But the
country around that capital was of an open, level character, very
favorable to the action of cavalry. Pizarro no sooner saw
himself menaced by the hostile array, than he sent such a force
against the Peruvians as speedily put them to flight; and,
following up his advantage, he inflicted on them such a severe
chastisement, that, although they still continued to hover in the
distance and cut off his communications with the interior, they
did not care to trust themselves on the other side of the Rimac.
The accounts that the Spanish commander now eceived of the state
of the country filled him with the most serious alarm. He was
particularly solicitous for the fate of the garrison at Cuzco,
and he made repeated efforts to relieve that capital. Four
several detachments, amounting to more than four hundred men in
all, half of them cavalry, were sent by him at different times,
under some of his bravest officers. But none of them reached
their place of destination. The wily natives permitted them to
march into the interior of the country, until they were fairly
entangled in the passes of the Cordilleras. They then enveloped
them with greatly superior numbers, and, occupying the heights,
showered down their fatal missiles on the heads of the Spaniards,
or crushed them under the weight of fragments of rock which they
rolled on them from the mountains. In some instances, the whole
detachment was cut off to a man. In others, a few stragglers
only survived to return and tell the bloody tale to their
countrymen at Lima.
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