Several Others Who Had Surrendered Were Slain In This Manner By Personal Enemies, In Spite Of Every Endeavour By Ferdinand Pizarro And His Officers To Protect Them.

The soldiers of Alvarado especially, ashamed and irritated by the defeat they had formerly sustained at the bridge of Abancay, were eager for revenge, and put many of the Almagrians to death in cold blood.

Captain Ruy Dias had taken up a prisoner behind him on horseback, on purpose to protect him, when one of his own troopers run him through with his lance.

When the Indian servants of the two armies saw that the battle among the Christians was ended, they too gave over fighting, and fell to plundering the dead, whom they stripped of their clothes and valuables, even pillaging several who were yet alive, but unable to defend themselves because of their wounds; and as the conquerors were entirely taken up in pursuing their victory, the Indians had it in their power to do as they pleased, so that they entirely stripped everyone whom they found on the field of battle. The Spaniards, both victors and vanquished, were so worn out and fatigued by their exertions in this battle, that they might have been easily destroyed by the Indians who were present, if they had dared to attack them according to their original intention; but they were so busied in plundering the killed and wounded, that they neglected the opportunity of avenging themselves on their oppressors. This decisive battle was fought on the 6th of April 1538, in a plain called _Cachipampa_ or the field of salt by the Indians, about a league to the south of the citadel of Cuzco, near a salt spring from which the inhabitants make great quantities of salt; and as these salt works are in the neighbourhood of the field, this engagement has been always known by the name of the battle of _Salinas_, or of the salt works[18].

After this decisive victory, Ferdinand Pizarro used every means to conciliate the officers of Almagros army who had survived the battle, that he might engage them in the party of the marquis, and being unsuccessful, he banished several of them from Cuzco. Being unable to satisfy the demands of all those who had served him on the late occasion, as many of them thought so highly of their own merits that the government of Peru would hardly have been a sufficient reward in their own estimation, Ferdinand Pizarro resolved to separate the army, sending it away in various detachments to discover and conquer those parts of the country which had not been hitherto explored and reduced. By this measure, he at the same time rewarded his friends by giving them opportunities to distinguish and enrich themselves, and got rid of his enemies by sending them to a distance. On this occasion Pedro de Candia was sent with three hundred men, part of whom had belonged to Almagro, to conquer the country of Collao, a mountainous district which was said to be extremely rich.

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