Page:The Incas of Peru.djvu/304

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266
THE INCA AND HIS SCHOOLFELLOWS

in their names in the same way—Chalcuchima, Rumi-ñaui, and Quilliscancha. They often went up to the fortress to explore the Inca ruins, which within ten years had all been taken away to build houses in the city. They ventured into the subterranean passages, and passed much time in tobogganing down the grooves in the Rodadero rock. They also had more sensible amusements, and went out hawking with the small falcons of the country, at Quepaypa. This is the fatal spot where the Incas surrendered and made submission to the generals of Atahualpa. The greatest excitement was when new animals and new fruits arrived from Spain for the first time. The first bullocks in the plough, the property of Juan Rodriguez de Villalobos, appeared near Cuzco in 1550. The young Inca went off to see them, with a great crowd, when he ought to have been at school. The land ploughed was just above the convent of St. Francis, and the names of the bullocks were Chaparro, Naranjo, and Castillo. It was a marvellous sight for the boy, but he had to pay for acting truant. His father flogged him, and the schoolmaster gave him another flogging because his father had not given him enough. The next wonder was a donkey which his father had bought at Guamanga to breed mules from his mares.

Horses were very precious and very dear. But this did not restrain the young mestizos from riding races down the streets of Cuzco. Antonio de Altamirano, father of the Altamirano boys,