Many of his sallies were preserved by the
soldiery; but they are, for the most part, of a coarse, repulsive
character, flowing from a mind familiar with the weak and wicked
side of humanity, and distrusting every other. He had his jest
for every thing, - for the misfortunes of others, and for his
own. He looked on life as a farce, - though he too often made it
a tragedy.
Carbajal must be allowed one virtue; that of fidelity to his
party. This made him less tolerant of perfidy in others. He was
never known to show mercy to a renegade. This undeviating
fidelity, though to a bad cause, may challenge something like a
feeling of respect, where fidelity was so rare. *9
[Footnote 9: Fidelity, indeed, is but one of many virtues claimed
for Carbajal by Garcilasso, who considers most of the tales of
cruelty and avarice circulated of the veteran, as well as the
hardened levity imputed to him in his latter moments, as
inventions of his enemies. The Inca chronicler was a boy when
Gonzalo and his chivalry occupied Cuzco; and the kind treatment
he experienced from them, owing, doubtless, to his father's
position in the rebel army, he has well repaid by depicting their
portraits in the favorable colors in which they appeared to his
young imagination. But the garrulous old man has recorded
several individual instances of atrocity in the career of
Carbajal, which form but an indifferent commentary on the
correctness of his general assertions in respect to his
character.
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