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Updated: June 17, 2025
Surrounded by fertile valleys, not too far removed from the great highway which the Spaniards were obliged to use in passing from Lima to Cuzco, he could readily attack them. At Machu Picchu he would not have been so conveniently located for robbing the Spanish caravans nor for supplying his followers with arable lands.
Human sacrifice had long since been given up in Peru and its place taken by the consecration of these damsels. Some of the Virgins of the Sun in Cuzco were captured. Others escaped and accompanied Manco into the inaccessible canyons of Uilcapampa.
Their discontent, fomented by some mischievous persons who thought to find their account in it, at length proceeded so far as to menace a mutiny; and it was not suppressed till the commander of Cuzco sentenced one of the ringleaders to death, and several others to banishment. The iron soldiery of the Conquest required an iron hand to rule them.
By these means De Toro collected three hundred men, tolerably armed and equipped, with which he marched from Cuzco to a place named Urcos, about six leagues from that city, where he remained three weeks in anxious expectation of intelligence from Las Charcas: But all the roads and passes between and La Plata, were so well guarded by the Indians, who were entirely disposed to favour Centeno, that he was unable to learn any thing of the movements or intentions of the royalists in Las Charcas, so that he was constrained to remain continually on the alert lest he might have been surprized.
On the same day in which Pizarro was beheaded, his lieutenant-general Carvajal was drawn and quartered, and eight or nine of the insurgent captains were hanged; and in the sequel several others of the principal persons concerned in the revolt were punished when taken . On the day following the president went to Cuzco with all his army, whence he sent Alfonzo de Mendoza with a detachment into Las Charcas, to make prisoners of those who had been sent into that district by Gonzalo in quest of silver, and such as might have fled thither from the battle.
Among these followers were several of Alvarado's men, who, though of better condition than the soldiers of Pizarro, were under much worse discipline, and had acquired, indeed, a spirit of unbridled license under that unscrupulous chief.26 They now evinced little concern for the native population of Cuzco; and, not content with the public edifices, seized on the dwellings of individuals, where it suited their conveniences, appropriating their contents without ceremony, showing as little respect, in short, for person or property, as if the place had been taken by storm.27
But, because of lack of pasturage for their horses, they found themselves obliged to fall back, to the dissatisfaction of the Governor because they had not at least followed and taken those bridges so as to prevent the Indians from returning to Cuzco; it was feared that, being strange people, they would do great harm to the citizens of those places.
His thoughts were now turned towards Cuzco, and he was anxious to get possession of this capital before the arrival of the enemy. Too feeble to sit on horseback, he was obliged to be carried in a litter; and, when he reached the ancient town of Bilcas, not far from Guamanga, his indisposition was so severe that he was compelled to halt and remain there three weeks before resuming his march.
While it was scarcely possible, therefore, to assail 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, furnishing a ready means for obtaining supplies.
The sheep, as they were called, had necks like camels, but their heads much resembled those of ordinary sheep. Their wool was exceedingly fine. The Spaniards employed them to carry loads of silver from the mines. The voyagers heard that, throughout the province of Cuzco, so rich was the soil that every hundred pounds of earth yielded twenty-five pounds of pure silver.
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