WHOLE VOL. THE WEST INDIES VAZQUEZ DE ESPINOSA 4OI 



buildings for more important travelers, where the Alcaldes and 

 Alguaciles take prompt care to provide them with everything needful 

 for their money ; it is very well run. Next it is the [fine] residence 

 of the Corregidor, where he has many Indians who prepare and 

 make cloth for him which is called cumbe, very elaborate, with painted 

 figures, hunting scenes and other elaborate representations which are 

 highly prized and valued ; they are made of wool, some of vicuiia 

 and others of llama wool, with very elaborate fancywork in various 

 colors ; Indian small boys do this work, and the instruments with 

 which they do this tightly woven and perfect embroidery of the 

 cumbi ( !) are made of chicken and sheep bones well ground and 

 sharpened, and it certainly is most surprising to see them turn out 

 these cumbes and the other things they do. 



1185. In this town there are many artisans of all sorts of profes- 

 sions ; excellent scribes ; singers and a choirmaster who instructs 

 them ; they repair every day like canons to the church to recite their 

 prayers, the lesser service of Our Lady ; they assist at the Mass ; 

 they have flageolets and [many] other musical instruments for the cele- 

 bration of divine service — a custom very general over all the Indies ; 

 usually those who officiate thus are always the sons of the leading 

 men and chieftains ; they greatly appreciate this and consider it a 

 very high honor. 



[Marg. : Chap. 7. Continuing the Description of Cajamarca.] 



1186. The house of the Cacique comes next to the Corregidor's 

 and near the convent ; there is only one street in between, and on it 

 is the room which King Atabalipa designated to be filled with gold 

 for his ransom, with the line drawn as a limit ; the Cacique showed 

 it to me and in the apartment where that king was captured, the 

 room was roofless and the whole wall was built of stone slabs very 

 well cut ; [the room] it might be 40 feet long, and the line drawn 

 on the wall, up to which he had promised to fill the room with gold, 

 was approximately a stade and a half from the floor, or as high 

 as a man of good stature could draw it with a poniard or a dagger. 

 [And] as Cacique Don Felipe remarked to me, that room remains 

 and will remain untouched, as a memorial of the imprisonment and 

 death of Atabalipa; it happened right after the entry of the Span- 

 iards, in December 1531, and his death took place in March of the 

 following year, 1532. The Bishop had the intention of appointing 

 a curate for the Spaniards here. 



1187. In the district to the S. near the village of San Marcos a 

 powerful river has to be crossed, on its way to join the Rio de Los 

 Balsas, which is the one running through the Cajamarca valley, and 



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