by which to
mount a high boulder where the captain and the warriors lived and which
had no other entrance than this one by way of this fort that they had
built with these very narrow doors; [and the Governor learned] that they
were planning to await aid here, because it was known that the son of
Atabalipa was coming with many warriors. This news the Governor
communicated to the cacique who at once sent off couriers to the city of
Cuzco in order to cause warriors to come who should not exceed two
thousand in number, but who were to be the best there were in all that
province, because the Governor told him that it would be better were
they few and good than if they were many and unserviceable, because the
many would destroy the food in the land through which they were to pass
without necessity or profit. At the same time the Governor wrote to the
lieutenant and corregidor of Cuzco that he should aid the captains of
the cacique and see to it that the warriors came soon. On the second day
after Easter, the Governor set out from this place, and, by forced
marches, arrived in Xauxa, where he learned the whole of what had passed
there in his absence, and especially what those of Quito had done, and,
in particular, they told him that after the enemy was put to flight from
the environs of Xauxa, they had retired twenty or thirty leagues from
there into the mountains, and that, according to the captain who went
out against them with the brother of the cacique and four thousand men,
they arrived within sight of them [the Indians], and that, after a rest
of a few days, they went to attack them and routed them and drove them
from that place with much trouble and great danger. When they [the
Spanish force] had returned to Xauxa, the Marshal Don Diego de Almagro
who, when the captain and Spaniards came from Cuzco, had come with them
by order of the Governor to inspect the Indians round about in order to
see and know the state of things in that city and among its citizens,
went out to visit the caciques and lords of the region of Chincha[85]
and Pachacama, and the others who had their lands and lived on the
sea-coast.

In this state the Governor found affairs when arrived at Xauxa, and,
having rested from the long journey without arranging anything in the
first few days, he waited for the Indians[86] [for whom he had sent] in
order to go and drive the enemy from the fort which they had made and
finish with them, when there came to him