PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA. 429 



may still be found subterranean chambers below many of the private 

 dwellings of Caxaniarca. 



We were shown steps cut in the rock, and also what is called the 

 Inca's foot-bath (el lavatorio de los pies). The washing of the 

 monarch's feet was accompanied by some inconvenient usages of 

 court etiquette. ( 13 ) Minor buildings, designed according to tradi- 

 tion for the servants, are constructed partly like the others of cut 

 stones, and provided with sloped roofs, and partly with well-formed 

 bricks alternating with silicious cement (muros y obra de tapia). 

 In the latter class of constructions there are vaulted recesses, the 

 antiquity of which I long doubted, but, as I now believe, without 

 sufficient grounds-. 



In the principal building, the room is still shown in which the 

 unhappy Atahuallpa was kept a prisoner for nine months, ( 14 ) from 

 November, 1532, and there is pointed out to the traveller the wall 

 on which the captive signified to what height he would fill the room 

 with gold if set free. This height is given very variously, by Xerez, 

 in his " Conquista del Peru," which Barcia has preserved for us, by 

 Hernando Pizzaro in his letters, and by other writers of the period. 

 The prince said, that " gold in bars, plates, and vessels, should be 

 heaped up a^high as he could reach with his hand." Xerez assigns 

 to the room a length of 23, and a breadth of 18 English feet. Grar- 

 cilasso de la Vega, who quitted Peru in his 20th year, in 1560, esti- 

 mates* the value of the treasure collected from the temples of the 

 sun at Cuzco, Huaylas, Huamachuco, and Pachacamac, up to the 

 fateful 29th of August 15^3, on which day the Inca was put to 

 death, at 3,838,000 Ducados de Oro. ( 15 ) 



In the chapel of the state prison, to which I have before alluded 

 as built upon the ruins of the Inca's palace, the stone still marked 

 by the indelible stains of blood is shown to the credulous. It is a 

 very thin slab, 13 feet long, placed in front of the altar, and has 

 probably been taken from the porphyry or trachyte of the vicinity. 

 One is not permitted to make any more precise examination by 

 striking off a part of the stone, but the three or four supposed blood 

 spots appear to be natural collections of hornblende or pyroxide in 

 the rock. The Licentiate Fernando Montesinos, who visited Peru 

 scarcely a hundred years after the taking of Caxamarca, even at that 



