Baalbec
and the pyramids. Stone conduits ran down each street, bringing
delicious water to each doorway, and the city was traversed by two
mountain streams crossed by bridges cut by watergates. That the cold,
clear water might be kept pure and sweet, the beds of the rivers like
those of the Euphrates at Babylon, had been paved.

The city was surrounded by walls and dominated by a great fortress
called Sacsahuaman, which stood upon a steep and rocky hill overlooking
the capital. On the side toward the city the fortress was practically
impregnable on account of the precipitous slopes of the cliffs. The
other side was defended by three stone walls laid out in zigzag shape,
with salient and reentrant angles (demi-lunes), like an old-fashioned
rail fence, with many doors, each closed by stone portcullis, in each
wall. Within the walls was a citadel of three tall towers. The whole
constituted a most formidable position.

While Francisco Pizarro was founding and laying out on a magnificent
scale and with lavish generosity the city of Lima, near the seaboard,
Hernando was made governor of Cuzco. Hernando was, without doubt, the
most able and most admirable of the Pizarros, although his fame has
been obscured by that of his {95} elder brother. He had been directed
by Charles V to treat the Inca and the people with kindness, and,
perhaps on that account, he had not exercised so rigorous a
surveillance over the movements of young Manco as his ordinary prudence
would have dictated. At any rate, the bold and youthful emperor found
no difficulty in leaving his ancient capital. He repaired immediately
to the Valley of Yucay, in the high mountains of the northeastward of
Cuzco. There had been brewing a vast conspiracy against the Spaniards
for some time, and at the summons of the Inca, thither resorted the
great chiefs of the Peruvians with their retainers and dependents,
including their women and children.

The partisans of the two Inca half-brothers, who had not been slain,
made common cause with each other. All internal differences were
forgotten in the presence of the common enemy. They had much to
revenge. Their treasures had been taken, their temples polluted, their
religion profaned, their monarchs slain, their women outraged and the
people forced into a degrading, exhausting slavery. Strange is it to
recognize that human slavery was introduced into Peru by the Christians!

It is good to think that the manhood