The ceremony of proclaiming the young prince Inca-Regent and Protector was brief and simple, though by no means without a due impressiveness. Escorted by a procession of the Priests of the Sun and the Curacas of Cuzco and the other towns in the valley, who had been summoned the evening before, he entered the great Sanctuary of the Temple, where, laying his hands upon the altar, and looking up at the great image of the Sun upon the wall above it, he swore to rule according to the Ancient Laws as long as he should hold his office, and to instantly relinquish it as soon as it should be shown that his brother Huascar was still alive and restored to freedom; that he would defend the throne and country against all enemies, whether from within or without, and that, should it be proved that the Usurper had in truth compassed the death of Huascar, he would neither rest nor spare toil or danger until he had meted out to him the punishment due to so awful a crime. After this Anda-Huillac, the Villac-Umu, or Chief Priest of the Sun, took the yellow Llautu, or turban, which betokened his princely rank, from his brow, and replaced it with the red one which was only worn by the reigning Inca. But there was one of the insignia of royalty wanting, and this was the imperial borla, the fringe of intertwined scarlet and gold thread, which Manco had vowed never to assume, come what might, until the Usurper had paid the penalty of his crimes, and he was undisputed lord of all the land that had owned the sway of his father. Thus semi-crowned he was escorted back to the palace of Viracocha, fronting the great central square of the city, and there his attendants buckled on the polished steel cuirass which his friend Valdez had bequeathed to him, and girded him with the long, straight sword, for which his own artificers had made a golden sheath of very cunning and beautiful workmanship, and a sword-belt of flat links of gold and silver thickly studded, as the sword-hilt was, with gems. From his turban sprang an aigrette of the white feathers of the coraquenque, which none but a reigning Inca might wear, fastened by a golden clasp, from which hung a great flat emerald, which in Europe would have been worth a prince’s ransom. Under the cuirass a woollen tunic, as fine as silk and dyed a brilliant purple, descended to his knees, leaving the rest of his shapely, muscular legs bare. His feet were shod with the royal sandals of linked and flexible gold, bound on by jewelled cross-straps, and from his shoulders hung a cloak of pure white wool, embroidered with gold and scarlet thread, and bearing on the left breast an image of the sun in beaten gold, which was an exact miniature of the great effigy in the Sanctuary. The cloak was fastened loosely across his broad shoulders by a clasp formed of two great rubies of equal size and similar shape, set in curiously chased gold.