Part 51 (1/2)

The sufferings of Pizarro and his troop were scarcely less than those of the viceroy; though they were somewhat mitigated by the natives of the country, who, with ready instinct, discerned which party was the strongest, and, of course, the most to be feared.

But, with every alleviation, the chieftain's sufferings were terrible. It was repeating the dismal scenes of the expedition to the Amazon. The soldiers of the Conquest must be admitted to have purchased their triumphs dearly.

Yet the viceroy had one source of disquietude, greater, perhaps, than any arising from physical suffering. This was the distrust of his own followers. There were several of the princ.i.p.al cavaliers in his suite whom he suspected of being in correspondence with the enemy, and even of designing to betray him into their hands. He was so well convinced of this, that he caused two of these officers to be put to death on the march; and their dead bodies, as they lay by the roadside, meeting the eye of the soldier, told him that there were others to be feared in these frightful solitudes besides the enemy in his rear. *12

[Footnote 12: ”Los afligidos Soldados, que por el cansancio de los Caballos iban a pie con terrible angustia, por la persecucion de los Enemigos, que iban cerca, i por la fatiga de la hambre, quando vieron los Cuerpos de los dos Capitanes muertos en aquel camino quedaron atonitos.” Herrera, Hist. General, dec. 7, lib.

9, cap. 25.]

Another cavalier, who held the chief command under the viceroy, was executed, after a more formal investigation of his case, at the first place where the army halted. At this distance of time, it is impossible to determine how far the suspicions of Blasco Nunez were founded on truth. The judgments of contemporaries are at variance. *13 In times of political ferment, the opinion of the writer is generally determined by the complexion of his party. To judge from the character of Blasco Nunez, jealous and irritable, we might suppose him to have acted without sufficient cause. But this consideration is counterbalanced by that of the facility with which his followers swerved from their allegiance to their commander, who seems to have had so light a hold on their affections, that they were shaken off by the least reverse of fortune. Whether his suspicions were well or ill founded, the effect was the same on the mind of the viceroy. With an enemy in his rear whom he dared not fight, and followers whom he dared not trust, the cup of his calamities was nearly full.

[Footnote 13: Fernandez, who held a loyal pen, and one sufficiently friendly to the viceroy, after stating that the officers, whom the latter put to death, had served him to that time with their lives and fortunes, dismisses the affair with the temperate reflection, that men formed different judgments on it.

”Sobre estas muertes uuo en el Peru varios y contrarios juyzios y opiniones, de culpa y de su descargo.” (Hist. del Peru, Parte 1, lib. 1, cap. 41.) Gomara says, more unequivocally, ”All condemned it.” (Hist. de las Ind., cap. 167.) The weight of opinion seems to have been against the viceroy.]

At length, he issued forth on firm ground, and, pa.s.sing through Tomebamba, Blasco Nunez reentered his northern capital of Quito.

But his reception was not so cordial as that which he had before experienced. He now came as a fugitive, with a formidable enemy in pursuit; and he was soon made to feel that the surest way to receive support is not to need it.

Shaking from his feet the dust of the disloyal city, whose superst.i.tious people were alive to many an omen that boded his approaching ruin, *14 the unfortunate commander held on his way towards Pastos, in the jurisdiction of Benalcazar. Pizarro and his forces entered Quito not long after, disappointed, that, with all his diligence, the enemy still eluded his pursuit. He halted only to breathe his men, and, declaring that ”he would follow up the viceroy to the North Sea but he would overtake him,” *15 he resumed his march. At Pastos, he nearly accomplished his object.

His advance-guard came up with Blasco Nunez as the latter was halting on the opposite bank of a rivulet. Pizarro's men, fainting from toil and heat, staggered feebly to the water-side, to slake their burning thirst, and it would have been easy for the viceroy's troops, refreshed by repose, and superior in number to their foes, to have routed them. But Blasco Nunez could not bring his soldiers to the charge. They had fled so long before their enemy, that the mere sight of him filled their hearts with panic, and they would have no more thought of turning against him than the hare would turn against the hound that pursues her.

Their safety, they felt, was to fly, not to fight, and they profited by the exhaustion of their pursuers only to quicken their retreat.

