The
_Other_ Islands In The Neighbourhood Must Have Been Those Now Named
Hispaniola, Cuba, Porto Rico, Jamaica, And Others Of
The West Indies; and
the _Firm Land_, that part of the Continent to which we still give the
name of
_Tierra Firma_, together with the other countries and provinces of
America, from the Straits of Magellan in the south to the extreme north;
as Peru, Popayan, Golden Castille, Veragua, Nicaragua, Guatimala, New
Spain, _the Seven Cities_, Florida, _Baccalaos_, and so on along the north
to Norway. The authority of Plato is conclusive that the _New World_ which
has been discovered in our time, is the same Continent or Firm Land
mentioned by that philosopher; and his _True Sea_ must be that which we
name the _South Sea_, or Pacific Ocean; for the whole Mediterranean, and
all that was before known of the Ocean, which we call the _North Sea_, can
only be considered as rivers or lakes in comparison with the vast extent
of that other sea. After these explanations, it is not difficult to
conceive how mankind in ancient times may have passed from the great
island of _Atlantis_ and the _other_ neighbouring isles, to what we now
call the Tierra Firma, or _Firm Land_, and thence by land, or by the South
Sea, into Peru: As we must believe that the inhabitants of these islands
practised navigation, which they must have learned by intercourse with the
great island, in which Plato expressly says there were many ships, and
carefully constructed harbours. These, in my opinion, are the most
probable conjectures which can be formed on this obscure subject of
antiquity; more especially as we can derive no lights from the Peruvians,
who have no writing by which to preserve the memory of ancient times. In
New Spain, indeed, they had certain pictures, which answered in some
measure instead of books and writings; but in Peru, they only used certain
strings of different colours with several knots, by means of which and the
distances between them, they were able to express some things in a very
confused and uncertain manner, as shall be explained in the course of this
history.
So much of the following history as relates to the discovery of the
country, has been derived from the information of Rodrigo Lozan, an
inhabitant of Truxillo in Peru, and from others who were witnesses of and
actors in the transactions which I have detailed.
[1] Even the orthography of the name of Pizarro is handed down to us with
some variety. In the work of Garcilasso de la Vega it is always spelt
Picarro: Besides which, the Inca Garcilasso, in his almost perpetual
quotations of our author Zarate, always gives the name Carate; the _c_,
or cerilla _c_, being equivalent in Spanish to the _z_ in the other
languages of Europe. - E.
SECTION I.
_Of the discovery of Peru, with some account of the country and its
inhabitants_.
The city of Panama is a port on the South Sea, in that province of the
continent of America which is called Golden Castille.
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