Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/593

Rh set as to resist their efforts. Two hundred cargas of gold and twenty-five of silver were thus added to the heap with which the captive monarch hoped to procure his liberty.

Native goldsmiths were employed by the royal inspectors to perform this work of reduction, and such was its magnitude that more than one month was consumed before it was finished. When melted down and weighed, the whole amount which the inca had thus collected for his ransom was found to be 1,326,539 Castellanos of gold, and 51,610 marks of silver, equivalent at the present time to at least twenty millions of dollars.

The distribution of this magnificent prize among a conjparatively small band of adventurers took place under the superintendence of Pizarro on the 25th of July 1533, in the great square of Caxamalca. After invoking divine assistance in the performance of what he affirmed to be a work of the most solemn responsibility, he awarded to himself 57,222 Castellanos of gold and 2,350 marks of silver. He also ap-. propriated to his own use the chair or throne of the inca, which was of solid gold and valued at 25,000 Castellanos. He awarded to his brother Fernando Pizarro 31,080 Castellanos of gold and 2,350 marks of silver. To Hernando de Soto he gave 17,740 castellanos of gold and 724 marks of silver. The cavalry, about fifty-five in number, were allowed each. 8,880