They were repeated from
one to another, gaining something by every repetition. An
immense army, it was reported, was mustering at Quito, the land
of Atahuallpa's birth, and thirty thousand Caribs were on their
way to support it. *14 The Caribs were distributed by the early
Spaniards rather indiscriminately over the different parts of
America, being invested with peculiar horrors as a race of
cannibals.
[Footnote 14: "De la Gente Natural de Quito vienen docientos mil
Hombres de Guerra, i treinta mil Caribes, que comen Carne
Humana." Xerez, Conq. del Peru, ap. Barcia, tom. III. p. 233. -
See also Pedro Sancho, Rel., ap. Ramusio, ubi supra.]
It was not easy to trace the origin of these rumors. There was
in the camp a considerable number of Indians, who belonged to the
party of Huascar, and who were, of course, hostile to Atahuallpa.
But his worst enemy was Felipillo, the interpreter from Tumbez,
already mentioned in these pages. This youth had conceived a
passion, or, as some say, had been detected in an intrigue with,
one of the royal concubines. *15 The circumstance had reached the
ears of Atahuallpa, who felt himself deeply outraged by it.
"That such an insult should have been offered by so base a person
was an indignity," he said, "more difficult to bear than his
imprisonment"; *16 and he told Pizarro, "that, by the Peruvian
law, it could be expiated, not by the criminal's own death alone,
but by that of his whole family and kindred.
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