The messenger stations have by some travellers been confounded with the forts, of which remains are met with along the great Inca road. The forts were buildings destined for totally different purposes. They were magazines for grain, and were built by the Incas to secure to their armies in these barren regions the requisite supplies of food. Vestiges of these forts are frequently seen in the Altos of Southern and Central Peru. They are broad round towers, usually built against a rocky declivity, and with numerous long apertures for the admission of air.
Even the broad level heights in which no trace of human habitations is discoverable, have been excavated by the mercenary Peruvian mestizos and creoles in search of hidden treasures. Their faith in the existence of concealed riches is founded on the following tradition. When the last reigning Inca, Atabiliba or Atahuallpa, was made prisoner by Don Francisco Pizarro, in Caxamarca, he proposed to ransom himself from the Spanish commander. The price he offered for his liberty was to fill with gold the cell in which he was confined, to the height of a certain line on the wall, which Pizarro marked with his sword. The cell, it may be mentioned, was twenty-two feet long and seventeen broad. A quantity of gold which the Inca ordered to be collected in Caxamarca and its vicinity, when piled up on the floor of the cell, did not reach above halfway to the given mark. The Inca then despatched messengers to Cuzco to obtain from the royal treasury the gold required to make up the deficiency; and accordingly eleven thousand llamas were despatched from Cuzco to Caxamarca, each laden with one hundred pounds of gold. But ere the treasure reached its destination, Atahuallpa was hanged by the advice of Don Diego de Almangra and the Dominican monk Vicente de Valverde. The terror-stirring news flew like wild-fire through the land, and speedily reached the convoy of Indians, who were driving their richly-laden llamas over the level heights into Central Peru. On the spot where the intelligence of Atahuallpa's death was communicated to them, the dismayed Indians concealed the treasure, and then dispersed.
Whether the number of the llamas was really so considerable as it is stated to have been, may fairly be doubted; but that a vast quantity of gold was on its way to Caxamarca, and was concealed, is a well-authenticated fact. That the Indians should never have made any attempt to recover this treasure is quite consistent with their character. It is not improbable that even now some particular individuals among them may know the place of concealment; but a certain feeling of awe transmitted through several centuries from father to son, has, in their minds, associated the hidden treasure with the blood of their last king, and this feeling doubtless prompts them to keep the secret inviolate.