THE PRISON OF ATAHUALLPA. 257 



ranean chambers were often found below many of the 

 private dwellings of Caxamarca. 



The travellers were shown steps cut in the rock, and 

 also what was called the Inca's foot-bath. The washing of 

 the monarch's feet was accompanied by some incon- 

 venient usages of court etiquette. Minor buildings, 

 designed according to tradition for the servants, were 

 constructed partly like the others of cut stones, and pro- 

 vided with sloped roofs, and partly with well formed 

 bricks alternating with siliceous cement. In the latter 

 class of constructions there were vaulted recesses, the 

 antiquity of which Humboldt long doubted, but, as he 

 afterwards believed, without sufficient grounds. 



In the principal building the room was still shown in 

 which the unhappy Atahuallpa was kept a prisoner for 

 nine months from November, 1532, and there was pointed 

 out the wall on which the captive signified to what height 

 he would fill the room with gold, if set free. This height 

 is given variously, by Xerez in his " Conquista del 

 Peru" which Barcia has preserved for us, by Hernando 

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

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

 should be heaped up as high as he could reach with his 

 hand." Xerez assigns to the room a length of twenty- 

 three feet, and a breadth of eighteen feet. Garcilaso 

 de la Vega, who quitted Peru in his twentieth year, in 

 1560, estimates 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, 1553, 

 on which day the Inca was put to death, at three mil- 

 lion, eight hundred and thirty-eight thousand Ducados de 

 Oro, — not far from fifteen millions of dollars. 



