WHOLE VOL. THE WEST INDIES VAZQUEZ DE ESPINOSA 561 



outside, there was a frieze (cenefa) of gold plate to buttress and 

 adorn the temple ; it was a good vara wide and was carved into the 

 semblance of a crown. 



1512. On the main faqade of the temple, looking E., stood the 

 image or statue of the Sun, made out of a huge slab of gold ; his 

 countenance was round with rays, just as he is seen in the sky. It was 

 so gigantic that it filled the entire fagade from wall to wall. On either 

 side of this image of the Sun lay the bodies of former kings, arranged 

 in the order of their antiquity, and their sons, so well embalmed that 

 they looked alive ; they wore their former insignia and were seated 

 on golden thrones resting on gold slabs. Their faces were all turned 

 toward the people below except for Huaynacapac alone ; he was 

 in the center below the figure of the Sun and faced him, as was 

 proper for his most beloved child, and his back was turned to the 

 people. When the Spaniards entered that imperial city, they hid 

 them all together with uncountable treasures, and of them all, only 

 three kings' bodies have been found, and two queens'. 



1513. All the other walls of the temple were faced and covered 

 with gold plaques, from the roof to the ground. The main portal 

 of the temple was to the N., although the principal chapel was to 

 the E. The temple had other less important doorways; they were 

 all lined with sheets and slabs of gold. On the site of this temple 

 stands the church and convent of the Glorious Patriarch Santo 

 Domingo. That image and statue of the Sun fell by lot at the capture 

 of that imperial city by the Spaniards, to a valiant pioneer by the 

 name of Mancio Sierra de Leguisamo. They say he was a great 

 gambler and that he gambled it away in one night, which gave rise 

 to the saying: he gambles the sun away before it rises. 



Chapter LXXVI [7 ] (75) 



Of the Cloister [Square] of the Moon and Other Planets, and the 

 Garden of the Sun. 



1514. By the Temple of the Sun there was a cloister around the 

 upper part of which ran a gold frieze (cenefa) a vara wide, made 

 of a sheet of gold worked into the form of a crown. Round about 

 the interior of the cloister were arranged five large chambers ; these 

 were square and divided up and covered over in the shape of 

 pyramids. The chamber nearest the Sun chapel was that of the 

 Moon, his sister and wife. This and its doors were all lined with 

 sheets of silver, like those in the Sun Temple. The Moon's counte- 

 nance was like a woman's, made of one great sheet of silver ; this 



37 



