The city of Cuzco is the principal one of all those where the lords of this land have their residence; it is so large and so beautiful that it would be worthy of admiration even in Spain; and it is full of the palaces of the lords, because no poor people live there, and each lord builds there his house, and all the caciques[104] do likewise, although the latter do not dwell there continuously. The greater part of these houses are of stone, and others have half the façade of stone. There are many houses of adobe, and they are all arranged in very good order. The streets are laid out at right angles; they are very straight, and are paved, and down the middle runs a gutter for water lined with stone. The chief defect which the streets have is that of being narrow, so that only one horse and rider can go on one side of the gutter and another upon the opposite side. This city is located upon the slope of a mountain, and there are many houses upon the slope and others below on the plain. The plaza is rectangular, and the greater part of it is flat and paved with small stones. Around the plaza are four houses of noblemen, who are the chief men of the city; [the houses] are of stone, painted and carved, and the best of them is the house of Guaynacaba,[105] a former chief, and the door of it is of marble [colored] white and red and of other colors;[106] and there are other very sightly buildings with flat roofs. There are, in the said city, many other buildings and grandeurs. Along the two sides [of the city] pass two rivers which rise a league above Cuzco, and from there down to the city and for two leagues below it they run over stone flags so that the water may be pure and clear, and so that, though they may rise, they may not overflow. They have bridges for those who enter the city. Upon the hill which, toward the city, is rounded and very steep, there is a very beautiful fortress of earth and stone. Its large windows which look over the city make it appear still more beautiful.[107] Within, there are many dwellings, and a chief tower in the centre, built square, and having four or five terraces one above another. The rooms inside are small and the stones of which it is built are very well worked and so well adjusted to one another that it does not appear that they have any mortar and they are so smooth that they look like polished slabs with the joinings in regular order and alternating with one another after the usage in Spain.[108] There are so many rooms and towers that a person could not see them all in one day; and many Spaniards who have been in Lombardy and in other foreign kingdoms say that they have never seen any other fortress like this one nor a stronger castle. Five thousand Spaniards might well be within it; nor could it be given a broadside or be mined, because it is on a rocky mountain. On the side toward the city, which is a very steep slope, there is no more than one wall;[109] on the other side, which is less steep, there are three, one above the other. The most beautiful thing which can be seen in the edifices of that land are these walls, because they are of stones so large that anyone who sees them would not say that they had been put in place by human hands, for they are as large as chunks of mountains and huge rocks, and they have a height of thirty palms and a length of as many more, and others have twenty and twenty-five, and others fifteen, but there is none so small that three carts could carry it. These are not smooth stones, but rather well joined and matched one with another. The Spaniards who see them say that neither the bridge of Segovia nor any other of the edifices which Hercules or the Romans made is so worthy of being seen as this. The city of Tarragona has some works in its walls made in this style, but neither so strong nor of such large stones. These walls twist in such a way that if they are attacked, it is not possible to do so from directly in front, but only obliquely.[110] These walls are of the same stone, and between wall and wall there is enough earth to permit three carts to go along the top at one time. They are made after the fashion of steps, so that one begins where another leaves off. The whole fortress was a deposit of arms, clubs, lances, bows, axes, shields, doublets thickly padded with cotton and other arms of various sorts, and clothes for the soldiers collected here from all parts of the land subject to the lords of Cuzco. They had many colors, blue, yellow, brown and many others for painting, much tin and lead with other metals, and much silver and some gold, many mantles and quilted doublets for the warriors. The reason why this fortress contained so much workmanship was that, when this city was founded it was done by a lord orejon[111] who came from Condisuyo, toward the sea, a great warrior who conquered this land as far as Bilcas and who, perceiving that this was the best place to fix his domicile, founded that city with its fortress. And all the other lords who followed after him made some improvements in this fortress so that it was ever augmenting in size. From this fortress are seen around the city many houses a quarter of a league, half a league and a league away, and in the valley, which is surrounded by hills, there are more than five thousand houses, many of them for the pleasure and recreation of former lords and others for the caciques of all the land who dwell continuously in the city. The others are storehouses full of mantles, wool, arms, metals, and clothes and all the things which are grown or made in this land. There are houses where the tribute is kept which the vassals bring to the caciques; and there is a house where are kept more than a hundred dried birds because they make garments of their feathers, which are of many colors, and there are many houses for this [work]. There are bucklers, oval shields made of leather, beams for roofing the houses, knives and other tools, sandals and breast-plates for the warriors in such great quantity that the mind does not cease to wonder how so great a tribute of so many kinds of things can have been given. Each dead lord has here his house and all that was paid to him as tribute during his life, for no lord who succeeds another [and this is the law among them] can, after the death of the last one, take possession of his inheritance. Each one has his service of gold and of silver, and his things and clothes for himself, and he who follows takes nothing from him. The caciques and lords maintain their houses of recreation with the corresponding staff of servants and women who sow their fields with maize and place a little of it in their sepulchres. They adore the sun and have built many temples to him, and of all the things which they have, as much of clothes as of maize and other things, they offer some to the sun, of which the warriors later avail themselves.
