It has a beautiful and fine fortress; there are many well built houses of stone, and it is half-way by road from Xauxa to Cuzco. And on the next day the Governor encamped on the other side of the river, four leagues from Bilcas, and although the day's march was short, it was nevertheless toilsome because it was entirely a descent almost all composed of stone steps, and the troops waded the river with much fatigue because it was very full, and he set up his camp on the other bank among some groves. Scarcely had the Governor arrived here, when he received a letter from the captain who was reconnoitring in which the latter informed him that the enemy had gone on five leagues and were in waiting on the slope of a mountain in a land called Curamba,[46] and that there were many warriors there, and that they had made many preparations and had arranged great quantities of stones so that the Spaniards would not be able to go up. The Governor, when he understood this, although the captain did not ask him for aid, believed that it was necessary now, and he at once ordered the Marshal D. Diego de Almagro to get ready with thirty light horsemen, well equipped as to arms and horses, and he did not wish him to take a single peon with him, because he ordered him [Almagro] not to delay for anything until he should come up with the captain who was ahead with the others. And when he [Almagro] had set out, the Governor likewise started, on the following day, with ten horsemen and the twenty peons who were guarding Chilichuchima, and he quickened his pace so much that day that of two days' marches he made one. And just as he was about to arrive at the village called Andabailla, where he was to sleep, an Indian came to him on the run to say that on a certain slope of the mountain, which he pointed out with his finger, there had been discovered hostile troops of war, on which account, the Governor, armed as he was and on horseback, went with the Spaniards he had with him to take the summit of that slope, and he examined the whole of it without finding the warriors of whom the Indian had spoken, because they were troops native to the land who were fleeing from the Indians of Quito because the latter did them very great harm. The Governor and company having arrived at that village of Andabailla, they supped and spent the night there. On the next day, they arrived at the village of Airamba from where the captain had written that he was with the armed troops waiting for them upon the road.[47] CHAPTER IX Having arrived at a village, they find much silver in plates twenty-feet long. Proceeding on their journey, they receive letters from the Spaniards relating the brisk and adverse struggle they had had against the army of the Indians.