430 PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA. 



early period gave currency to the fable that Atahuallpa was be- 

 headed in prison, and that stains of blood were still visible on the 

 stone on which the execution had taken place. There is no reason 

 to doubt the fact, confirmed by many eye-witnesses, that the Inea, 

 in order to avoid being burnt alive, consented to be baptized under 

 the name of Juan de Atahuallpa by his fanatic persecutor, the 

 Dominican monk Vicente de Valverde. He was put to death by 

 strangulation (el garrote) publicly, and in the open air. Another 

 tradition relates, that a chapel was raised over the spot where Ata- 

 huallpa was strangled, and that his body rests beneath the stone ; in 

 such case, however, the supposed spots of blood would remain unac- 

 counted for. In reality, however, the corpse was never placed 

 beneath the stone in question. After a mass for the dead, and 

 solemn funereal rites, at which the brothers Pizarro were present in 

 mourning habits (!), it was conveyed first to the churchyard of the 

 convent of San Francisco, and .afterwards to Quito, Atahuallpa's 

 birthplace. This last transfer was in compliance with the expressed 

 wish of the dying Inca. His personal enemy, the astute Ruminavi 

 (" stone-eye," a name given from the disfigurement of one eye by a 

 wart; "rumi" signifying "stone," and "iiaui" "eye," in the Qui- 

 chua language), from political motives caused the body to be buried 

 at Quito with solemn obsequies. 



We found descendants of the monarch, the family of the Indian 

 Cacique Astorpilco, dwelling in Caxamarca, among the melancholy 

 ruins of ancient departed splendor, and living in great poverty and 

 privation; but patient and uncomplaining. Their descent from 

 Atahuallpa through the female line has never been doubted in Caxa- 

 marca, but traces of beard may perhaps indicate some admixture of 

 Spanish blood. Of the sons of the Great (but for a child of the sun 

 somewhat free thinking) ( 16 ) Huayna Capac, neither of the two who 

 swayed the sceptre before the arrival of the Spaniards, Huascar and 

 Atahuallpa, left behind them acknowledged sons. Huascar became 

 the prisoner of Atahuallpa in the plains of Quipaypan, and was soon 

 afterwards secretly murdered by his order. Neither were there 

 any surviving male descendants of the two remaining brothers of 

 Atahuallpa, the insignificant youth Toparca, whom Pizarro caused to 

 be crowned as Inca in the autumn of 1553, and the enterprising 



