546 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 102 



Valley, where there are huge ruins of proud and very ancient build- 

 ings. The Indians have a tradition that they date from before the 

 Incas and they said that they were built by white people with beards, 

 and some even say that there was a slab there with many letters 

 carved on it. Of these buildings, worthy of everlasting memory, 

 there were many in those Kingdoms and in those of New Spain, 

 like those which stood in the province of Yucatan where the city of 

 Merida was founded, and that was the reason they gave it that name ; 

 and those of Gracias a Dios in the Province of Honduras. These 

 we are perfectly certain were not the work of Indians, although 

 in the days of the Incas in Peru and of the Motezumas in Mexico, 

 very sumptuous ones were erected, together with others existing in 

 the Kingdoms of Peru. These rouse much speculation as to when 

 they could have been built, and though in this respect it would appear 

 that they belong to many dififerent ages and centuries, since those 

 who inhabited those regions had no written language, these works 

 were consigned to oblivion, and there is nothing but the ruins to 

 prove that those buildings were in existence. We are the more con- 

 fused and puzzled in that we do not know when or how they were 

 built, at what date or by what people ; and that would all be trans- 

 mitted to us with truth and certainty by the nice and discreet artifice 

 of letters. And since this subject needs much discussion and thought 

 as to who the people could have been who built them, and where they 

 came from, I shall tell what I can deduce, with divine favor, on 

 another occasion, and shall now proceed with the description and 

 follow the route from Guamanga to Cuzco. Along this road lie the 

 hills and the plain of Chupa [on the Cuzco-Guamanga road] where in 

 the year 1542, on September 16, took place the bloody battle between 

 His Majesty's forces, under the command of Vaca de Castro, and 

 those of Don Diego de Almagro, on which occasion His Majesty's 

 army lost over 300 Spaniards and among them Gen. Pedro Alvarez 

 Holguin with many other gentlemen ; and almost as many more died 

 in Don Pedro's army, as is recounted by the historians. 



1476. Eleven leagues this side of the city of Guamanga are the 

 famous buildings and apartments of Vilcas, which was the center 

 of the Incas' empire, for they say that it is exactly as far from 

 Quito to Vilcas as it is from Vilcas to the farthest limit of the Incas' 

 conquests in Chile, which was up to the Rio de Maule. These buildings 

 in Vilcas are at present in a ruinous state, like the others in that 

 Kingdom. The Inca Yupangui ordered them built in connection with 

 the Temple of the Sun. Those who succeeded him kept adding to 

 their size and decoration with the riches which they offered. The 



