Part VI

Part VI

The judicial murder of Tupac Amaru was part of a settled policy. Toledo intended to crush out all remains of reverence and loyalty for the ancient family among the people. He confiscated the property of the Yncas, deprived them of most of the privileges they had hitherto been allowed to retain, and even banished the numerous half-caste children of Spaniards by Ynca princesses.

At the same time he labored diligently to formulate and establish a colonial policy and system of government on the ruins of the civilization of the Yncas.

* * * * *

The instructions of the kings of Spain, through their council of the Indies, were remarkable for beneficence and liberality in all that concerned the natives. Strict orders were given for their instruction and kind treatment, and special officers were appointed for their protection. But at the same time there were incessant demands for increased supplies of treasure from the mines. It was like the orders of the directors of the East India Company to Warren Hastings,—justice to the natives, but more money. The two orders were incompatible. In spite of their beneficent rules and good intentions, the Spanish kings must share the guilt of their colonial officers, as regards the treatment of the natives. It is right, however, that the names of those conquerors should be recorded who displayed feelings of sympathy and kindness for their Indian vassals. Lorenzo de Aldana, who took a prominent and important part in the civil wars, died at Arequipa in 1556, and left all his property to the Indians whom he had received in repartimiento, for the payment of their tribute in future years. Marcio Sierra de Leguizamo described the happy condition of the people when the Spaniards arrived, and in his will expressed deep contrition at having taken part in their destruction. Garcilasso de la Vega was ever kind and considerate to his Indian vassals. Cieza de Leon in his writings[1481] shows the warmest sympathy for the Ynca people. There were, however, too many of the first conquerors of a different stamp.

* * * * *

The viceroy Toledo wisely based his legislation on the system of the Yncas. His elaborate code, called the Libro de Tasas, was the text-book for all future viceroys. He fixed the amount of tribute to be paid by the Indians, wholly exempting all males under the age of eighteen, and over that of fifty. He recognized the positions of hereditary nobles or curacas, assigning them magisterial functions, and the duty of collecting the tribute and paying it to the Spanish corregidors. He enacted that one seventh part of the population of every village should be subject to the mita, or forced labor in mines or factories; at the same time fixing the distance they might be taken from their homes, and the payment they were to receive. It was the abuse of the mita system, and the habitual infraction of the rules established by Toledo, which caused all the subsequent misery and the depopulation of the country. Humane treatment of the people was incompatible with the annual despatch of vast treasure to Spain. Toledo also fixed the tenures of land, organized local government by corregidors, and specified the duties of all officials, in his voluminous code of ordinances.

In the days of this viceroy the Inquisition was introduced into Peru, but the natives were exempted from its penalties as catechumens. Heretical Europeans or Creoles were alone exposed to its terrible jurisdiction. The first auto da fé took place at Lima on November 19, 1573, when a crazy old hermit, suspected of Lutheranism, was burned. Another was celebrated with great pomp on the 13th of April, 1578, the viceroy and judges of the Audiencia being present in a covered stand on the great square of Lima. There were sixteen victims to suffer various punishments, but none were put to death.

During the government of Toledo, in 1579, Sir Francis Drake appeared on the coast of Peru,[1482] and in the following year the viceroy despatched an important surveying expedition to the Straits of Magellan under Sarmiento. After a long and eventful period of office, extending over upwards of twelve years, Don Francisco de Toledo returned to Spain. He was coldly received by Philip II., who said that he had not been sent to Peru to kill kings, and dismissed him. He was a hard-hearted man, but a conscientious and able administrator, and a devoted public servant.

Don Martin Henriquez, second son of the Marquis of Alcanizes, was then viceroy of Mexico, whence he was removed to Peru as successor to Toledo. He entered Lima on the 28th of September, 1581. He worked assiduously to carry out the ordinances of his able predecessor in all branches of administration; but his career was cut short by death after holding office for eighteen months. He died on the 15th of March, 1583, and was buried in the church of San Francisco. In 1582 he had founded the college of San Martin, to be under the rule of Jesuits, and on the 15th of August of the same year the second council of Lima assembled under the presidency of the archbishop.

Loaysa, the first archbishop of Lima, died in 1575, and the see was vacant for six years. Toribio de Mogrovejo was consecrated at Seville in 1580, and entered Lima May 24, 1581, at the age of forty-three. He at once began the study of the Quichua language, to prepare for his tours of inspection. He had a mule, but generally travelled on foot, stopping in villages and at wayside huts, instructing, catechising, and administering the sacraments. He penetrated into the most inaccessible fastnesses of the Andes and visited all the coast valleys, journeying over burning deserts, along snowy heights, and through dense forests, year after year untiringly. He founded the seminary at Lima, for the education of priests, which is now known by his name. Besides the council of 1582, he celebrated two other provincial councils in 1592 and 1601, and ten diocesan synods. The principal work of these assemblies was to draw up catechisms and questions for the use of priests, with a view to the extirpation of idolatry, and to regulate parochial work. The good archbishop died at Saña on the coast, during one of his laborious visitations, on the 23d of March, 1606. He was canonized in 1680, and is revered as Saint Toribio. During his archiepiscopate a girl was born at Lima, of very poor and honest Spanish parents, named Rosa Flores, and was baptized by Saint Toribio in 1586. Her goodness and charity were equalled by her surpassing beauty, which she dedicated to God; and after her death, in 1617, a conclave of theologians decided that she had never strayed from the right path in thought or deed. She was canonized in 1671, and Santa Rosa is the patron saint of Lima, with her festival on the 30th of August.[1483]

