WHOLE VOL. THE WEST INDIES VAZQUEZ DE ESPINOSA 567 



pletely through it and coming out at the other corner ; they ran the 

 cable through this to drag it ; the Indians said that these openings 

 by which they pulled it, crawling along, were eyes, and since a red 

 blotch had been formed by the action of water and dust, they said 

 it had wept blood. But the truth is what their historians relate, that 

 at a time when 20,000 Indians were engaged in dragging it along 

 and steadying it on the grades, on one of them when a large number 

 were going ahead keeping it headed straight, and most of them 

 holding it back from behind, either because of its great weight or 

 of bad management of those [in the rear], it was too much for the 

 strength of those holding it back and rolled away from them, killing 

 over 3,000 of those in front ; so for this reason they can more truth- 

 fully say that it wept blood. Nevertheless they got it to the upper 

 plain, near the fortress ; but it stayed there, either because of the 

 death of Huaynacapac or because it had killed or exhausted so many 

 Indians ; and that is why they give it that name. At present it is 

 almost below the ground level. It so happened that as soon as the 

 Spaniards captured the country, since this rock or headland was 

 so famous among the Indians, their thirst for buried treasure led 

 the Spaniards to think that there must be some underneath it; so 

 they dug all around it and made a great hole ; and with its huge 

 weight it dropped into it, thus bringing to naught the avaricious 

 efforts of the Spaniards. 



1529. [Tupac] Inca Yupangui, Huaynacapac's grandfather, began 

 the proud construction of the Sacsahuaman fortress. Since the posi- 

 tion was so strong on the ridge side, he built only on the side toward 

 the city, constructing a thick wall over 200 fathoms (brazas) long, 

 in five sections, as seemed needful to him. Although the stone blocks 

 were of different heights, their general level came out very even, 

 for they set them and joined them all together with such admirable 

 accuracy that they had no need of mortar. This wall was not only 

 very strong, but the stones in it were curiously carved. 



Chapter LXXIX [82] (78) 



Of the Three Walls and Three Towers of Sacsahuaman. 



1530. On the other side of the ridge there is a plain, lying higher 

 and above that of the city, for which reason the crest of the ridge 

 is reached with greater ease and less effort on that side. So King 

 [Tupac] Inca Yupangui ordered three walls built on that quarter, 

 over 200 fathoms long, in the shape of a crescent ; these continued 

 till they united and joined with the wall built on the city side, so that 



