NOTICES OF PERU. 



259 



1541.* They passed through the streets, shouting, <«viva el 

 re}^ — mueran tiranos" — long live the king — perish tyrants — 

 and, says Herrera, I hough the sti'eets and plaza were filled 

 with people, no one offered them resistance?^ They entered 

 from the plaza into the first patio, where they met three ser- 

 vants of Pizarro, one of whom named Hurtado they attacked 

 and severely wounded. This patio communicates with another 

 on its western side, which opens into the palace and the street 

 on which is at present the principal entrance. From it a long 

 sala or hall, about twenty feet wide, leads towards the northern 

 end of the building. On entering the door from the street, a 

 short flight of steps, each one being as long as the breadth of 

 the sala, conducts you to a landing some thirty feet in length. 

 From this, there is another flight of eight or ten steps, at the 

 top of which is the door of the hall. Here a spot is generally 

 pointed out to travellers, on which, it is said, Pizarro expired. 



When the conspirators entered the first court, the marques 

 was in the sala, conversing with Diego de Vargas, in company 

 with nineteen others, w^hom Herrera names, besides several 

 servants, all armed with their swords and bucklers. A page, 

 who perceived the conspirators cross the plaza and enter the 

 palace, and recognising Juan de Rada and Martin de Bilbao, 

 ran in great consternation to the apartments of Pizarro, crying, 

 " Al arma, al arma, que todos los de Chile vienen ^ matar al 

 marques mi Senor!" — To arms, to arms, for all of those of 

 Chile are coming to kill my lord, the marqu6s. At this, Pi- 

 zarro and those with him descended to the landing on the stairs, 

 to inquire into the cause of alarm. At that instant the conspi- 

 rators entered the second patio, shouting, ''long live the king, 



* Robertson, the historian, would lead us to believe that it was a warm, 

 sultry day, and that Pizarro was nearly alone. He seems to have overlooked 

 the fact that June is a winter month in Lima, and that the inhabitants usually 

 wear cloaks when they walk the streets. Don Juan Nuix, in his " Reflexiones 

 Inr^parpiales," translated fiom the Italian by D. Pedro Varela y Ulloa, (Ma- 

 drid, 1782}, charges Dr. Robertson with wilful inaccuracy on many points. 

 *' Robertson, to prove the cruelty of the Spaniards by the testimony of our 

 own writers, alleges, not what these say, but what he thinks they ought to 

 have said about the conquests of Peru and Mexico." 



