Tomependa, which we desired to visit for the purpose of determining the
difference of longitude between Quito and the mouth of the Chinchipe
(a determination of some importance to the geography of South America
on account of an old observation of La Condamine).[50] We slept as
usual under the open sky on the sandy shore (Playa de Guayanchi) at
the confluence of the Rio de Chamaya with the Amazons. The next day
we embarked on the latter river, and descended it to the Cataracts
and Narrows (Pongo in the Quichua language, from puncu, door or gate)
of Rentema, where rocks of coarse-grained sandstone (conglomerate)
rise like towers, and form a rocky dam across the river. I measured
a base line on the flat and sandy shore, and found that at Tomependa
the afterwards mighty River of the Amazons is only a little above
1386 English feet across. In the celebrated River Narrow or Pongo of
Manseritche, between Santiago and San Borja, in a mountain ravine
where at some points the overhanging rocks and the canopy of foliage
forbid more than a very feeble light to penetrate, and where all the
drift wood, consisting of a countless number of trunks of trees, is
broken and dashed in pieces, the breadth of the stream is under 160
English feet. The rocks by which all these Pongos or Narrows are formed
undergo many changes in the course of centuries. Thus a part of the
rocks forming the Pongo de Rentema, spoken of above, had been broken
up by a high flood a year before my journey; and there has even been
preserved among the inhabitants, by tradition, a lively recollection
of the precipitous fall of the then towering masses of rock along the
whole of the Pongo,--an event which took place in the early part of
the eighteenth century. This fall, and the consequent blocking up of
the channel, arrested the flow of the stream; and the inhabitants of
the village of Puyaya, situated below the Pongo de Rentema, saw with
alarm the wide river-bed entirely dry: but after a few hours the waters
again forced their way. Earthquake movements are not supposed to have
occasioned this remarkable occurrence. The powerful stream appears to
be as it were incessantly engaged in improving its bed, and some idea
of the force which it exerts may be formed from the circumstance, that
notwithstanding its breadth it is sometimes so swollen as to rise more
than 26 English feet in the course of twenty or thirty hours.
We remained for seventeen days in the hot valley of the Upper Marañon
or Amazons. In order to pass from thence to the shores of the Pacific,
the Andes have to be crossed at the point where, between Micuipampa
and Caxamarca (in 6° 57´ S. lat. and 78° 34´ W. long. from Greenwich),
they are intersected, according to my observations, by the magnetic
equator. Ascending to a still higher elevation among the mountains,
the celebrated silver mines of Chota are reached, and from thence
with a few interruptions the route descends until the low grounds of
Peru are gained; passing intermediately over the ancient Caxamarca,
where 316 years ago the most sanguinary drama in the annals of the
Spanish Conquista took place, and also over Aroma and Gangamarca.
Here, as almost everywhere in the Chain of the Andes and in the
Mexican Mountains, the most elevated parts are picturesquely marked
by tower-like outbreaks of porphyry (often columnar), and trachyte.
Masses of this kind give to the crest of the mountains sometimes a
cliff-like and precipitous, and sometimes a dome-shaped character. They
have here broken through calcareous rocks, which, both on this and on
the northern side of the equator, are largely developed; and which,
according to Leopold von Buch’s researches, belong to the cretaceous
group. Between Guambos and Montan, 12000 French (12790 English) feet
above the sea, we found marine fossils[51] (Ammonites nearly fifteen
English inches in diameter, the large Pecten alatus, oyster shells,
Echini, Isocardias, and Exogyra polygona). A species of Cidaris, which,
according to Leopold von Buch, cannot be distinguished from that which
Brongniart found in the lower part of the chalk series at the Perte
du Rhone, was collected by us, both at Tomependa in the basin of the
Amazons and at Micuipampa,--stations of which the elevations differ
9900 (10551 English) feet. In a similar manner, in the Amuich Chain
of the Caucasian Daghestan, the cretaceous beds rise from the banks
of the Sulak, which are hardly 530 English feet above the sea, to a
height of fully 9000 (9592 English) feet on the Tschunum; while on
the summit of the Schadagh Mountain, 13090 (13950 English) feet high,
the Ostrea diluviana (Goldf.) and the same cretaceous beds are again
found. Abich’s excellent observations in the Caucasus would thus appear
to have confirmed in the most brilliant manner Leopold von Buch’s
geological views on the mountain development of the cretaceous group.
From the lonely grazing farm of Montan surrounded by herds of lamas, we
ascended more to the south the eastern declivity of the Cordilleras,
and arrived as night was closing in at an elevated plain where the
argentiferous mountain of Gualgayoc, the principal site of the
celebrated silver mines of Chota, afforded us a remarkable spectacle.