CHAPTER XVIII
Of the province of the Collao and of the qualities and customs of its people, and of the rich gold mines that are found there.
The two Christians who were sent to see the province of the Collao were forty days upon their journey, and, as soon as they had returned to Cuzco where the governor was, they gave him news and a report of all that they had seen and learned, which is set forth below. The land of the Collao is far off and a long way from the sea, so much so that the natives who inhabit it, have no knowledge of it. The sierra is very high and rather broad, and with all this, it is excessively cold. There are in the region no groves or woods, nor is there any wood for burning, and what little there is in use there comes from trade, in exchange for merchandise, with those who live near the sea and are called Ingres, and also with those who live below near the rivers, for these people have fire-wood and they exchange it for sheep[112] and other animals and vegetables, since, for the most part, the land is sterile, and all the people live on roots, herbs, maize and sometimes flesh, not because there is not, in that province of the Collao, a good quantity of sheep, but because the people are so much the subjects of the lord to whom they are bound to give obedience that, without his licence or that of the chief or governor who, by his command, is in the country, they do not kill one [llama], nor do even the lords and caciques dare to kill any without such permission. The land is well populated because wars have not destroyed it as they have other provinces. The villages are of ordinary size and their houses are small, with walls of stone and adobe mixed and covered with roofs of straw. The grass which grows in this land is short and sparse. There are some rivers, although of small volume. In the middle of the province there is a great lake, in length almost one hundred leagues, and the most thickly peopled land is around its shore; in the middle of the lake there are two islets, and on one of them is a mosque and house of the sun which is held in great veneration, and to it they come to make their offerings and sacrifices on a great stone on the island which they call Tichicasa[113] which either because the devil hides himself there and speaks to them or because of an ancient custom, or on account of some other cause that has never been made clear, all the people of that province hold in great esteem, and they offer there gold, silver and other things. There are more than six hundred Indians serving in this place, and more than a thousand women who make chicha in order to throw it upon that stone Tichicasa.[114] The rich mines of that province of the Collao are beyond this lake [in a region] called Chuchiabo.[115] The mines are in the gorge [caja-chiusa] of a river, about half-way up the sides. They are made like caves, by whose mouths they enter to scrape the earth, and they scrape it with the horns of deer and they carry it outside in certain hides sewn into the form of sacks or of wine-skins of sheep-hide. The manner in which they wash it is that they take from the river a [jet?][116] of water, and on the bank they set up certain very smooth flag-stones on which they throw the water, after which they draw off by a duct the water of the [jet?] which has just fallen down [upon the gold-earth?], and the water carries off the earth little by little so that the gold is left upon the flag-stones themselves, and in this manner they collect it. The mines go far into the earth, one ten brazas, another twenty, and the greatest mine, which is called Guarnacabo[117] goes into the earth some forty brazas.[118] They have no light, nor are they broader than is necessary for one person to enter crouching down, and until the man who is in the mine comes out, no other can go in. The people who get out the gold here are as many as fifty,[119] counting men and women, and these are all of this land, and from one cacique come twenty, from another fifty, from another thirty, and from others more or less according to the number that they have, and they take out gold for the chief lord, and they have taken such precautions in the matter that in nowise can any of what is taken out be stolen, because they have placed guards around the mines so that none of those who take out the gold can get away without being seen. At night, when they return to their houses in the village, they enter by a gate where the overseers are who have the gold in their charge, and from each person they receive the gold that he has got. There are other mines beyond these, and there are still others scattered about through the land which are like wells a man's height in depth, so that the worker can just throw the earth from below on top of the ground. And when they dig them so deep that they cannot throw the earth out on top, they leave them and make new wells.[120] But the richest mines, and the ones from which the most gold is got, are the first, which do not have the inconvenience of washing the earth, and, because of the cold, they do not work those mines more than four months of the year, [and then only] from the hour of noon to nearly sunset.[121] The people are very mild, and so accustomed to serve, that all that has to be done in the land they do themselves, and so it is, in the roads and in the houses which the chief lord commands them to build, and they continually offer themselves for work and for carrying the burdens of the warriors when the lord goes to some place [in the region]. The Spaniards took from those mines a load of earth and carried it to Cuzco without doing anything else. It was washed by the hand of the Governor after the Spaniards had sworn that they had not placed the gold in it or done anything to it save take it from the mine as the Indians did who washed it, and from it three pesos of gold was got. All those who understand mines and the getting of gold, being informed of the manner in which it is got in this land, say that all the [country is full of mines], and that if the Spaniards gave implements and skill [in using them] to the Indians so that it might be got out, much gold would be taken from the earth, and it is believed that when this time has arrived, a year will not go by in which a million of gold is not got. The people of this province, as well men as women, are very filthy, and they have large hands, and the province is very large.
CHAPTER XIX
Of the great veneration in which the Indians held Guarnacaba[122] when he lived[123] and of that in which they hold him now, after death. And how, through the disunion of the Indians, the Spaniards entered Cuzco, and of the fidelity of the new cacique Guarnacaba[124] to the Christians.