through great trials, because all the land is the most
mountainous and roughest that can be traversed on horseback, and it may
be believed that, had it not been for the discord which existed between
the people of Quito and those of Cuzco and its neighbourhood, the
Spaniards would never have entered Cuzco, nor would there have been
enough of them to get beyond Xauxa, and in order to enter they would
have had to go in a force of five hundred, and, to maintain themselves,
they would have needed many more, because the land is so large and so
rough that there are mountains and passes that ten men could defend
against ten thousand. And the Governor never thought of being able to go
with less than five hundred Christians to conquer, pacify, and make a
tributary of it. But as he learned of the great disunion that existed
between the people of that land [Cuzco] and those of Quito, it was
proposed that he should go with the few Christians that he had to
deliver them from subjection and servitude, and to put a stop to the
mischief and wrongs that those of Quito were doing in that land, and Our
Lord saw fit to favor him [in it]. Nor would the Governor ever have
ventured to make so long and toilsome a journey in this great
undertaking had it not been for the great confidence which he had in all
the Spaniards of his company through having tried them out and having
learned that they were dextrous and skilled in so many conquests and
accustomed to these lands and to the toils of war. All of this they
showed themselves to be in this journey through rains and snows, in
swimming across many rivers, in crossing great mountain chains and in
sleeping many nights in the open air without water to drink and without
anything on which to feed, and always, day and night, having to be armed
and on guard, in going, at the end of the war, to reduce many caciques
and lands which had rebelled, and in going from Xauxa to Cuzco, on which
journey they suffered, with their governor, so many trials and on which
they so often placed their lives in peril in rivers and mountains where
many horses were killed by falling headlong. This son of Guarnacaba has
much friendship and concord with the Christians, and for this reason, in
order to preserve him in the lordship, the Spaniards put themselves to
infinite pains and likewise bore themselves in all these undertakings so
valorously, and suffered so much, just as other Spaniards have been able
to do in the service o