ics went down on their knees. Nothing could move the
obstinate narrow-minded Viceroy. The deed was done.

When too late Toledo seems to have had some misgivings. The judicial
murder took place in December, 1571. The history of the Incas was
finished in March, 1572. Yet there is no mention of the death of Tupac
Amaru. For all that appears he might have been still in Vilcapampa.
Nevertheless the tidings reached Philip II, and the Viceroy's conduct
was not approved.

There was astonishing audacity on the part of Toledo, in basing
arguments on the alleged cruelty and tyranny of the Incas, when the man
was actually red-handed with the blood of an innocent youth, and engaged
in the tyrannical persecution of his relations and the hideous torture
of his followers. His arguments made no impression on the mind of Philip
II. The King even showed some favour to the children of Tupac Amaru by
putting them in the succession to the Marquisate of Oropesa. In the Inca
pedigrees Toledo is called "el execrable regicidio." When he presented
himself on his return from Peru the King angrily exclaimed: "Go away to
your house; for I sent you to serve kings; and you went to kill
kings[11]."

[Note 11: "Idos a vuestra casa, que yo os envie a servir reyes; y
vos fuiste a matar reyes."]

All his faithful services as a legislator and a statesman could not
atone for this cruel judicial murder in the eyes of his sovereign. He
went back to his house a disgraced and broken-hearted man, and died soon
afterwards.

The history of the Incas by Sarmiento is followed, in this volume, by a
narrative of the execution of Tupac Amaru and of the events leading to
it, by an eye-witness, the Captain Baltasar de Ocampo. It has been
translated from a manuscript in the British Museum.

The narrative of Ocampo, written many years after the event, is
addressed to the Viceroy Marquis of Montes Claros. Its main object was
to give an account of the province of Vilcapampa, and to obtain some
favours for the Spanish settlers there.

Vilcapampa is a region of very special historical and geographical
interest, and it is one of which very little is known. It is a
mountainous tract of country, containing the lofty range of Vilcacunca
and several fertile valleys, between the rivers Apurimac and Vilcamayu,
to the north of Cuzco. The mountains rise abruptly from the valley of
the Vilcamayu below Ollantay-tampu, where the bridge of Chuqui-chaca
opened upon paths leading up