He Retired At Length Into The Mountains And Thick Forests Of Vilcabamba, Which Are Accessible Either By Huamanga And Antahuaylla, Or By The Valley Of Yucay, North Of Cuzco.

Of the two Sons of Manco-Inca, the eldest, Sayri-Tupac, surrendered himself to the Spaniards, upon the invitation of the viceroy of Peru, Hurtado de Mendoza.

He was received with great pomp at Lima, was baptized there, and died peaceably in the fine valley of Yucay. The youngest son of Manco-Inca, Tupac-Amaru, was carried off by stratagem from the forests of Vilcabamba, and beheaded on pretext of a conspiracy formed against the Spanish usurpers. At the same period, thirty-five distant relations of the Inca Atahualpa were seized, and conveyed to Lima, in order to remain under the inspection of the Audiencia. (Garcilasso volume 2 pages 194, 480 and 501.) It is interesting to inquire whether any other princes of the family of Manco-Capac have remained in the forests of Vilcabamba, and if there still exist any descendants of the Incas of Peru between the Apurimac and the Beni. This supposition gave rise in 1741 to the famous rebellion of the Chuncoes, and to that of the Amages and Campoes led on by their chief, Juan Santos, called the false Atahualpa. The late political events of Spain have liberated from prison the remains of the family of Jose Gabriel Condorcanqui, an artful and intrepid man, who, under the name of the Inca Tupac-Amaru, attempted in 1781 that restoration of the ancient dynasty which Raleigh had projected in the time of Queen Elizabeth.) The geographer Hondius supposed that the Andes of Loxa, celebrated for their forests of cinchona, were only twenty leagues distant from the lake Parima, or the banks of the Rio Branco. This proximity procured credit to the tidings of the flight of the Inca into the forests of Guiana, and the removal of the treasures of Cuzco to the easternmost parts of that country. No doubt in going up towards the east, either by the Meta or by the Amazon, the civilization of the natives, between the Puruz, the Jupura, and the Iquiari, was observed to increase. They possessed amulets, little idols of molten gold, and chairs, elegantly carved; but these traces of dawning civilization are far distant from those cities and houses of stone described by Raleigh and those who followed him. We have made drawings of some ruins of great edifices east of the Cordilleras, when going down from Loxa towards the Amazon, in the province of Jaen de Bracamoros; and thus far the Incas had carried their arms, their religion, and their arts. The inhabitants of the Orinoco were also, before the conquest, when abandoned to themselves, somewhat more civilized than the independent hordes of our days. They had populous villages along the river, and a regular trade with more southern nations; but nothing indicates that they ever constructed an edifice of stone. We saw no vestige of any during the course of our journey.

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