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Lastly, the viceroy charged against him, that having entrusted Suarez at the very beginning of the troubles with certain dispatches for his brother, the licentiate Carvajal, who then dwelt at Cuzco, intended for procuring intelligence by his means of what was going on in that city, he had never given or procured any answer on that subject; although it must certainly have been easy for him to have procured intelligence from his brother, by means of the Indian vassals of both, and by those belonging to the king who were at his disposal officially, all of whom dwelt on the road between Lima and Cuzco."
Although the amount of arable land which could be made available with the most careful terracing was not large enough to support a very great population, Machu Picchu offered an impregnable citadel to the chiefs and priests and their handful of followers who were obliged to flee from the rich plains near Cuzco and the broad, pleasant valley of Yucay.
The thirty-fourth ruler, called Ayay-Manco, “assembled the amautas in Cuzco to reform the calendar, and it was decided that the year should be divided into months of thirty days, and weeks of ten days, calling the five days at the end of the year a small week; they also collected the years into decades or groups of tens, and determined that each group of ten decades should form a sun.”
In a few days the whole army will be assembled, when we march upon Cuzco, once more to reinstate our sovereign in the capital of his ancestors." Manco's dark eyes flashed proudly as he spoke; for after the recent success of the Indian arms he had no doubt of victory. I thought differently.
The Spanish voyager, as his caravel plowed the adjacent seas, might give full scope to his imagination, and dream that beyond the long, low margin of forest which bounded his horizon lay hid a rich harvest for some future conqueror; perhaps a second Mexico, with its royal palace and sacred pyramids, or another Cuzco, with the temple of the Sun, encircled with a frieze of gold.
Yet know this, that if, after all that has been sworn, you withhold your daughter, the lady Quilla, from the house of Urco who is her lord to be, it will breed instant war, since as soon as word of it comes to Cuzco, which will be within twenty hours, for messengers wait all along the road, the great armies of the Inca that are gathered there will begin to move.
"I should say, senor, that first we had better journey down to Cuzco and then down to Sicuani, where the western Cordilleras, after making a bend, join the eastern branch, and there cross the Tinta volcano. On the other side are many gorges. In one of these I know there is some very rich gold sand.
The body itself was skilfully embalmed and removed to the great Temple of the Sun at Cuzco, where were the bodies of all the former Incas and their queens, ranged in opposite files. Clothed in their accustomed attire, they sat in chairs of gold, their heads bent, their hands crossed upon their breasts, their dusky faces and black, or sometimes silver, hair retaining a perfectly natural look.
In one place telephone wires intercept one's view of the beautiful stone facade of an old Jesuit Church, now part of the University of Cuzco. It is built of reddish basalt from the quarries of Huaccoto, near the twin peaks of Mt. Picol.
In these spots, so celebrated at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the historians of the conquest tell us that the flower of the Castilian heroes were found assembled: thence Balboa set out to discover the South Sea; Pizarro marched from thence to conquer and ravage Peru; and Pedro de Cieca constantly followed the chain of the Andes, by Autioquia, Popayan and Cuzco, as far as La Plata, after having gone 900 leagues by land.
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