o a brief account of the
last four Incas who ruled over any part of Peru.

CHAPTER IX

The Last Four Incas

Readers of Prescott's charming classic, "The Conquest of Peru,"
will remember that Pizarro, after killing Atahualpa, the Inca who
had tried in vain to avoid his fate by filling a room with vessels
of gold, decided to establish a native prince on the throne of the
Incas to rule in accordance with the dictates of Spain. The young
prince, Manco, a son of the great Inca Huayna Capac, named for the
first Inca, Manco Ccapac, the founder of the dynasty, was selected
as the most acceptable figurehead. He was a young man of ability
and spirit. His induction into office in 1534 with appropriate
ceremonies, the barbaric splendor of which only made the farce the
more pitiful, did little to gratify his natural ambition. As might
have been foreseen, he chafed under restraint, escaped as soon as
possible from his attentive guardians, and raised an army of faithful
Quichuas. There followed the siege of Cuzco, briefly characterized
by Don Alonzo Enriques de Guzman, who took part in it, as "the most
fearful and cruel war in the world." When in 1536 Cuzco was relieved
by Pizarro's comrade, Almagro, and Manco's last chance of regaining
the ancient capital of his ancestors failed, the Inca retreated to
Ollantaytambo. Here, on the banks of the river Urubamba, Manco made a
determined stand, but Ollantaytambo was too easily reached by Pizarro's
mounted cavaliers. The Inca's followers, although aroused to their
utmost endeavors by the presence of the magnificent stone edifices,
fortresses, granaries, palaces, and hanging gardens of their ancestors,
found it necessary to retreat. They fled in a northerly direction and
made good their escape over snowy passes to Uiticos in the fastnesses
of Uilcapampa, a veritable American Switzerland.

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FIGURE

Glaciers Between Cuzco and Uiticos
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The Spaniards who attempted to follow Manco found his position
practically impregnable. The citadel of Uilcapampa, a gigantic
natural fortress defended by Nature in one of her profoundest moods,
was only to be reached by fording dangerous torrents, or crossing
the mountains by narrow defiles which themselves are higher than
the most lofty peaks of Europe. It was hazardous for Hannibal and
Napoleon to bring their armies through the comparatively low passes
of the Alps. Pizarro found it impossible to follow the Inca Manco
over the Pas