Page:The Incas of Peru.djvu/306

268 and roots. There was one very formidable white root, which was pounded, put in water, and given to young Garcilasso to drink when he had a stomach-ache. It was a drastic remedy. First it made him feel sick, and in half an hour he was so giddy that he could not stand. Then he felt as if ants were crawling over his body and down his veins. He next felt as if he was going to die. When the medicine had finished working he was left quite well, with a tremendous appetite. He himself effected a signal cure on a boy named Martin, son of Pedro Fernandez the loyal, who was suffering from a sore and inflamed eye. Garcilasso took a plant called matecllu, which is found in streams, a foot long with one round leaf at the end. He mashed it, and applied it as a poultice to his friend, who was cured after two applications. Afterwards he saw Martin in Spain in 1611, when he was head groom to the Duke of Feria, and he said that he saw better in that eye than in the other.

As Garcilasso grew up he exchanged his boyish games and excursions for the more serious cane tournaments, requiring much practice. He played in the tournaments on the feast of Santiago five times, also at the baptism of Inca Sayri Tupac, when he rode a young horse which had not completed its third year.

The youth Garcilasso was a born topographer, with a remarkable memory. Forty years after he left Cuzco he described the city, with the exact