The Cerro de Gualgayoc, separated by a deep-cleft ravine or valley
(Quebrada) from the limestone mountain of Cormolatsche, is an isolated
mass of siliceous rock traversed by a multitude of veins of silver
which often meet or intersect, and terminated to the north and west by
a deep and almost perpendicular precipice. The highest workings are
1445 (1540 English) feet above the floor of the gallery, the Socabon de
Espinachi. The outline of the mountain is broken by numerous tower-like
and pyramidal points; the summit bears indeed the name of “Las Puntas,”
and offers the most decided contrast to the “rounded outlines” which
the miners are accustomed to attribute to metalliferous districts
generally. “Our mountain,” said a rich possessor of mines with whom we
had arrived, “stands there like an enchanted castle (como si fuese un
castillo encantado).” The Gualgayoc reminds the beholder in some degree
of a cone of dolomite, but still more of the serrated crest of the
Monserrat Mountains in Catalonia, which I have also visited, and which
were subsequently described in so pleasing a manner by my brother. The
silver mountain Gualgayoc, besides being perforated to its summit by
many hundred galleries driven in every direction, presents also natural
openings in the mass of the siliceous rock, through which the intensely
dark blue sky of these elevated regions is visible to a spectator
standing at the foot of the mountain. These openings are popularly
called “windows,” “las ventanillas de Gualgayoc.” Similar “windows”
were pointed out to us in the trachytic walls of the volcano of
Pichincha, and called by a similar name,--“ventanillas de Pichincha.”
The strangeness of the view presented to us was still farther increased
by the numerous small sheds and dwelling-houses, which nestled on the
side of the fortress-like mountain wherever a flat surface permitted
their erection. The miners carry down the ore in baskets by very steep
and dangerous paths to the places where the process of amalgamation is
performed.
The value of the silver furnished by the mines in the first thirty
years (from 1771 to 1802) amounted probably to considerably above
thirty-two millions of piastres. Notwithstanding the hardness of the
quartzose rock, the Peruvians, before the arrival of the Spaniards
(as ancient galleries and excavations testify), extracted rich
argentiferous galena on the Cerro de la Lin and on the Chupiquiyacu,
and gold in Curumayo (where native sulphur is also found in the quartz
rock as well as in the Brazilian Itacolumite). We inhabited near the
mines the small mountain town of Micuipampa, which is 11140 (11873
English) feet above the level of the sea, and where, though only 6° 43´
from the equator, water freezes in the house nightly throughout a large
portion of the year. In this desert devoid of vegetation live three
or four thousand persons, who are obliged to have all their means of
subsistence brought from the warm valleys, as they themselves only rear
some kinds of kale and excellent salad. In this wilderness, as in every
town in the high mountains of Peru, ennui leads the richer class of
persons, who are not on that account more cultivated or more civilised,
to pass their time in deep gambling: thus wealth quickly won is still
more quickly dissipated. There is much that reminds one of the soldier
of Pizarro’s troop, who, after the pillage of the temple at Cuzco,
complained that he had lost in one night at play “a great piece of the
sun” (a gold plate). I observed the thermometer at Micuipampa at 8 in
the morning 1°, and at noon 7° Reaumur (34°.2 and 47°.8 Fahrenheit).
We found among the thin blades of Ichhu-grass (perhaps our Stipa
eriostachya), a beautiful Calceolaria (C. sibthorpioides), which we
should not have expected at such an elevation.
Not far from the town of Micuipampa, in a high plain called Llanos or
Pampa de Navar, there have been found throughout an area of above an
English geographical square mile, immediately under the turf, and as
it were intertwined with the roots of the alpine grasses, enormous
masses of rich red silver ore and threads of pure silver (in remolinos,
clavos, and vetas manteadas). Another elevated plain west of the
Purgatorio, near the Quebrada de Chiquera, is called “Choropampa” or
the “Field of Shells” (_churu_, in the Quichua language, signifies
shells, and particularly small eatable kinds, _hostion_, _mexillon_).
The name refers to fossils which belong to the cretaceous group, and
which are found there in such abundance that they early attracted the
attention of the natives. This is the place where there was obtained
near the surface a mass of pure gold spun round with threads of silver
in the richest manner. Such an occurrence shows how independent many
of the ores thrown up from the interior of the earth into fissures
or veins, are of the nature of the adjacent rock and of the relative
age of the formations broken through. The rock of the Cerro de
Gualgayoc and of Fuentestiana has a great deal of water, but in the
Purgatorio absolute dryness prevails. I found to my astonishment
that notwithstanding the height of the strata above the level of the
sea, the temperature of the last named mine was 15°.8 Reaumur (67°.4
Fahr.); while in the neighbouring Mina de Guadalupe the water in the
mine showed about 9° Reaumur (52°.2 Fahr.) As in the open air the
thermometer only rises to about 4° Reaumur (41° Fahr.), the miners,
whose toil is severe, and who are almost without clothing, call the
subterranean heat in the Purgatorio stifling.
