[Footnote 44: Descub. y Conq., Ms.]
[Footnote 45: Ped. Sancho, Rel., ap. Ramusio, tom. III. fol.
409.]
Whichever statement we receive, the sum, combined with that
obtained at Caxamalca, might well have satisfied the cravings of
the most avaricious. The sudden influx of so much wealth, and
that, too, in so transferable a form, among a party of reckless
adventures little accustomed to the possession of money, had its
natural effect. It supplied them with the means of gaming, so
strong and common a passion with the Spaniards, that it may be
considered a national vice. Fortunes were lost and won in a
single day, sufficient to render the proprietors independent for
life; and many a desperate gamester, by an unlucky throw of the
dice or turn of the cards, saw himself stripped in a few hours of
the fruits of years of toil, and obliged to begin over again the
business of rapine. Among these, one in the cavalry service is
mentioned, named Leguizano, who had received as his share of the
booty the image of the Sun, which, raised on a plate of burnished
gold, spread over the walls in a recess of the great temple, and
which, for some reason or other, - perhaps because of its
superior fineness, - was not recast like the other ornaments.
This rich prize the spendthrift lost in a single night; whence it
came to be a proverb in Spain, Juega el Sol antes que amanezca,
"Play away the Sun before sunrise." *46
[Footnote 46: Garcilasso, Com. Real.
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