The
Substance Of His Account Of All The Six Is As Follows.
"_Two_ of the more early writers on the subject of the discovery and
conquest of Peru, Francisco de Xeres,
The secretary of Pizarro, and Pedro
Sanchez, an officer who served under the conqueror, break off almost in
the introduction to the narrative, going no farther into the history of
the conquest than the death of Atahualpa in 1533, only one year after the
invasion of Peru. The _third_ in point of time, Pedro Cioca de Leon, only
two years earlier in his publication than Zarate, gives nothing more than
a description of the country, and an account of the institutions and
customs of the natives. Zarate is the _fourth_. The _fifth_, Don Diego
Fernandez, solely relates to the dissentions and civil wars among the
Spanish conquerors. The _sixth_ and last of these original authors,
Garcilasso de la Vega _Inca_, the son of a Spanish officer of distinction
by a _Coya_, or Peruvian female of the royal race, gives little more than
a commentary on the before mentioned writers, and was not published till
1609, seventy five years after the invasion of Peru by Pizarro[1]."
In the Bibliotheque des Voyages, VI. 319. mention is made of a Description
of Peru as published in French in 1480, and said to be a very rare work:
_Rare_, indeed, if the imprint be not an error, _fifty-two_ years before
the actual invasion and discovery. In the same useful work, the
performance of Zarate is thus characterized. "The author has not confined
his views to the history and conquest of Peru, but has given us a
statement of the natural features of the country, an account of the
manners of the inhabitants, and a curious picture of the religious
opinions and institutions of the Peruvians."
Four of the six original authors respecting Peru which are noticed by
Robertson, we have not seen; having confined our views to that of Zarate,
which is not only the best according to the opinion of that excellent
judge, but the only one which could answer the purpose of our present
collection. In preparing this original work for publication, it is proper
to acknowledge that we have been satisfied with translating from the
French edition of Paris, 1742; but, besides every attention to fidelity of
translation, it has been carefully collated throughout with the _Royal
Commentary_ of the Inca Garcilasso de la Vega, as published in English by
Sir Paul Rycaut, knight, in 1688; and with the excellent work of Dr
Robertson. It may be proper to mention, however, that the following
translation, though faithful, has been made with some freedom of
retrenching a superfluity of useless language; though nothing has been
omitted in point of fact, and nothing altered.
Having mentioned the work of Garcilasso de la Vega, which we have employed
as an auxiliary on the present occasion, it may be worth while to give a
short account of it in this place: For there never was, perhaps, a
literary composition so strangely mixed up of unconnected and discordant
sense and nonsense, and so totally devoid of any thing like order or
arrangement, in the whole chronology of authorship, or rather of
book-making, as has been produced by this scion of the Incas.
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