[Footnote 14: Some of these omens recorded by the historian - as the howling of dogs - were certainly no miracles. ”En esta lamentable, i angustiosa partida, muchos afirmaron, haver visto por el Aire muchos Cometas, i que quadrillas de Perros andaban por las Calles, dando grandes i temerosos ahullidos, i los Hombres andaban asombrados, i fuera de si.” Herrera Hist.

General, dec. 7, lib. 10, cap. 4.]

[Footnote 15: Ibid., ubi supra.]

Gonzalo Pizarro continued the chase some leagues beyond Pastos; when, finding himself carried farther than he desired into the territories of Benalcazar, and not caring to encounter this formidable captain at disadvantage, he came to a halt, and, notwithstanding his magnificent vaunt about the North Sea, ordered a retreat, and made a rapid countermarch on Quito. Here he found occupation in repairing the wasted spirits of his troops, and in strengthening himself with fresh reinforcements, which much increased his numbers; though these were again diminished by a body that he detached under Carbajal to suppress an insurrection, which he now learned had broken out in the south. It was headed by Diego Centeno, one of his own officers, whom he had established in La Plata, the inhabitants of which place had joined in the revolt and raised the standard for the Crown. With the rest of his forces, Pizarro resolved to remain at Quito, waiting the hour when the viceroy would reenter his dominions; as the tiger crouches by some spring in the wilderness, patiently waiting the return of his victims.

Meanwhile Blasco Nunez had pushed forward his retreat to Popayan, the capital of Benalcazar's province. Here he was kindly received by the people; and his soldiers, reduced by desertion and disease to one fifth of their original number, rested from the unparalleled fatigues of a march which had continued for more than two hundred leagues. *16 It was not long before he was joined by Cabrera, Benalcazar's lieutenant, with a stout reinforcement, and, soon after, by that chieftain himself. His whole force now amounted to near four hundred men, most of them in good condition, and well trained in the school of American warfare. His own men were sorely deficient both in arms and ammunition; and he set about repairing the want by building furnaces for manufacturing arquebuses and pikes. *17 - One familiar with the history of these times is surprised to see the readiness with which the Spanish adventurers turned their hands to various trades and handicrafts usually requiring a long apprentices.h.i.+p. They displayed the dexterity so necessary to settlers in a new country, where every man must become in some degree his own artisan. But this state of things, however favorable to the ingenuity of the artist, is not very propitious to the advancement of the art; and there can be little doubt that the weapons thus made by the soldiers of Blasco Nunez were of the most rude and imperfect construction.

[Footnote 16: This retreat of Blasco Nunez may undoubtedly compare, if not in duration, at least in sharpness of suffering, with any expedition in the New World, - save, indeed, that of Gonzalo Pizarro himself to the Amazon. The particulars of it may be found, with more or less amplification, in Zarate, Conq. del Peru, lib. 5, cap. 19, 29. - Carta de Gonzalo Pizarro a Valdivia, Ms. - Herrera, Hist. General, dec. 7, lib. 9, cap. 20-26. - Fernandez, Hist. del Peru, Parte 1, lib. 1, cap. 40, et seq. - Relacion de los Sucesos del Peru, Ms - Relacion Anonima, Ms. - Montesions, Annales, Ms., ano 1545.]

[Footnote 17: ”Proveio, que se tragese alli todo el hierro que se pudo haver en la Provincia, i busco Maestros, hico aderecar Fraguas, i en breve tiempo se forjaron en ellas docien tos Arcabuces, con todos sus aparejos.” Zarate, Conq. del Peru, lib.

5, cap 34.]

As week after week rolled away, Gonzalo Pizarro, though fortified with the patience of a Spanish soldier, felt uneasy at the protracted stay of Blasco Nunez in the north, and he resorted to stratagem to decoy him from his retreat. He marched out of Quito with the greater part of his forces, pretending that he was going to support his lieutenant in the south, while he left a garrison in the city under the command of Puelles, the same officer who had formerly deserted from the viceroy. These tidings he took care should be conveyed to the enemy's camp. The artifice succeeded as he wished. Blasco Nunez and his followers, confident in their superiority over Puelles, did not hesitate for a moment to profit by the supposed absence of Pizarro.

Abandoning Popayan, the viceroy, early in January, 1546, moved by rapid marches towards the south. But before he reached the place of his destination, he became apprised of the snare into which he had been drawn. He communicated the fact to his officers; but he had already suffered so much from suspense, that his only desire now was, to bring his quarrel with Pizarro to the final arbitrament of arms.

