Pizarro's secretary says two thousand natives fell.
*26 A descendant of the Incas - a safer authority than Garcilasso
- swells the number to ten thousand. *27 Truth is generally found
somewhere between the extremes. The slaughter was incessant, for
there was nothing to check it. That there should have been no
resistance will not appear strange, when we consider the fact,
that the wretched victims were without arms, and that their
senses must have been completely overwhelmed by the strange and
appalling spectacle which burst on them so unexpectedly. "What
wonder was it," said an ancient Inca to a Spaniard, who repeats
it, "what wonder that our countrymen lost their wits, seeing
blood run like water, and the Inca, whose person we all of us
adore, seized and carried off by a handful of men?" *28 Yet
though the massacre was incessant, it was short in duration. The
whole time consumed by it, the brief twilight of the tropics, did
not much exceed half an hour; a short period, indeed, - yet long
enough to decide the fate of Peru, and to subvert the dynasty of
the Incas.
[Footnote 26: Xerez, Conq. del Peru, ap. Barcia, tom. III. p.
199.]
[Footnote 27: "Los mataron a todos con los Cavallos con espadas
con arcabuzes como quien mata ovejas - sin hacerles nadie
resistencia que no se escaparon de mas de diez mil, doscientos,"
Instruc. del Inga Titucussi, Ms.
This document, consisting of two hundred folio pages, is signed
by a Peruvian Inca, grandson of the great Huayna Capac, and
nephew, consequently, of Atahuallpa.
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