The narrow path from Micuipampa to the ancient city of the Incas,
Caxamarca, is difficult even for mules. The name of the town was
originally Cassamarca or Kazamarca, _i. e._ the Frost town; (_marca_,
as signifying a place or locality, belongs to the northern Chinchaysuyo
or Chinchaysuyu dialect, while the word in the general Quichua language
signifies the stories of houses, and also defences or forts). Our
way lay for five or six hours over a succession of Paramos, where we
were exposed almost incessantly to the fury of the wind and to the
sharp-edged hail so peculiar to the ridges of the Andes. The height of
the route above the level of the sea is generally between nine and ten
thousand feet (about 9600 and 10660 Eng.) It afforded me, however, the
opportunity of making a magnetic observation of general interest; _i.
e._ the determination of the point where the North Inclination of the
Needle passes into South Inclination, or where the traveller’s route
crosses the Magnetic Equator.[52]
On reaching at length the last of these mountain wildernesses, the
Paramo de Yanaguanga, the traveller looks down with increased pleasure
on the fertile valley of Caxamarca. It affords a charming prospect:
a small river winds through the elevated plain, which is of an oval
form and about six or seven German geographical square miles in extent
(96 or 112 English geographical square miles). The plain resembles
that of Bogota: both are probably the bottoms of ancient lakes; but at
Caxamarca there is wanting the myth of the wonder-working Botschica
or Idacanzas, the high priest of Iraca, who opened for the waters a
passage through the rock of Tequendama. Caxamarca is situated 600 (640
Eng.) feet higher than Santa Fé de Bogota, therefore almost as high
as the city of Quito; but being sheltered by surrounding mountains it
enjoys a far milder and more agreeable climate. The soil is extremely
fertile, and the plain full of cultivated fields and gardens traversed
by avenues of Willows, large flowered red, white, and yellow varieties
of Datura, Mimosas, and the beautiful Quinuar-trees (our Polylepsis
villosa, a Rosacea allied to Alchemilla and Sanguisorba). Wheat yields
on an average in the Pampa de Caxamarca fifteen to twentyfold, but
the hopes of a plentiful harvest are sometimes disappointed by night
frosts, occasioned by the great radiation of heat towards the unclouded
sky through the dry and rarefied mountain air: the frosts are not felt
in the roofed houses.
In the northern part of the plain, small porphyritic domes break
through the widely extended sandstone strata, and probably once formed
islands in the ancient lake before its waters had flowed off. On the
summit of one of these domes, the Cerro de Santa Polonia, we enjoyed a
pleasing prospect. The ancient residence of Atuhuallpa is surrounded
on this side by fruit gardens and by irrigated fields of lucerne
(Medicago sativa, “campos de alfalfa”). Columns of smoke are seen at
a distance rising from the warm baths of Pultamarca, which are still
called Baños del Inca. I found the temperature of these sulphur-springs
55°.2 Reaumur (156°.2 Fahrenheit). Atahuallpa spent a part of the year
at these baths, where some slight remains of his palace still survive
the devastating rage of the Conquistadores. The large and deep basin or
reservoir in which, according to tradition, one of the golden chairs
in which the Inca was carried had been sunk and has ever since been
sought in vain, appeared to me, from the regularity of its circular
shape, to have been artificially excavated in the sandstone rock above
one of the fissures through which the springs issue.
Of the fort and palace of Atahuallpa there are also only very slight
remains in the town, which is now adorned with some fine churches.
The destruction of the ancient buildings has been accelerated by
the devouring thirst of gold which led men, before the close of the
sixteenth century, in digging for supposed hidden treasures, to
overturn walls and carelessly to undermine or weaken the foundations
of all the houses. The palace of the Inca was situated on a hill of
porphyry which had originally been hollowed at the surface, so that it
surrounds the principal dwelling almost like a wall or rampart. A state
prison and a municipal building (la Casa del Cabildo) have been erected
on a part of the ruins. The most considerable ruins still visible, but
which are only from 13 to 16 feet high, are opposite the convent of
San Francisco; they consist, as may be observed in the house of the
Cacique, of fine cut blocks of stone two or three feet long, and placed
upon each other without cement, as in the Inca-Pilca or strong fortress
of Cañar in the high land of Quito.
