Note 426 — Chapter LXXXVI

After the assassination of Pizarro, the younger Almagro assembled his partizans and prepared to resist the royal forces under the new governor Vaca de Castro. The two armies met on the heights of Chupas, which overhang the city of Guamanga, on the 16th of September 1542. During my residence at Guamanga I went in search of the battle field, which is about three leagues from the town. The field of Chupas is on a sort of terrace of the Andes, with the mountains rising in the rear, a rapid descent towards Guamanga, and slightly wooded ravines to the right and left. The view from it is magnificent. It is now covered with fields of wheat, with a few huts scattered here and there amidst thickets of chilca (a species of Baccharis). A most furious and bloody encounter was the battle of Chupas. It was long doubtful, but at length Vaca de Castro was victorious, and out of 850 Spaniards brought into the field by young Almagro, 700 were killed. The victors lost about 350 men. Among the slain, on the royal side, was Pedro Alvarez Holguin, one of the first corregidors of Guamanga, and formerly a companion of Hernan Cortez—the same who captured Guatimozin in the lakes of Mexico. He was buried in the little church of San Christoval at Guamanga, which was built by Pizarro and still exists. Several of the prisoners, who were implicated in the murder of Pizarro, were beheaded in the plaza of Guamanga.