It was about five leagues
distant, and the reader may remember it as the place where
Francis Pizarro burned the Peruvian general Challcuchima, on his
first occupation of Cuzco. The valley, fenced round by the lofty
rampart of the Andes, was, for the most part, green and
luxuriant, affording many picturesque points of view; and, from
the genial temperature of the climate, had been a favorite summer
residence of the Indian nobles, many of whose pleasure-houses
still dotted the sides of the mountains. A river, or rather
stream, of no great volume, flowed through one end of this
inclosure, and the neighbouring soil was so wet and miry as to
have the character of a morass.
Here the rebel commander arrived, after a tedious march over
roads not easily traversed by his train of heavy wagons and
artillery. His forces amounted in all to about nine hundred men,
with some half-dozen pieces of ordnance. It was a well-appointed
body, and under excellent discipline, for it had been schooled by
the strictest martinet in the Peruvian service. But it was the
misfortune of Pizarro that his army was composed, in part, at
least, of men on whose attachment to his cause he could not
confidently rely. This was a deficiency which no courage nor
skill in the leader could supply.
On entering the valley, Pizarro selected the eastern quarter of
it, towards Cuzco, as the most favorable spot for his encampment.
It was crossed by the stream above mentioned, and he stationed
his army in such a manner, that, while one extremity of the camp
rested on a natural barrier formed by the mountain cliffs that
here rose up almost perpendicularly, the other was protected by
the river.
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