Huascar, Terrified
By The Prospect Of Death, And Believing Their Promise Of Restoration To
Liberty And Dominion, Issued Peremptory Orders
To his army to desist from
their intended attack and to return to Cuzco, which they did accordingly;
and the
Atahualpan officers carried Huascar a prisoner to Caxamarca, where
they delivered him up to their master. Thus were the affairs of Peru
situated when Don Francisco Pizarro arrived in that country with the
Spaniards; which conjuncture was exceedingly favourable to his views of
conquest, of which we shall give an account in the next section, as the
great army of Huascar was entirely dispersed, and Atahualpa had dismissed
a great proportion of his troops, after this fortunate event, which had
placed his enemy in his hands.
* * * * *
_Of the Peruvian History before the arrival of the Spaniards_[35].
"Peru, like the rest of the New World, was originally possessed by small
independent tribes, differing from each other in manners, and in their
forms of rude policy. All, however, were so little civilized, that, if the
traditions concerning their mode of life, preserved among their
descendants, deserve credit, they must be classed among the most
unimproved savages of America. Strangers to every species of cultivation
or regular industry, without any fixed residence, and unacquainted with
those sentiments and obligations which form the first bonds of social
union, they are said to have roamed naked about the forests with which
their country was then covered, more like wild beasts than like men. After
they had struggled for ages with the hardships and calamities which are
inevitable in such a state, and when no circumstance seemed to indicate
the approach of any uncommon effort towards improvement, we are told that
there appeared on the banks of the lake Titicaca, a man and woman of
majestic form, and clothed in decent garments.
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