chap, XVII. AND SILVER IN AMERICA.

51

To this method of working may be attributedthe quantity of metallic treasure which Pizarrow as enabled to extort from the Inca Atahualpa ashis ransom, which, according to Garcilasso de laTega, i s stated at the enormous sum of eight hun-ted thousand pounds, or, according to Gomara,at the more probable amount of one hundred andforty thousand, or one hundred and fifty thousandpounds. The plunder of Cuzco was also verylarge, and though the amount of it is only givenby Herrera, a writer long posterior to the event,and whose authority does not appear, may beexaggerated at four hundred thousand pounds,yet there is evidence sufficient to prove that thetreasure found in that city was more than couldhave been collected if it had all arisen fromwashings, and if the Indians had not worked someof the mines.

As soon as the Spaniards had secured their con-quest, the greater part of the original inhabitantswere reduced to a kind of feudal slavery, knownby the name of repartimientos. The people ofthe several mining districts were delivered overto Spanish officers, who compelled them to labourfor their benefit either in cultivating the land, indigging in the mines, or in any servile or domesticlabour. They were marched in bodies a long wayfrom their homes, to climates from their elevationof intense coldness, and widely differing from those

e 2