego de Mendoza, the knight who, in the battle of Aljubarrota with the Portuguese in 1385, saved the life of King John I by giving him his horse, when his own was killed under him, a loyal act which is commemorated in an old ballad:—
“Si el cavallo vos han muerto
Subid Rey en mi cavallo.”