Part 58 (1/2)
Little time was given for repose, as all felt a.s.sured that the success of their enterprise hung on the short respite now given them by the improvident enemy. The president, with his princ.i.p.al officers, took part in the labor with the common soldiers; *11 and before ten o'clock in the evening, Gasca had the satisfaction to see the bridge so well secured, that the leading files of the army, unenc.u.mbered by their baggage, might venture to cross it.
A short time sufficed to place several hundred men on the other bank. But here a new difficulty, not less formidable than that of the river, presented itself to the troops. The ground rose up with an abrupt, almost precipitous, swell from the river-side, till, in the highest peaks, it reached an elevation of several thousand feet. This steep ascent, though not to its full height, indeed, was now to be surmounted. The difficulties of the ground, broken up into fearful chasms and water-courses, and tangled with thickets, were greatly increased by the darkness of the night; and the soldiers, as they toiled slowly upward, were filled with apprehension, akin to fear, from the uncertainty whether each successive step might not bring them into an ambuscade, for which the ground was so favorable. More than once, the Spaniards were thrown into a panic by false reports that the enemy were upon them. But Hinojosa and Valdivia were at hand to rally their men, and cheer them on, until, at length, before dawn broke, the bold cavaliers and their followers placed themselves on the highest point traversed by the road, where they waited the arrival of the president. This was not long delayed; and in the course of the following morning, the royalists were already in sufficient strength to bid defiance to their enemy.
[Footnote 11: ”La gente que estaua, de la vna parte y de la otra, todos tirauan y trabajauan al poner, y apretar de las Criznejas: sin que el Presidente ni Obispos, ni otra persona quisiesse tener preuilegio para dexar de trabajar.” Fernandez, Hist. del Peru, Parte 1, lib. 2, cap. 87.]
The pa.s.sage of the river had been effected with less loss than might have been expected, considering the darkness of the night, and the numbers that crowded over the aerial causeway. Some few, indeed, fell into the water, and were drowned; and more than sixty horses, in the attempt to swim them across the river, were hurried down the current, and dashed against the rocks below. *12 It still required time to bring up the heavy train of ordnance and the military wagons; and the president encamped on the strong ground which he now occupied, to await their arrival, and to breathe his troops after their extraordinary efforts. In these quarters we must leave him, to acquaint the reader with the state of things in the insurgent army, and with the cause of its strange remissness in guarding the pa.s.ses of the Apurimac. *13
[Footnote 12: ”Aquel dia pasaron mas de quatrocientos Hombres, Ilevando los Caballos a nado, encima de illos atadas sus armas, i arcabuces, caso que se perdieron mas de sesenta Caballos, que con la corriente grande se desataron, i luego daban en vnas penas, donde se hacian pedacos, sin darles lugar el impetu del rio, a que pudiesen nadar.” Zarate, Conq. del Peru, lib. 7, cap. 5. - Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, cap. 184.]
[Footnote 13: Ibid., ubi supra. - Fernandez Hist del Peru, Parte 1, lib. 2, cap. 87. - Zarate, Conq. del Peru, lib. 7, cap. 5. - Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms. - Ms. de Caravantes. - Carta de Valdivia, Ms. - Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap. 91. - Relacion del Lic. Gasca, Ms.]
From the time of Pizarro's occupation of Cuzco, he had lived in careless luxury in the midst of his followers, like a soldier of fortune in the hour of prosperity; enjoying the present, with as little concern for the future as if the crown of Peru were already fixed irrevocably upon his head. It was otherwise with Carbajal. He looked on the victory at Huarina as the commencement, not the close, of the struggle for empire; and he was indefatigable in placing his troops in the best condition for maintaining their present advantage. At the first streak of dawn, the veteran might be seen mounted on his mule, with the garb and air of a common soldier, riding about in the different quarters of the capital, sometimes superintending the manufacture of arms, or providing military stores, and sometimes drilling his men, for he was most careful always to maintain the strictest discipline. *14 His restless spirit seemed to find no pleasure but in incessant action; living, as he had always done, in the turmoil of military adventure, he had no relish for any thing unconnected with war, and in the city saw only the materials for a well-organized camp.
[Footnote 14: ”Andaua siempre en vna mula crescida de color entre pardo y bermejo, yo no le vi en otra caualgadura en todo el tiempo que estuuo en el Cozco antes de la batalla de Sacsahuana.
