lling themselves in their imagined
security, they were surprised and massacred by the Indians. The
insurrection spread with incredible rapidity. Juan Santos himself led
all the principal attacks. In one night he took the fortress of Quimiri
with sixty-five men, all of whom were massacred in the most cruel
manner. The well-defended fort of Paucartambo was next taken by a small
number of Chunchos, commanded by Juan Santos. All the Christian churches
were destroyed by the insurgents. The sacred images and the priests were
tied together, and cast into the rivers; the villages were burned, and
the cultivated fields laid waste. The number of Spanish soldiers killed
in this insurrection was 245; the number of priests, 26. In the course
of a few weeks all the missions of central Peru were completely
destroyed, and terror spread even to the mountains. The Spanish
government found it necessary to adopt the most vigorous measures, for
there was reason to fear that the mountain Indians would revolt. Castles
and forts were built on the frontiers of all the Montanas and strongly
garrisoned; but the insurrection did not extend further. The ultimate
fate of Juan Santos Atahuallpa has never been satisfactorily
ascertained. Some assert that he became a powerful ruler, and that as
long as he lived the races of the Chunchos, Pacanes, Chichirrenes,
Campas, and Simirinches, were united. On an old manuscript in the
monastery of Ocopa I found a marginal note, in which it was said, "As to
the monster, the apostate Juan Santos Atahuallpa, after his diabolical
destruction of our missions, the wrath of God was directed against him
in the most fearful manner. He died the death of Herod, for his living
body was devoured by worms."

Shortly after the tragical downfall of these missions, two priests, Fra
Francisco Otasua and Fray Salvador Pando, visited the ruins of Quimiri,
and endeavored to conciliate the rebels; but in vain. After three
months, during which they suffered dreadful ill treatment from the
Chunchos, they returned to the monastery of Ocopa.

These missionaries were all monks of the order of San Francisco. Their
active zeal and heroic submission to any sacrifice in furtherance of the
cause in which they were embarked must excite at once astonishment and
admiration. Undaunted by incredible privations and laborious exertions
in the pathless forests, without food or shelter; undismayed by the
continual apprehension of a violent and cruel d