[438] Diego Maldonado was one of the first conquistadores. He was imprisoned in the fortress of Cuzco by Almagro, after the marshal returned from Chile, with Marcio Serra de Legesamo, and many others. He was afterwards in the battle of Chupas, fighting on the royal side. He became a regidor of Cuzco, where he had several houses, received Andahuaylas in encomienda, and was surnamed “the rich.” When Gonzalo Pizarro rebelled, Maldonado was with the insurgent forces, and, hearing that accusations had been brought against him, he fled from his tent on foot, and hid himself in a field of sugar cane. An Indian found him, and, with the usual kind-heartedness of his race, guided him to the beach, made a balsa out of a bundle of straw, and paddled him to one of La Gasca’s ships, which was lying off and on in Callao bay. He was then sixty-eight years of age; but he still continued to play an important part in public affairs, and was wounded in the rebellion of Giron in 1554. He lived for twelve years afterwards, though he eventually died, in 1566, of wounds received in the battle against that rebel.
[439] The Indians of Andahuaylas, descendants from these Chancas, are a tall and generally handsome race, and many of the women are beautiful. The population of the valley is about six thousand.
[440] The valley of Andahuaylas is one of the most beautiful in the Andes. It contains the three small towns of Talavera, Andahuaylas, and San Geronimo. Through its centre flows a little river, lined on either side by lofty willows, while here and there large fruit gardens slope down to its banks. Every part of the valley is carefully cultivated, and large fields of wheat cover the lower slopes of the surrounding mountains.
[441] From the beginning of January to the end of March 1548. Gasca was here joined by Valdivia, the conqueror of Chile, and when he commenced his march against Gonzalo Pizarro, he was at the head of nearly two thousand well armed men.
[442] This is the river Pachachaca. It is now spanned by a handsome stone bridge of one arch, at a great height above the stream. This bridge is some sixty years old. The Pachachaca is a tributary of the Ucayali.
[443] See my translation of the life of Don Alonzo Enriquez de Guzman, chap. xlviii, and note at p. 114. Hakluyt Society’s volume for 1862.
[444] A few miles beyond the little village of Curahuasi, is the precipitous descent to the bridge over the Apurimac (Apu, “chief,” and rimac, “speaking,” or “a speaker,” in Quichua). A steep zigzag path leads down to the side of the cliff, and at last the precipice becomes so perpendicular that a tunnel has been excavated in the solid rock, about twenty yards long, at the end of which is the bridge. It is made in the same way as that over the river Pampas. The river dashes furiously along between vertical precipices of stupendous height, and a high wind is not uncommon, which blows the frail rope bridge to and fro, rendering the passage very dangerous, and at times impossible.
[445] The empire of the Yncas, as it existed in the time of Manco Ccapac, the founder of his dynasty, only extended from the Apurimac on the west, to the Paucar-tambo on the east, a distance of about fifty miles. In the centre was Cuzco, while on each frontier there was a fortress and a palace—Ollantay-tampu on the north, Paccari-tampu on the south, Paucar-tampu on the east, and Rimac-tampu (corrupted by the Spaniards into Limatambo) on the west, near the river of Apurimac. The ruins of the palace of Lima-tambo are situated in a delightful spot, commanding a fine view. Only two walls, and the face of the stone terrace on which the palace was built, now remain. These walls are twenty and forty paces long respectively, forming an angle, and about fourteen feet high. The stones are beautifully fitted into each other, without cement of any kind, and to this day look angular and fresh. At intervals there are recesses in the walls, about one foot deep and eight feet high. The interior of the palace is now an extensive fruit garden.
[446] These are the andeneria or terraced fields and gardens. They may still be seen on the hills bordering the plain of Xaquixaguana or Surite.
[447] The original name of this plain appears to have been Yahuar-pampa (field of blood), so called in memory of the bloody battle between the army of Ynca Huira-ccocha and the allied tribes led by Anco-hualluc. In the days of the Spanish conquest it was known by the name of Xaquixaguana (Cieza de Leon and Zarate) or Sacsahuana (G. de la Vega); here the Ynca general Challcuchima was cruelly burnt to death by Pizarro, and here the President Gasca defeated and executed Gonzalo Pizarro and Carbajal. It is now generally called the plain of Surite, from a village of that name at its north-western corner.