[376] The plain of Chilca is a broad sandy waste, with a thin line of vegetation running from the Andes to the sea. The village is a collection of cane flat-roofed houses, with a handsome church. It is about two miles from the beach, where there is an abrupt headland called Chilca Point. There are none of the maize fields described by Cieza de Leon, and the land is no longer manured with sardine heads, but there are several palm and fig trees, and holes where crops of reeds, for making matting to cover the house tops, are raised. A little scanty herbage grows on the sand hills, where mules and donkeys graze. The inhabitants of Chilca are all pure Indians, and they allow no whites to reside in their village. They employ themselves in plaiting straw for hats and cigar cases of great beauty. In the time of the Yncas this valley was very populous, as is clear from the numerous ruins in various directions; but Spanish occupation has acted as a blight on every corner of this once happy land.
[377] Here Cieza de Leon shows his strong prejudice against Almagro. It is well known that Pizarro formed a plot to seize him after the interview at Mala, and that he was warned of the meditated treachery by the voice of an old comrade, who sang a couplet in the verandah—
“Tiempo es de andar, Cavallero!
Tiempo es de andar de aqui.”
[378] The valley of Mala is six miles from that of Chilca. It is covered with rich vegetation—bananas, figs, oranges, fields of maize, vines, and willow trees, and is well supplied with water by a large river. In the southern part there are extensive pastures, where some of the bulls are bred for the Lima bull fights.
[379] This is the rich modern valley of Cañeta, containing six very extensive and flourishing sugar estates, and two villages.
[380] What other right had our author’s countrymen? or does he mean more than meets the eye, in writing this sentence. Cieza de Leon was evidently impressed with the excellence of the government of the Yncas, and deplores, in almost every chapter, the destruction and ruin brought upon the country by the Spaniards. Is this a covert thrust at the justice of the Spanish conquest?
[381] The ruins of this great edifice, half fortress half palace, are still to be seen on an elevated point of land overhanging the sea, on the south side of the river of Cañete. I examined these ruins very carefully in 1853. They are divided into two parts. Those furthest from the sea consist of nine chambers. Entering from a breach in the wall, I passed along a gallery broad enough for two men to walk abreast, with a parapet five feet high on one side, and a wall sixteen feet high on the other. The parapet is on the edge of a hill partly faced with adobes. At the end of about twenty yards the gallery turns at right angles into the centre of the building. Here there is a doorway about ten feet high, three feet across at the base, and narrowing as it ascends, with a lintel of willow beams. It leads into a spacious hall, and, on the opposite side, there is a deep recess corresponding with the door. The walls are sixteen feet high, built of moderate sized adobes, formerly plastered over, and, as Cieza de Leon tells us, painted with figures. At the sides of the hall there are small chambers with recesses in the walls, communicating with each other by passages in the rear. There is a distance of two hundred yards, strewn with ruined walls, between this portion of the ruins and that overhanging the sea. The latter is entered by a doorway, which leads into a large square hall, nearly a hundred feet each way. The sides towards the north and west are smooth, but the eastern wall is pierced by fifteen small recesses. On the south side two doorways lead by passages into smaller chambers, also with recesses in the walls. In the upper part of the walls of the great hall the holes, for the beams which supported the roof, are distinctly visible. The walls throughout are three to four feet thick. The doorways, from the lintel to the ground, are eight feet high. On the whole, this is one of the best preserved ruins in the land of the Yncas. The portions of the fortress which were built of stone, were barbarously destroyed by order of the Spanish viceroy Count of Moncloa, and the materials were used for building the castles at Callao.
[382] From the great gate of the hacienda of Laran, in the valley of Chincha, a broad road leads towards the Andes. This road formed the division between the governments of Pizarro and Almagro on the sea-coast, and the question as to whether Cuzco was on the north or south side of the imaginary line continued east from Laran, was the cause of a quarrel which ended in the defeat and death of Almagro. Laran now belongs to the hospitable Don Antonio Prada, marquis of the towers of Oran.
[383] Another great public work of the Yncas, now utterly destroyed.
[384] The valley of Yca forms a delightful contrast to the surrounding deserts. The traveller, leaving the sandy waste behind him, finds himself riding through vineyards and cotton plantations, with hedges of fig trees, jessamine and roses on either hand. Yca is a large town about two leagues from the foot of the Andes, in the middle of a fertile and beautiful valley; but it has suffered fearfully from earthquakes. The river is crossed by a bridge of ropes and willow branches, and during January and February it dashes impetuously down the valley, but it is dry for the rest of the year, and, as Cieza de Leon says, the people dig holes in its bed, to get water. There are some very extensive woods of guaranga or algaroba trees (Prosopis horrida) in the valley of Yca, generally on the skirts of the deserts.