Era tan contino y diligete en solicitar lo que a su exercito conuenia, que a todas horas del dia y de la roche le topauan sus soldados haziendo su oficio, y los agenos.” Garcila.s.so, Com.
Real., Parte 1, lib. 5 cap. 27.]
With these feelings, he was much dissatisfied at the course taken by his younger leader, who now professed his intention to abide where he was, and, when the enemy advanced, to give him battle.
Carbajal advised a very different policy. He had not that full confidence, it would seem, in the loyalty of Pizarro's partisans, at least, not of those who had once followed the banner of Centeno. These men some three hundred in number, had been in a manner compelled to take service under Pizarro. They showed no heartiness in the cause, and the veteran strongly urged his commander to disband them at once; since it was far better to go to battle with a few faithful followers than with a host of the false and faint-hearted.
But Carbajal thought, also, that his leader was not sufficiently strong in numbers to encounter his opponent, supported as he was by the best captains of Peru. He advised, accordingly, that he should abandon Cuzco, carrying off all the treasure, provisions, and stores of every kind from the city, which might, in any way, serve the necessities of the royalists. The latter, on their arrival, disappointed by the poverty of a place where they had expected to find so much booty, would become disgusted with the service. Pizzaro, meanwhile, might take refuge with his men in the neighbouring fastnesses, where, familiar with the ground, it would be easy to elude the enemy; and if the latter persevered in the pursuit, with numbers diminished by desertion, it would not be difficult in the mountain pa.s.ses to find an opportunity for a.s.sailing him at advantage. - Such was the wary counsel of the old warrior. But it was not to the taste of his fiery commander, who preferred to risk the chances of a battle, rather than turn his back on a foe.
Neither did Pizarro show more favor to a proposition, said to have been made by the Licentiate Cepeda, - that he should avail himself of his late success to enter into negotiations with Gasca. Such advice, from the man who had so recently resisted all overtures of the president, could only have proceeded from a conviction, that the late victory placed Pizarro on a vantage-ground for demanding terms far better than would have been before conceded to him. It may be that subsequent experience had also led him to distrust the fidelity of Gonzalo's followers, or, possibly, the capacity of their chief to conduct them through the present crisis. Whatever may have been the motives of the slippery counsellor, Pizarro gave little heed to the suggestion, and even showed some resentment, as the matter was pressed on him. In every contest, with Indian or European, whatever had been the odds, he had come off victorious. He was not now for the first time to despond; and he resolved to remain in Cuzco, and hazard all on the chances of a battle. There was something in the hazard itself captivating to his bold and chivalrous temper. In this, too, he was confirmed by some of the cavaliers who had followed him through all his fortunes; reckless young adventurers, who, like himself, would rather risk all on a single throw of the dice, than adopt the cautious, and, as it seemed to them, timid, policy of graver counsellors. It was by such advisers, then, that Pizarro's future course was to be shaped. *15
[Footnote 15: Garcila.s.so, Com. Real., Parte 2, lib. 5, cap. 27. - Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, cap. 182. - Fernandez, Hist. del Peru, Parte 1, lib. 2, cap. 88.
”Finalmente, Goncalo Pizarro dixo que queria prouar su ventura: pues siempre auia sido vencedor, y lamas vencido.” Ibid., ubi supra.]
Such was the state of affairs in Cuzco, when Pizarro's soldiers returned with the tidings, that a detachment of the enemy had crossed the Apurimac, and were busy in reestablis.h.i.+ng the bridge.
Carbajal saw at once the absolute necessity of maintaining this pa.s.s. ”It is my affair,” he said; ”I claim to be employed on this service. Give me but a hundred picked men, and I will engage to defend the pa.s.s against an army, and bring back the chaplain - the name by which the president was known in the rebel camp - a prisoner to Cuzco.” *16 ”I cannot spare you, father,”
said Gonzalo, addressing him by this affectionate epithet, which he usually applied to his aged follower, *17 ”I cannot spare you so far from my own person”; and he gave the commission to Juan de Acosta, a young cavalier warmly attached to his commander, and who had given undoubted evidence of his valor on more than one occasion, but who, as the event proved, was signally deficient in the qualities demanded for so critical an undertaking as the present. Acosta, accordingly, was placed at the head of two hundred mounted musketeers, and, after much wholesome counsel from Carbajal, set out on his expedition.