There is a shaft sunk in the porphyritic rock which once led into
subterranean chambers, and a gallery said to extend to the other
porphyritic dome before spoken of, that of Santa Polonia. Such
arrangements shew an apprehension of the uncertainties of war, and the
desire to secure the means of escape. The burying of treasures was an
old and very generally prevailing Peruvian custom. There may still
be found subterranean chambers below many of the private dwellings of
Caxamarca.
We were shown steps cut in the rock, and also what is called the Inca’s
foot-bath (el lavatorio de los pies). The washing of the monarch’s feet
was accompanied by some inconvenient usages of court etiquette.[53]
Minor buildings, designed according to tradition for the servants,
are constructed partly like the others of cut stones, and provided
with sloped roofs, and partly with well formed bricks alternating
with siliceous cement (muros y obra de tapia). In the latter class of
constructions there are vaulted recesses, the antiquity of which I long
doubted, but, as I now believe, without sufficient grounds.
In the principal building the room is still shown in which the unhappy
Atahuallpa was kept a prisoner for nine months[54] from November 1532,
and there is pointed out to the traveller the wall on which the captive
signified to what height he would fill the room with gold if set free.
This height is given very variously, by Xerez in his “Conquista del
Peru” which Barcia has preserved for us, by Hernando Pizarro in his
letters, and by other writers of the period. The prince said that
“gold in bars, plates, and vessels, should be heaped up as high as he
could reach with his hand.” Xerez assigns to the room a length of 23,
and a breadth of 18 English feet. Garcilaso de la Vega, who quitted
Peru in his 20th year, in 1560, estimates the value of the treasure
collected from the temples of the sun at Cuzco, Huaylas, Huamachuco,
and Pachacamac, up to the fateful 29th of August 1553, on which day
the Inca was put to death, at 3,838,000 Ducados de Oro[55].
In the chapel of the state prison, to which I have before alluded as
built upon the ruins of the Inca’s palace, the stone still marked
by the indelible stains of blood is shown to the credulous. It is a
very thin slab, 13 feet long, placed in front of the altar, and has
probably been taken from the porphyry or trachyte of the vicinity. One
is not permitted to make any more precise examination by striking off
a part of the stone, but the three or four supposed blood spots appear
to be natural collections of hornblende or pyroxide in the rock. The
Licentiate Fernando Montesinos, who visited Peru scarcely a hundred
years after the taking of Caxamarca, even at that early period gave
currency to the fable that Atahuallpa was beheaded in prison, and that
stains of blood were still visible on the stone on which the execution
had taken place. There is no reason to doubt the fact, confirmed by
many eye-witnesses, that the Inca, in order to avoid being burnt alive,
consented to be baptised under the name of Juan de Atahuallpa by his
fanatic persecutor, the Dominican monk Vicente de Valverde. He was
put to death by strangulation (el garrote) publicly, and in the open
air. Another tradition relates that a chapel was raised over the spot
where Atahuallpa was strangled, and that his body rests beneath the
stone; in such case, however, the supposed spots of blood would remain
unaccounted for. In reality, however, the corpse was never placed
beneath the stone in question. After a mass for the dead, and solemn
funereal rites, at which the brothers Pizarro were present in mourning
habits (!), it was conveyed first to the churchyard of the convent of
San Francisco, and afterwards to Quito, Atahuallpa’s birthplace. This
last transfer was in compliance with the expressed wish of the dying
Inca. His personal enemy, the astute Rumiñavi (“stone-eye,” a name
given from the disfigurement of one eye by a wart; “rumi,” signifying
“stone,” and “ñaui,” “eye,” in the Quichua language), from political
motives caused the body to be buried at Quito with solemn obsequies.
We found descendants of the monarch, the family of the Indian Cacique
Astorpilco, dwelling in Caxamarca, among the melancholy ruins of
ancient departed splendour, and living in great poverty and privation;
but patient and uncomplaining. Their descent from Atahuallpa through
the female line has never been doubted in Caxamarca, but traces of
beard may perhaps indicate some admixture of Spanish blood. Of the sons
of the Great (but for a child of the sun somewhat free thinking),[56]
Huayna Capac, neither of the two who swayed the sceptre before the
arrival of the Spaniards, Huascar and Atahuallpa, left behind them
acknowledged sons. Huascar became the prisoner of Atahuallpa in the
plains of Quipaypan, and was soon afterwards secretly murdered by his
order. Neither were there any surviving male descendants of the two
remaining brothers of Atahuallpa, the insignificant youth Toparca,
who Pizarro caused to be crowned as Inca in the autumn of 1553, and
the enterprising Manco Capac, similarly crowned, but who afterwards
rebelled again. Atahuallpa left indeed a son, whose christian name
was Don Francisco, (but who died very young), and a daughter, Doña
Angelina, by whom Francisco Pizarro (with whom she led a wild and
warlike life), had a son whom he loved fondly, grandchild of the
slaughtered monarch. Besides the family of the Cacique Astorpilco, with
whom I was acquainted at Caxamarca, the Carguraicos and Titu Buscamayta
were pointed out at the period of my visit as belonging to the Inca
dynasty; but the Buscamayta family has since become extinct.
