Part 38 (1/2)

For this service he selected about eighty of his best-mounted cavalry, with a small body of foot, and, making a large detour through the less frequented mountain defiles, he arrived before Tambo without alarm to the enemy. He found the place more strongly fortified than he had imagined. The palace, or rather fortress, of the Incas stood on a lofty eminence, the steep sides of which, on the quarter where the Spaniards approached, were cut into terraces, defended by strong walls of stone and sunburnt brick. *31 The place was impregnable on this side. On the opposite, it looked towards the Yucay, and the ground descended by a gradual declivity towards the plain through which rolled its deep but narrow current. *32 This was the quarter on which to make the a.s.sault.

[Footnote 31: ”Tambo tan fortalescido que hera cosa de grima, porquel a.s.siento donde Tambo esta es muy fuerte, de andenes muy altos y de muy gran canterias fortalescidos” Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms.]

[Footnote 32: ”El rio de yucay ques grande por aquella parte va muy angosto y hondo.” Ibid., Ms.]

Crossing the stream without much difficulty, the Spanish commander advanced up the smooth glacis with as little noise as possible. The morning light had hardly broken on the mountains; and Pizarro, as he drew near the outer defences, which, as in the fortress of Cuzco, consisted of a stone parapet of great strength drawn round the inclosure, moved quickly forward, confident that the garrison were still buried in sleep. But thousands of eyes were upon him; and as the Spaniards came within bow-shot, a mult.i.tude of dark forms suddenly rose above the rampart, while the Inca, with his lance in hand, was seen on horseback in the inclosure, directing the operations of his troops. *33 At the same moment the air was darkened with innumerable missiles, stones, javelins, and arrows, which fell like a hurricane on the troops, and the mountains rang to the wild war-whoop of the enemy. The Spaniards, taken by surprise, and many of them sorely wounded, were staggered; and, though they quickly rallied, and made two attempts to renew the a.s.sault, they were at length obliged to fall back, unable to endure the violence of the storm.

To add to their confusion, the lower level in their rear was flooded by the waters, which the natives, by opening the sluices, had diverted from the bed of the river, so that their position was no longer tenable. *34 A council of war was then held, and it was decided to abandon the attack as desperate, and to retreat in as good order as possible.

[Footnote 33: ”Parecia el Inga a caballo entre su gente, con su lanca en la mano.” Herrera, Hist. General, dec. 5, lib. 8, cap.

7.]

[Footnote 34: ”Pues hechos dos o tres acometimientos a tomar este pueblo tantas vezes nos hizieron bolver dando de manos. Ansi estuvimos todo este dia hasta puesta de sol; os indios sin entendello nos hechavan el rrio en el llano donde estavamos, y aguardar mas perescieramos aqui todos.” Pedro Pizarro Descub. y Conq. Ms.]

The day had been consumed in these ineffectual operations; and Hernando, under cover of the friendly darkness, sent forward his infantry and baggage, taking command of the centre himself, and trusting the rear to his brother Gonzalo. The river was happily recrossed without accident, although the enemy, now confident in their strength, rushed out of their defences, and followed up the retreating Spaniards, whom they annoyed with repeated discharges of arrows. More than once they pressed so closely on the fugitives, that Gonzalo and his chivalry were compelled to turn and make one of those desperate charges that effectually punished their audacity, and stayed the tide of pursuit. Yet the victorious foe still hung on the rear of the discomfited cavaliers, till they had emerged from the mountain pa.s.ses, and come within sight of the blackened walls of the capital. It was the last triumph of the Inca. *35

[Footnote 35: Ibid., Ms. - Herrera, Hist. General, dec. 5, lib.

8, cap. 7.]

Among the ma.n.u.scripts for which I am indebted to the liberality of that ill.u.s.trious Spanish scholar, the lamented Navarrete, the most remarkable, in connection with this history, is the work of Pedro Pizarro; Relaciones del Descubrimiento y Conquista de los Reynos del Peru. But a single copy of this important doc.u.ment appears to have been preserved, the existence of which was but little known till it came into the hands of Senor de Navarrete; though it did not escape the indefatigable researches of Herrera, as is evident from the mention of several incidents, some of them having personal relation to Pedro Pizarro himself, which the historian of the Indies could have derived through no other channel. The ma.n.u.script has lately been given to the public as part of the inestimable collection of historical doc.u.ments now in process of publication at Madrid, under auspices which, we may trust, will insure its success. As the printed work did not reach me till my present labors were far advanced, I have preferred to rely on the ma.n.u.script copy for the brief remainder of my narrative, as I had been compelled to do for the previous portion of it.

