Their accounts of the capital confirmed all that Pizarro had
before heard of the wealth and population of the city. Though
they had remained more than a week in this place, the emissaries
had not seen the whole of it. The great temple of the Sun they
found literally covered with plates of gold. They had entered the
interior and beheld the royal mummies, seated each in his
gold-embossed chair, and in robes profusely covered with
ornaments. The Spaniards had the grace to respect these, as they
had been previously enjoined by the Inca; but they required that
the plates which garnished the walls should be all removed. The
Peruvians most reluctantly acquiesced in the commands of their
sovereign to desecrate the national temple, which every
inhabitant of the city regarded with peculiar pride and
veneration. With less reluctance they assisted the Conquerors in
stripping the ornaments from some of the other edifices, where
the gold, however, being mixed with a large proportion of alloy,
was of much less value. *18
[Footnote 18: Rel. d'un Capitano Spagn., ap. Ramusio, tom. III.
fol. 375. - Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms. - Herrera, Hist.
General, dec. 5, lib. 2, cap. 12, 13.]
The number of plates they tore from the temple of the Sun was
seven hundred; and though of no great thickness, probably, they
are compared in size to the lid of a chest, ten or twelve inches
wide. *19 A cornice of pure gold encircled the edifice, but so
strongly set in the stone, that it fortunately defied the efforts
of the spoilers.
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