The son of the Cacique Astorpilco, a pleasing and friendly youth of
seventeen, who accompanied me over the ruins of the palace of his
ancestor, while living in extreme poverty, had filled his imagination
with images of buried splendour and golden treasures hidden beneath
the masses of rubbish upon which we trod. He related to me that one
of his more immediate forefathers had bound his wife’s eyes, and
then conducted her through many labyrinths cut in the rock into
the subterranean garden of the Incas. There she saw, skilfully and
elaborately imitated, and formed of the purest gold, artificial trees,
with leaves and fruit, and birds sitting on the branches; and there
too was the much sought for golden travelling chair (una de las andas)
of Atahuallpa. The man commanded his wife not to touch any of these
enchanted riches, because the long foretold period of the restoration
of the empire had not yet arrived, and that whoever should attempt
before that time to appropriate aught of them would die that very
night. These golden dreams and fancies of the youth were founded on
recollections and traditions of former days. These artificial “golden
gardens” (Jardines o Huertas de oro) were often described by actual
eye-witnesses, Cieza de Leon Sarmiento, Garcilaso, and other early
historians of the Conquest. They were found beneath the temple of the
sun at Cuzco, in Caxamarca, and in the pleasant valley of Yucay, a
favourite residence of the monarch’s family. Where the golden Huertas
were not below ground, living plants grew by the side of the artificial
ones: among the latter, tall plants and ears of maize (mazorcas) are
mentioned as particularly well executed.
The morbid confidence with which the young Astorpilco assured me
that below our feet, a little to the right of the spot on which I
stood at the moment, there was an artificial large-flowered Datura
tree (Guanto), formed of gold wire and gold plates, which spread its
branches over the Inca’s chair, impressed me deeply but painfully, for
it seemed as if these illusive and baseless visions were cherished as
consolations in present sufferings. I asked the lad--“Since you and
your parents believe so firmly in the existence of this garden, are not
you sometimes tempted in your necessities to dig in search of treasures
so close at hand?” The boy’s answer was so simple, and expressed
so fully the quiet resignation characteristic of the aboriginal
inhabitants of the country, that I noted it in Spanish in my journal.
“Such a desire (tal antojo) does not come to us; father says it would
be sinful (que fuese pecado). If we had the golden branches with all
their golden fruits our white neighbours would hate and injure us. We
have a small field and good wheat (buen trigo).” Few of my readers,
I think, will blame me for recalling here the words of the young
Astorpilco and his golden visions.
The belief, so widely current among the natives, that to take
possession of buried treasures which belonged to the Incas would be
wrong, and would incur punishment and bring misfortune on the entire
race, is connected with another belief which prevailed, especially
in the 16th and 17th centuries, _i. e._ the future restoration of a
kingdom of the Incas. Every suppressed nationality looks forward to a
day of change, and to a renewal of the old government. The flight of
Manco Inca, the brother of Atahuallpa, into the forests of Vilcapampa
on the declivity of the eastern Cordillera, and the sojourn of Sayri
Tupac and Inca Tupac Amaru in those wildernesses, have left permanent
recollections. It was believed that the dethroned dynasty had settled
between the rivers Apurimac and Beni, or still farther to the east in
Guiana. The myth of el Dorado and the golden city of Manoa, travelling
from the west to the east, increased these dreams, and Raleigh’s
imagination was so inflamed by them, that he founded an expedition
on the hope of “conquering ‘the imperial and golden city,’ placing
in it a garrison of three or four thousand English, and levying from
the ‘Emperor of Guiana,’ a descendant of Huayna Capac, and who holds
his court with the same magnificence, an annual tribute of £300,000
sterling, as the price of his promised restoration to the throne in
Cuzco and Caxamarca.” Wherever the Peruvian Quichua language has
extended, some traces of such expectations of the return of the Inca’s
sovereignty continue[57] to exist in the minds of many among those of
the natives who are possessed of some knowledge of the history of their
country.