Nothing, that I am aware of, is known respecting the author, but what is to be gleaned from incidental notices of himself in his own history. He was born at Toledo in Estremadura, the fruitful province of adventurers to the New World, whence the family of Francis Pizarro, to which Pedro was allied, also emigrated. When that chief came over to undertake the conquest of Peru, after receiving his commission from the emperor in 1529, Pedro Pizarro, then only fifteen years of age, accompanied him in quality of page. For three years he remained attached to the household of his commander, and afterwards continued to follow his banner as a soldier of fortune. He was present at most of the memorable events of the Conquest, and seems to have possessed in a great degree the confidence of his leader, who employed him on some difficult missions, in which he displayed coolness and gallantry.

It is true, we must take the author's own word for all this. But he tells his exploits with an air of honesty, and without any extraordinary effort to set them off in undue relief. He speaks of himself in the third person, and, as his ma.n.u.script was not intended solely for posterity, he would hardly have ventured on great misrepresentation, where fraud could so easily have been exposed.

After the Conquest, our author still remained attached to the fortunes of his commander, and stood by him through all the troubles which ensued; and on the a.s.sa.s.sination of that chief, he withdrew to Arequipa, to enjoy in quiet the repartimiento of lands and Indians, which had been bestowed on him as the recompense of his services. He was there on the breaking out of the great rebellion under Gonzalo Pizarro. But he was true to his allegiance, and chose rather, as he tells us, to be false to his name and his lineage than to his loyalty. Gonzalo, in retaliation, seized his estates, and would have proceeded to still further extremities against him, when Pedro Pizarro had fallen into his hands at Lima, but for the interposition of his lieutenant, the famous Francisco de Carbajal, to whom the chronicler had once the good fortune to render an important service. This, Carbajal requited by sparing his life on two occasions, - but on the second coolly remarked, ”No man has a right to a brace of lives; and if you fall into my hands a third time, G.o.d only can grant you another.” Happily, Pizarro did not find occasion to put this menace to the test. After the pacification of the country, he again retired to Arequipa; but, from the querulous tone of his remarks, it would seem he was not fully reinstated in the possessions he had sacrificed by his loyal devotion to government. The last we hear of him is in 1571, the date which he a.s.signs as that of the completion of his history.

Pedro Pizarro's narrative covers the whole ground of the Conquest, from the date of the first expedition that sallied out from Panama, to the troubles that ensued on the departure of President Gasca. The first part of the work was gathered from the testimony of others, and, of course, cannot claim the distinction of rising to the highest cla.s.s of evidence. But all that follows the return of Francis Pizarro from Castile, all, in short, which const.i.tutes the conquest of the country, may be said to be reported on his own observation, as an eyewitness and an actor. This gives to his narrative a value to which it could have no pretensions on the score of its literary execution.

Pizarro was a soldier, with as little education, probably, as usually falls to those who have been trained from youth in this rough school, - the most unpropitious in the world to both mental and moral progress. He had the good sense, more over, not to aspire to an excellence which he could not reach. There is no ambition of fine writing in his chronicle; there are none of those affectations of ornament which only make more glaring the beggarly condition of him who a.s.sumes them. His object was simply to tell the story of the Conquest, as he had seen it. He was to deal with facts, not with words, which he wisely left to those who came into the field after the laborers had quitted it, to garner up what they could at second hand.

Pizarro's situation may be thought to have necessarily exposed him to party influences, and thus given an undue bias to his narrative. It is not difficult, indeed, to determine under whose banner he had enlisted. He writes like a partisan, and yet like an honest one, who is no further warped from a correct judgment of pa.s.sing affairs than must necessarily come from preconceived opinions. There is no management to work a conviction in his reader on this side or the other, still less any obvious perversion of fact. He evidently believes what he says, and this is the great point to be desired. We can make allowance for the natural influences of his position. Were he more impartial than this, the critic of the present day, by making allowance for a greater amount of prejudice and partiality, might only be led into error.

Pizarro is not only independent, but occasionally caustic in his condemnation of those under whom he acted. This is particularly the case where their measures bear too unfavorably on his own interests, or those of the army. As to the unfortunate natives, he no more regards their sufferings than the Jews of old did those of the Philistines, whom they considered as delivered up to their swords, and whose lands they regarded as their lawful heritage. There is no mercy shown by the hard Conqueror in his treatment of the infidel.

Pizarro was the representative of the age in which he lived. Yet it is too much to cast such obloquy on the age. He represented more truly the spirit of the fierce warriors who overturned the dynasty of the Incas. He was not merely a crusader, fighting to extend the empire of the Cross over the darkened heathen. Gold was his great object; the estimate by which he judged of the value of the Conquest; the recompense that he asked for a life of toil and danger. It was with these golden visions, far more than with visions of glory, above all, of celestial glory, that the Peruvian adventurer fed his gross and worldly imagination.

Pizarro did not rise above his caste. Neither did he rise above it in a mental view, any more than in a moral. His history displays no great penetration, or vigor and comprehension of though. It is the work of a soldier, telling simply his tale of blood. Its value is, that it is told by him who acted it. And this, to the modern compiler, renders it of higher worth than far abler productions at second hand. It is the rude ore, which, submitted to the regular process of purification and refinement, may receive the current stamp that fits it for general circulation.

