[country
is full of mines], and that if the Spaniards gave implements and skill
[in using them] to the Indians so that it might be got out, much gold
would be taken from the earth, and it is believed that when this time
has arrived, a year will not go by in which a million of gold is not
got. The people of this province, as well men as women, are very filthy,
and they have large hands, and the province is very large.

CHAPTER XIX

Of the great veneration in which the Indians held Guarnacaba[122]
when he lived[123] and of that in which they hold him now, after
death. And how, through the disunion of the Indians, the Spaniards
entered Cuzco, and of the fidelity of the new cacique
Guarnacaba[124] to the Christians.

The city of Cuzco is the head and principal province of all the others,
and from here to the beach of San Mateo and, in the other direction, to
beyond the province of Collao, which is entirely a land of arrow-using
savages, all is subject to one single lord who was Atabalipa, and,
before him, to the other by-gone lords, and at present the lord of all
is this son of Guarnacaba. This Guarnacaba, who was so renowned and
feared, and is so even to this day, although he is dead, was very much
beloved by his vassals, and subjected great provinces, and made them
his tributaries. He was well obeyed and almost worshipped, and his body
is in the city of Cuzco, quite whole, enveloped in rich cloths and
lacking only the tip of the nose. There are other images of plaster of
clay which have only the hair and nails which were cut off in life and
the clothes that were worn, and these images are as much venerated by
those people as if they were their gods. Frequently they take the [body]
out into the plaza with music and dancing, and they always stay close to
it, day and night, driving away the flies. When some important lords
come to see the cacique, they go first to salute these figures, and they
then go to the cacique and hold, with him, so many ceremonies that it
would be a great prolixity to describe them. So many people assemble at
these feasts, which are held in that plaza, that their number exceeds
one hundred thousand souls. It turned out to be fortunate that they [the
Spaniards] had made that son of Guarnacaba lord, because all the
caciques and lords of the land and of remote provinces came to serve
him and, out of respect for him, to yield obedience to the Emperor. The
conquerors passed