64 GOLD ORNAMENTS OF THE NATIVES. 



supposed that the Andes of Loxa, celebrated for their forests 

 of cinchona, were only twenty leagues distant from the lake 

 Parima, or the banks of the Rio Branco. This proximity 

 procured credit to the tidings of the flight of the Inca into 

 the forests of Guiana, and the removal of the treasures of 

 Cuzco to the easternmost parts of that country. No doubt 

 in going up towards the east, either by the Meta or by the 

 Amazon, the civilization of the natives, between the Puruz, 

 the Jupura, and the Iquiari, was observed to increase. 

 They possessed amulets, little idols of molten gold, and 

 chairs, elegantly carved ; but these traces of dawning civi- 

 lization are far distant from those cities and houses of stone 

 described by Raleigh and those who followed him. We 

 have made drawings of some ruins of great edifices east of 

 the Cordilleras, when going down from Loxa towards the 

 Amazon, in the province of Jaen de Bracamoros ; and thus 

 far the Incas had carried their arms, their religion, and 

 their arts. The inhabitants of the Orinoco were also, before 

 the conquest, when abandoned to themselves, somewhat 

 more civilized than the independent hordes of our days. 

 They had populous villages along the river, and a regular 



success against the Spaniards. He retired at length into the mountains 

 and thick forests of Vilcabamba, which are accessible either by Huamanga 

 and Antahuaylla, or by the valley of Yucay, north of Cuzco. Of the 

 two sons of Manco-Inca, the eldest, Sayri-Tupac, surrendered himself 

 to the Spaniards, upon the invitation of the viceroy of Peru, Hurtado de 

 Mendoza. He was received with great pomp at Lima, was baptized 

 there, and died peaceably in the fine valley of Yucay. The youngest 

 son of Manco-Inca, Tupac-Amaru, was carried off by stratagem from 

 the forests of Vilcabamba, and beheaded on pretext of a conspiracy 

 formed against the Spanish usurpers. At the same period, thirty-five 

 distant relations of the Inca Atahualpa were seized, and conveyed to 

 Lima, in order to remain under the inspection of the Audiencia. (Gar- 

 cilasso, vol. ii, p. 194, 480, and 501.) It is interesting to inquire whe- 

 ther any other princes of the family of Manco-Capac have remained in 

 the forests of Vilcabamba, and if there still exist any descendants of the 

 Incas of Peru between the Apurimac and the Beni. This supposition 

 gave rise in 1741 to the famous rebellion of the Chuncoes, and to that of 

 the Amages and Campoes led on by their chief Juan Santos, called the 

 false Atahualpa. The late political events of Spain have liberated from 

 prison the remains of the family of Jose Gabriel Condorcanqui, an artful and 

 intrepid man, who, under the name of the Tnca Tupac-Amaru, attempted in 

 1781 that restoration of the ancient dynasty which Raleigh had projected 

 in the time of Queen Elizabeth. 



