177 



reach of the musketry, they were not able to 

 advance further, or resist the fire which was 

 well kept up by the veteran troops of Peru. 

 After many ineffectual attempts, they began to 

 give way and fall into confusion from the va- 

 cancies caused in their ranks, by the loss of their 

 most determined soldiers. The cavalry at length 

 completely routed them, making a great slaughter 

 of them in their flight to the woods. 



Don Garcia, either from disposition or policy, 

 was strongly inclined to pursue rigorous mea- 

 sures. He was the first in this war who in- 

 troduced, contrary to the opinion of a majority 

 of his officers, the barbarous practice of muti- 

 lating,* or of putting to death the prisoners ; a 

 system that may serve to awe and restrain a base 



* Don Garcia permitted his allies to be as cruel as himself. 

 * They did cut oflf from certain Indians, being priscners, the 

 calves of their legs to eat them, and they roasted them for 

 that purpose ; and that which is of more admiration, they ap- 

 plied unto th place where they were cut, leaves of certain 

 herbs, and there came not out a drop of blood and many did 

 see it. And this was done in the city of Santiago, in the pre- 

 sence of D. Garcia de Mendozr, which was a thing that made 

 all men marvel at it." 



Pedro de Osma y Xara y Zeio mentions this in a letter to 

 Monardes the physician, written from Lima in 1568. I know 

 not whether it is possible that so powerful a styptic can exist* 

 They who would not believe that the Abyssinians eat food 

 with the blood therein, which is the life, must have been 

 ignorant of the live cannibalism of some of the American 

 savages. E. E. 



TOL. II. N 



