The Spaniards complained of the want of
alacrity shown by the Indians in the work of destruction, and
said that there were other parts of the city containing buildings
rich in gold and silver which they had not been allowed to see.
In truth, their mission, which, at best, was a most ungrateful
one, had been rendered doubly annoying by the manner in which
they had executed it. The emissaries were men of a very low
stamp, and, puffed up by the honors conceded to them by the
natives, they looked on themselves as entitled to these, and
contemned the poor Indians as a race immeasurably beneath the
European. They not only showed the most disgusting rapacity, but
treated the highest nobles with wanton insolence. They even went
so far, it is said, as to violate the privacy of the convents,
and to outrage the religious sentiments of the Peruvians by their
scandalous amours with the Virgins of the Sun. The people of
Cuzco were so exasperated, that they would have laid violent
hands on them, but for their habitual reverence for the Inca, in
whose name the Spaniards had come there. As it was, the Indians
collected as much gold as was necessary to satisfy their unworthy
visitors, and got rid of them as speedily as possible. *20 It was
a great mistake in Pizarro to send such men. There were persons,
even in his company, who, as other occasions showed, had some
sense of self-respect, if not respect for the natives.
[Footnote 19: "I de las Chapas de oro, que esta Casa tenia,
quitaron setecientas Planchas .
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