Although the Inca’s ransom had not been made up to the full amount promised, Pizarro had acquitted his prisoner, some time previously to his death, of any further obligation on that score. With respect to this ransom, Dr Tschudi gives some interesting particulars, doubtless true in the main, although exaggerated in the details. “The gold which the Inca got together in Caxamarca and the neighbourhood, was hardly sufficient to fill half the room. He therefore sent messengers to Cuzco, to complete the amount out of the royal treasury; and it is said that eleven thousand llamas, each bearing a hundredweight of gold, really started thence for Caxamarca. But before they arrived, Atahuallpa was hung. The terrible news ran like a lighted train through the whole country, and reached the Indians who were driving the heavily laden llamas over the uplands of Central Peru. Panic-stricken, they buried their treasures upon the very spot where the mournful message was delivered to them, and dispersed in all directions.” Eleven thousand hundredweight of gold! If this were true, the cruelty of the Spaniards to their prisoner brought its own punishment. The buried treasure, whatever its amount, has never been recovered, although numerous researches have been made. Either the secret has perished with its possessors, or those Peruvians to whom it has been handed down, persist, with the sullen and impenetrable reserve that forms a distinguishing trait in their character, in preventing their white oppressors from reaping the benefit of it.