Another authority, to whom I have occasionally referred, and whose writings still slumber in ma.n.u.script, is the Licentiate Fernando Montesinos. He is, in every respect, the opposite of the military chronicler who has just come under our notice. He flourished about a century after the Conquest. Of course, the value of his writings as an authority for historical facts must depend on his superior opportunities for consulting original doc.u.ments. For this his advantages were great. He was twice sent in an official capacity to Peru, which required him to visit the different parts of the country. These two missions occupied fifteen years; so that, while his position gave him access to the colonial archives and literary repositories, he was enabled to verify his researches, to some extent, by actual observation of the country.

The result was his two historical works, Memorias Antiguas Historiales del Peru, and his Annales, sometimes cited in these pages. The former is taken up with the early history of the country, - very early, it must be admitted, since it goes back to the deluge. The first part of this treatise is chiefly occupied with an argument to show the ident.i.ty of Peru with the golden Ophir of Solomon's time! This hypothesis, by no means original with the author, may give no unfair notion of the character of his mind. In the progress of his work he follows down the line of Inca princes, whose exploits, and names even, by no means coincide with Garcila.s.so's catalogue; a circ.u.mstance, however, far from establis.h.i.+ng their inaccuracy. But one will have little doubt of the writer's t.i.tle to this reproach, that reads the absurd legends told in the grave tone of reliance by Montesinos, who shared largely in the credulity and the love of the marvellous which belong to an earlier and less enlightened age.

These same traits are visible in his Annals, which are devoted exclusively to the Conquest. Here, indeed, the author, after his cloudy flight, has descended on firm ground, where gross violations of truth, or, at least, of probability, are not to be expected. But any one who has occasion to compare his narrative with that of contemporary writers will find frequent cause to distrust it. Yet Montesinos has one merit. In his extensive researches, he became acquainted with original instruments, which he has occasionally transferred to his own pages, and which it would be now difficult to meet elsewhere.

His writings have been commended by some of his learned countrymen, as showing diligent research and information. My own experience would not a.s.sign them a high rank as historical vouchers. They seem to me ent.i.tled to little praise, either for the accuracy of their statements, or the sagacity of their reflections. The spirit of cold indifference which they manifest to the sufferings of the natives is an odious feature, for which there is less apology in a writer of the seventeenth century than in one of the primitive Conquerors, whose pa.s.sions had been inflamed by long-protracted hostility. M. Ternaux-Compans has translated the Memorias Antiguas with his usual elegance and precision, for his collection of original doc.u.ments relating to the New World. He speaks in the Preface of doing the same kind office to the Annales, at a future time. I am not aware that he has done this; and I cannot but think that the excellent translator may find a better subject for his labors in some of the rich collection of the Munoz ma.n.u.scripts in his possession.

Book IV: Civil Wars Of The Conquerors

Chapter I

Almagro's March To Chili. - Suffering Of The Troops. - He Returns And Seizes Cuzco. - Action Of Abancay. - Gaspar De Espinosa. - Almagro Leaves Cuzco. - Negotiations With Pizarro.

1535-1537.

While the events recorded in the preceding chapter were pa.s.sing, the Marshal Almagro was engaged in his memorable expedition to Chili. He had set out, as we have seen, with only part of his forces, leaving his lieutenant to follow him with the remainder.

During the first part of the way, he profited by the great military road of the Incas, which stretched across the table-land far towards the south. But as he drew near to Chili, the Spanish commander became entangled in the defiles of the mountains, where no vestige of a road was to be discerned. Here his progress was impeded by all the obstacles which belong to the wild scenery of the Cordilleras; deep and ragged ravines, round whose sides a slender sheep-path wound up to a dizzy height over the precipices below; rivers rus.h.i.+ng in fury down the slopes of the mountains, and throwing themselves in stupendous cataracts into the yawning abyss; dark forests of pine that seemed to have no end, and then again long reaches of desolate table-land, without so much as a bush or shrub to shelter the s.h.i.+vering traveller from the blast that swept down from the frozen summits of the sierra.

The cold was so intense, that many lost the nails of their fingers, their fingers themselves. and sometimes their limbs.

Others were blinded by the dazzling waste of snow, reflecting the rays of a sun made intolerably brilliant in the thin atmosphere of these elevated regions. Hunger came, as usual, in the train of woes; for in these dismal solitudes no vegetation that would suffice for the food of man was visible, and no living thing, except only the great bird of the Andes, hovering over their heads in expectation of his banquet. This was too frequently afforded by the number of wretched Indians, who, unable, from the scantiness of their clothing, to encounter the severity of the climate, perished by the way. Such was the pressure of hunger, that the miserable survivors fed on the dead bodies of their countrymen, and the Spaniards forced a similar sustenance from the carca.s.ses of their horses, literally frozen to death in the mountain pa.s.ses. *1 - Such were the terrible penalties which Nature imposed on those who rashly intruded on these her solitary and most savage haunts.