Pizarro Marches to Cuzco
For the march to Cuzco all at last was clear. A start was set for early in
September, and when the day arrived loud did the Spanish bugles shout from
their golden throats. No more uncertainty ! No more delay! Ho now for El
Dorado! Ho for regal Cuzco and the Temple of the Sun! The way along the
Quito-Cuzco road was precipitous, and owing to the cliffs and stairways,
chasms and raging torrents — the latter spanned only by swaying bridges of
osier — the Spanish force of nearly five hundred men had much ado to keep
a footing. Nor was this all. On the march the Conqueror was much harassed
by Indian attacks, and, suspecting these to be instigated by one of
Atahualpa's captains, Challcuchima by name, whom he had with him as a
hostage, he ruthlessly destroyed that worthy by burning him at the stake.
Pizarro entered Cuzco two hours before sunset on November 15, 1533,
a year to a day from the time when he had entered Caxamarca. How did this
capital of the Incas look to him? Situated a hundred and fifty miles
northwest of Titicaca, it lay in a valley dominated by steep hills and
distant mountains. On one of the hills reposed a huge Cyclopean fortress,
Sacsahuaman, accentuated by towers square and round, a relic of that
Megalithic or Great Stone Age which preceded the Inca period. But what
presumably attracted Pizarro most were the structures of the town itself,
the palaces and temples wherein lay the treasure. Grouped in the main
about a plaza, with heavy inward-sloping stone walls pierced by doorways
broader at bottom than top, they made a picture that was curiously
Egyptian. These buildings were numerous, too, for not only was the town
large — over a hundred thousand souls, perhaps — but when any great Cuzcan
died, Inca or nobleman, his abode passed to no successor but was
maintained in all respects as though he were yet alive.
Far more than Mexico-Tenochtitlan was Cuzco a holy city. The
supremacy there of one religious cult, Sun worship, fostered monotheism,
and monotheism demanded a supreme temple. Hence that shrine of the Sun,
noblest edifice in America since the days of splendor in Yucatán, a sight
of which the Spaniards had so ardently craved. There now it lay in a court
of flowers, one end rounded into an apse, its outer wall embellished by a
golden cornice three feet in depth. Pizarro must soon have visited the
interior — that interior whence largely had come the seven hundred golden
plates, and where now was to be seen the Sun himself in the guise of a
resplendent golden disc flanked by mummies of Incas, his departed
children, posed on golden thrones, sustained by golden pedestals.
But in Cuzco religion did not exhaust itself with one temple, even
though that temple was supreme. The whole city reflected religion — indeed
was based upon it. So true was this, that the Center, the " Polaris " of
the Empire, as distinguished from the "Four Quarters," was the center of
the plaza of Cuzco. Here, in the form of a golden vase, was a fountain;
and about this, before dawn on the day of the summer solstice, Peruvians
were wont to gather by tribes to worship. And to worship what? Not an
image of the Sun, but the Sun himself, if perchance he should appear. That
he would appear was not taken for granted. He might not. Would he show his
face on this great day? Anxiety reigned, dread even. Then "over the
mountains the silent herald Dawn, and — following — the Sun!" All very
splendid, but not anything that Pizarro saw or would have rejoiced in had
he seen it. To him, no less than to Father Valverde, the whole ceremony
would have been utter infidelity, rank idolatry, a celebration to be
straightway suppressed, as in fact it was.
With regard to the treasure actually uncovered at Cuzco or on the
way thither — slabs of silver twenty feet long by one foot broad,
gold-enwrapped mummies of Inca queens, and other precious objects — the
quantity was vast, but not so vast, not by half, as the quantity already
divided. Almagro's men, by waiting for their harvest until Cuzco was
reached, did not fare as well as they would have fared at Caxamarca.
Certain it is, though, that they fared too well to show signs of
discontent. Discontent on their part, when it came, as come it inevitably
did, was from a cause quite different.
Three definite stages of the Peruvian conquest there were: that of
preparation, that of active hostilities, and that of accomplishment. It
is, however, a peculiarity of this conquest that the last stage, that of
amassing treasure and of seizing dominion, instead of following upon the
state of active hostilities, largely preceded it and gave rise to it. Now,
therefore, for a glance at the stage of active hostilities. Here Pizarro
does not shine as he did in the preparatory stage of patience and
endurance. A new man dominates the scene, Pizarro's brother, Hernando.
Hernando Pizarro is ever a figure knightly and romantic. Unlike the
rest of his family, he was neither illegitimate nor ignorant, though like
them he was poor and had his way to make. That he could be chivalrous
appears from his attitude toward Atahualpa, an attitude shared by an
associate, Hernando de Soto. In these of our pages devoted to Mexico and
Peru, three figures stand out as representatives of that chivalry
illustrated in the Amadis of Gaul and satirized in Don Quixote: not so
much Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, Hernan Cortés, and Francisco Pizarro as,
rather, Juan de Grijalva, Hernando de Soto, and Hernando Pizarro, men whom
we instinctively associate with scenes of the tourney, with "splintered
spear-shafts," and "shivered brands," but hardly less with "perfume and
flowers that lightly rain from ladies' hands."
Hernando Pizarro it was, to cite an incident romantic as well as
practical, who, on the expedition which he led to Pachacamac, gave the
memorable order that the Spanish horses were to be shod with silver in
lieu of iron. Hernando Pizarro, too, it was who, as Pizarro's emissary to
Spain, performed with courtliness the duty of laying at the royal feet the
incomparable riches of the Incas. A further duty in Spain he discharged,
and one surely not lacking in chivalry : he assented to and even promoted
the interests of Almagro, whom he did not like, by joining with the
latter's agent in procuring for him, along with the title of Mariscal or
Marshal, a grant of two hundred leagues beginning where Pizarro's grant
left off. But where did Pizarro's grant leave off? To this question the
answer involves much: the story of Peru to the death of Almagro; then to
the imprisonment of Hernando Pizarro for that death; and finally to the
death of the Conqueror himself.
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