That chief, meanwhile, had been well informed, through his spies,of the viceroy's movements. On learning the departure of the latter from Popayan, he had reentered Quito, joined his forces with those of Puelles, and, issuing from the capital, had taken up a strong position about three leagues to the north, on a high ground that commanded a stream, across which the enemy must pa.s.s. It was not long before the latter came in sight, and Blasco Nunez, as night began to fall, established himself on the opposite bank of the rivulet. It was so near to the enemy's quarters, that the voices of the sentinels could be distinctly heard in the opposite camps, and they did not fail to salute one another with the epithet of ”traitors.” In these civil wars, as we have seen, each party claimed for itself the exclusive merit of loyalty. *18

[Footnote 18: ”Que se llegaron a hablar los Corredores de ambas partes, Ilamandose Traidores los vnos a los otros, fundando, que cada vno sustentaba la voz del Rei, i asi estuvieron toda aquella noche aguardando.” Ibid., ubi supra.]

But Benalcazar soon saw that Pizarro's position was too strong to be a.s.sailed with any chance of success. He proposed, therefore, to the viceroy, to draw off his forces secretly in the night; and, making a detour round the hills, to fall on the enemy's rear, where he would be at least prepared to receive them. The counsel was approved; and, no sooner were the two hosts shrouded from each other's eyes by the darkness, than, leaving his camp-fires burning to deceive the enemy, Blasco Nunez broke up his quarters, and began his circuitous march in the direction of Quito. But either he had been misinformed, or his guides misled him; for the roads proved so impracticable, that he was compelled to make a circuit of such extent, that dawn broke before he drew near the point of attack. Finding that he must now abandon the advantage of a surprise, he pressed forward to Quito, where he arrived with men and horses sorely fatigued by a night-march of eight leagues, from a point which, by the direct route, would not have exceeded three. It was a fatal error on the eve of an engagement. *19

[Footnote 19: For the preceding pages, see Zarate, Conq. del Peru, lib. 5, cap. 34, 35. - Gomara, Hist. de las Ind., cap. 167.

- Carta de Gonzalo Pizarro a Valdivia, Ms. - Montesinos, Annales, Ms., ano 1546. - Fernandez, Hist. del Peru, Parte 1, lib. 1, cap.

50-52.

Herrera, in his account of these transactions, has fallen into a strange confusion of dates, fixing the time of the viceroy's entry into Quito on the 10th of January, and that of his battle with Pizarro nine days later (Hist. General, dec. 8, lib. 1, cap 1.) This last event, which, by the testimony of Fernandez, was on the eighteenth of the month, was by the agreement of such contemporary authorities as I have consulted, - as stated in the text, - on the evening of the same day in which the viceroy entered Quito. Herrera, though his work is arranged on the chronological system of annals, is by no means immaculate as to his dates. Quintana has exposed several glaring anachronisms of the historian in the earlier period of the Peruvian conquest.

See his Espanoles Celebres, tom. II. Appendix, No. 7.]

He found the capital nearly deserted by the men. They had all joined the standard of Pizarro; for they had now caught the general spirit of disaffection, and looked upon that chief as their protector from the oppressive ordinances. Pizarro was the representative of the people. Greatly moved at this desertion, the unhappy viceroy, lifting his hands to heaven, exclaimed, - ”Is it thus, Lord, that thou abandonest thy servants?” The women and children came out, and in vain offered him food, of which he stood obviously in need, asking him, at the same time, ”Why he had come there to die?” His followers, with more indifference than their commander, entered the houses of the inhabitants, and unceremoniously appropriated whatever they could find to appease the cravings of appet.i.te.

Benalcazar, who saw the temerity of giving battle, in their present condition, recommended the viceroy to try the effect of negotiation, and offered himself to go to the enemy's camp, and arrange, if possible, terms of accommodation with Pizarro. But Blasco Nunez, if he had desponded for a moment, had now recovered his wonted constancy, and he proudly replied, - ”There is no faith to be kept with traitors. We have come to fight, not to parley; and we must do our duty like good and loyal cavaliers. I will do mine,” he continued, ”and be a.s.sured I will be the first man to break a lance with the enemy.” *20