Page:A history of Chile.djvu/39

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
THE COLONIAL PERIOD
27

sion of Cuzco. "You will," they said, "by so doing, confer a great boon and blessing upon your young son, Diego, who will be your heir." Friends at Cuzco also sent him letters, privately urging him to return and take possession of the capital. But the persevering commander — having encouraged his soldiers by a largess of 500,000 ducats worth of gold, which Paullu had compelled the natives to bring in, in order that he might show his own importance to his leader — pressed forward through the beautiful country, dotted everywhere with busy villages and giving evidence of a considerable degree of industrial progress and civilization.

The primitive inhabitants of Chile had not, indeed, arrived at the degree. of urban civilization possessed by Paullu's followers, by the Inca's subjects at Cuzco and by the numerous Peruvian cities and villages, such as Xauxa, Huamachuco, Huanuco, Caxamarca, and Tumbez, cities scattered throughout the old Incarial empire. Nor were their power and prestige equal to that of the old Quitoan kingdom, which Atahualpa's father, the renowned Huayna Capac, had wrested from the last Scyri, who died of a broken heart when his scepter fell, while Huayna married his beautiful daughter and ingratiated himself into the hearts of his subjects, the valiant people of the north. During the time that Huayna was extending the Incarial power and prestige toward the north, Yupanqui, his father, was subjugating Chile, through his famous general, Sinchi Rocca. The northern tribes, the Copiapins (or Copayapuans), Cuquimpuans, Quillotanes and Mapochinians, were reduced to subjection. Promaucians (Pururnaneaes, or Promaucaes) allied with the Pencones and Cauques resisted Sinchi Rocca so successfully in a four day's battle that it is doubt-