124 CRANIA AMERICANA.
the same purpose; and thus when Huayna Capac died, early in the fifteenth
century, no less than four hundred persons expired hy their own hands, in the
ambitious delusion of accompanying their dead monarch in his new existence.*
The Peruvians were as shrewd and politic as the other Americans, and
habitual victory over the nations that surrounded them, gave them both confidence
and supremacy. tVhen, however, they were opposed to a people better armed
yet infinitely inferior in number to themselves, their courage in a great measure
forsook them; and we are astonished at the spectacle of a powerful empire laid
in ruins hy a handful of brigands.! It must be granted that the latter were better
armed, defended hy coats of mail, and in part mounted on horseback; yet when
it is recollected that after the first shock of Pizarro’s treachery, the natives could
have opposed a thousand men to one of their invaders, it seems at first view
incredible that the Peruvians should have yielded to so contemptible a force.!
Some redeeming circumstances, however, mark this seeming pusillanimity of the
Peruvians. The Spaniards had possession of the person of their king, who was
kept as a hostage for the forbearance of his subjects; and the successors of the
former having excited the avarice of their countrymen, they flocked to Peru in
such numbers that the disparity of force became every day less. When at last
this injured people was goaded to resistance, their courage was such as better
became their cause, hut it was too late to he effectual. Had they possessed hut
a fourth part of the valor of the Araucanians, fifty years would not have sufficed
for their subjugation.
* Herrera, Dec. I ll, Lib. VIII, Cap. 1.
t The empire of Peru ceased, in 1533, by the murder of Atahualpa. There is a consolation in
knowing that all the leaders in the atrocities which were perpetrated in this conquest, died violent
deaths; from Pizarro, who fell by the hands of his countrymen, to the infamous Valverde, who was
sacrificed to the vengeance of the Indians.
% Pizarro’s invading force consisted of sixty-two horsemen, and one hundred and two foot soldiers,
of whom twenty were armed with cross-bows, and three with muskets.—Robertson, Hist. Jim. II,
p. 52. Jim. Ed.