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This province has five ports, at Juncal, Chineral, Caldera, Copaipo, and Huasca, or Guasco. The chief town, Copaipo, situated on the river of the same name, contains a parish church, a convent of the order of Mercy, and a college which formerly belonged to the Jesuits. The town of San Francisco della Salva, stands on the same river about sixty miles farther inland.
Atahualpa and Huasca, the two sons of the recently dead Inca, Huana Capac, were engaged in a fierce struggle for the throne. This in itself was something of a shock to the devout subjects of the Inca race, looking as they did upon the Imperial Children of the Sun as superhuman beings. It was thus a war of demigods waged by doubting and diffident mortals.
Coquimbo, which is divided from Copaipo by the river Huasca or Guasco, is the next province towards the south. It is accordingly bounded on the north by Copaipo, on the east by the Andes, on the south-east by Aconcagua, on the south-west by Quillota, and on the west by the Pacific. It is about 135 miles from north to south, and 120 from east to west.
In some respects this was doubly unfortunate for Pizarro, as there now remained one clear claimant to the throne of the Children of the Sun Manco Capac, the brother of Huasca. Manco Capac was by no means prepared to yield tamely to the situation. For a considerable time very little was effected on either side.
The arrival of the Spaniards increased, of course, the drama of the situation. At the period of their advent Huasca was obtaining the worst of the struggle, and, seeing the possibility of salvation in the arrival of the newcomers, he sent to these beseeching their help. Atahualpa unconsciously helped to play the fate of the unfortunate Inca race still further into the hands of the Spaniards.
There was now no powerful claimant to the Inca throne. The wrongs suffered by the race at the hands of the Spaniards need not cover the fact that the Indians themselves frequently proved capable of tyrannical and sanguinary acts. Thus on the news of Atahualpa's capture his enraged adherents had slain Huasca, who by that time had become a prisoner in their hands.
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