The fine woollen cloths,
especially, with their rich embroidery, were pronounced equal to
silk, from which it was not easy to distinguish them. It was
probably the delicate wool of the vicuna, none of which had then
been seen in Europe. *20
[Footnote 20: "Piezas de lana de la tierra, que era cosa mucho de
ver segun su primer e gentileza, e no se sabian determinar si era
seda o lana segun su fineza con muchas labores i figuras de oro
de martillo de tal manera asentado en la ropa que era cosa de
marabillar." Oviendo, Hist. de las Indias, Ms., Parte 3 lib. 8,
cap. 4.]
Pizarro, having now acquainted himself with the most direct route
to Caxamalca, - the Caxamalca of the present day, - resumed his
march, taking a direction nearly south. The first place of any
size at which he halted was Motupe, pleasantly situated in a
fruitful valley, among hills of no great elevation, which cluster
round the base of the Cordilleras. The place was deserted by its
curaca, who, with three hundred of its warriors, had gone to join
the standard of their Inca. Here the general, notwithstanding
his avowed purpose to push forward without delay, halted four
days. The tardiness of his movements can be explained only by
the hope, which he may have still entertained, of being joined by
further reinforcements before crossing the Cordilleras. None
such appeared, however; and advancing across a country in which
tracts of sandy plain were occasionally relieved by a broad
expanse of verdant meadow, watered by natural streams and still
more abundantly by those brought through artificial channels, the
troops at length arrived at the borders of a river.
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