[Footnote 16: ”Paresceme vuestra Senoria se vaya a la vuelta del Collao y me deje cien hombres, los que yo escojiere, que yo me ire a vista deste capellan, que ansi llamaba el al presidente.”
Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms.]
[Footnote 17: Garcila.s.so, Com. Real., Parte 2, lib. 5, cap. 31]
But he soon forgot the veteran's advice, and moved at so dull a pace over the difficult roads, that, although the distance was not more than nine leagues, he found, on his arrival, the bridge completed, and so large a body of the enemy already crossed, that he was in no strength to attack them. Acosta did, indeed, meditate an ambuscade by night; but the design was betrayed by a deserter, and he contented himself with retreating to a safe distance, and sending for a further reinforcement from Cuzco.
Three hundred men were promptly detached to his support; but when they arrived, the enemy was already planted in full force on the crest of the eminence. The golden opportunity was irrecoverably lost; and the disconsolate cavalier rode back in all haste to report the failure of his enterprise to his commander in Cuzco.
*18
[Footnote 18: Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms. - Fernandez, Hist. del Peru, Parte 1, lib. 2, cap. 88.
Zarate, Conq. del Peru, lib. 7, cap. 5. - Carta de Valdivia, Ms.
Valdivia's letter to the emperor, dated at Concepcion, was written about two years after the events above recorded. It is chiefly taken up with his Chilian conquests, to which his campaign under Gasca, on his visit to Peru, forms a kind of brilliant episode. This letter, the original of which is preserved in Simancas, covers about seventy folio pages in the copy belonging to me. It is one of that cla.s.s of historical doc.u.ments, consisting of the despatches and correspondence of the colonial governors, which, from the minuteness of the details and the means of information possessed by the writers, are of the highest worth. The despatches addressed to the Court, particularly, may compare with the celebrated Relazioni made by the Venetian amba.s.sadors to their republic, and now happily in the course of publication, at Florence, under the editorial auspices of the learned Alberi.]
The only question now to be decided was as to the spot where Gonzalo Pizarro should give battle to his enemies. He determined at once to abandon the capital, and wait for his opponents in the neighbouring valley of Xaquixaguana. It was about five leagues distant, and the reader may remember it as the place where Francis Pizarro burned the Peruvian general Challcuchima, on his first occupation of Cuzco. The valley, fenced round by the lofty rampart of the Andes, was, for the most part, green and luxuriant, affording many picturesque points of view; and, from the genial temperature of the climate, had been a favorite summer residence of the Indian n.o.bles, many of whose pleasure-houses still dotted the sides of the mountains. A river, or rather stream, of no great volume, flowed through one end of this inclosure, and the neighbouring soil was so wet and miry as to have the character of a mora.s.s.
Here the rebel commander arrived, after a tedious march over roads not easily traversed by his train of heavy wagons and artillery. His forces amounted in all to about nine hundred men, with some half-dozen pieces of ordnance. It was a well-appointed body, and under excellent discipline, for it had been schooled by the strictest martinet in the Peruvian service. But it was the misfortune of Pizarro that his army was composed, in part, at least, of men on whose attachment to his cause he could not confidently rely. This was a deficiency which no courage nor skill in the leader could supply.
On entering the valley, Pizarro selected the eastern quarter of it, towards Cuzco, as the most favorable spot for his encampment.
It was crossed by the stream above mentioned, and he stationed his army in such a manner, that, while one extremity of the camp rested on a natural barrier formed by the mountain cliffs that here rose up almost perpendicularly, the other was protected by the river. While it was scarcely possible, therefore, to a.s.sail his flanks, the approaches in front were so extremely narrowed by these obstacles, that it would not be easy to overpower him by numbers in that direction. In the rear, his communications remained open with Cuzco, furnis.h.i.+ng a ready means for obtaining supplies. Having secured this strong position, he resolved patiently to wait the a.s.sault of the enemy. *19
[Footnote 19: Carta de Valdivia, Ms. - Garcila.s.so, Com. Real., Parte 2, lib. 5, cap. 33, 34. - Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms. - Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, cap. 185. - Fernandez, Hist.