Don Fernando de Torres y Portugal, Conde de Villar Don Pardo, the successor of Henriquez, did not reach Lima until the 20th of November, 1586. He endeavored to prevent abuses in taking Indians for the mita, and ordered that none should be sent to unsuitable climates. During the previous forty years negroes had been imported into the coast valleys of Peru in considerable numbers as slaves, and supplied labor for the rich cotton and sugar estates. The Conde de Villar was an old man, with good intentions but limited capacity. He allowed abuses to creep into the financial accounts, which were in great confusion when he was superseded in the year 1590.

Don Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza, the fourth marquis of Cañete, had already served in Peru, when his father was viceroy, and had won renown in his war with the Araucanians. He had also seen service in Germany and Italy. Married to Doña Teresa de Castro y de la Cueva, granddaughter of the proud Duke of Albuquerque, he was the first viceroy who had been allowed to take a vice-queen with him to Peru, and he was also accompanied by her brother, the gallant and chivalrous Don Beltran de Castro y Cueva, as commander of the forces. On the 6th of January, 1590, the new viceroy made his solemn entry into Lima, in a magnificent procession of richly adorned Indian nobles, arquebusiers and pikemen, gentlemen of the household, judges of the Audiencia, professors and students of the University of San Marcos, and kings-at-arms. The marquis came out with the usual injunctions to enforce the kindly treatment of Indians, but he received urgent demands from the king for more and more money. In 1591 he imposed the alcabala, or duties on sales in markets, and on coca. He was obliged to send increasing numbers of victims to the silver mines, and to the quicksilver mines of Huancavelica. He made numerous ordinances for the regulation of industries and of markets, the suppression of gambling, and the punishment of fugitive slaves. He founded the college of San Felipe and San Marcos at Lima in 1592. He despatched an important expedition under Mandaña, which discovered the Marquesas Islands. He was an active and intelligent ruler; but all the good he attempted to do was counterbalanced by the calls for treasure from Spain. He sent home 1,500,000 ducats, besides value in jewels and plate.

After having governed Peru for six years and a half, the Marquis of Cañete begged to be allowed to return home. He was succeeded by Don Luis de Velasco, Marquis of Salinas, who came from Mexico, where he had been the viceroy. The Marquis of Salinas entered Lima on the 24th of July, 1596, and governed Peru until the end of 1604.

* * * * *

Chili had been comparatively quiet under the immediate successors of Don Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza, although the war with the Araucanians had never actually ceased. In 1583 Philip II. selected a military officer of great experience and approved valor as governor of Chili. Don Alonso de Sotomayor left Spain for Buenos Ayres with seven hundred men, and made the journey across the Pampas and over the pass of Uspallata, reaching Santiago on the 22d of September, 1583. He and his brother Luis carried on a desultory war against the Araucanians for several years. During 1588 the attacks of the Indians were led by an intrepid heroine named Janequeo, who was resolved to avenge the death of her husband. The governor was superseded in 1592 and proceeded to Callao, where he commanded a ship, under Don Beltran de Cueva, in the fleet which attacked and captured Sir Richard Hawkins and his ship. Sotomayor then returned to Spain.

The new governor of Chili was Don Martin Garcia Oñez de Loyola, the same cavalier who married an Ynca princess, and captured young Tupac Amaru. He was a Basque, of the province of Guipuzcoa, and a near relative of Saint Ignatius. He arrived at Valparaiso, with four hundred soldiers and abundant supplies of warlike stores, on the 23d of September, 1592, reaching Santiago on the 6th of October. The Araucanians had elected the aged chief Paillamacu as their toqui, with two younger warriors named Pelantaru and Millacalquin as his lieutenants. Believing the subjugation of Araucaria to be practicable, the new governor traversed the country between Imperial and Villarica during the year 1597, but failed to discover his astute foes. In the spring of 1598 Loyola was at Imperial, where he received a letter from his wife, the Ynca princess Doña Beatriz Coya, urging him to retreat to Concepcion, as the Araucanians were rising. He set out for Angol, accompanied by only sixty officers, on the 21st of November, 1598, and stopped for the night in the valley of Curalaba. When all were wrapped in sleep, the tents were attacked by five hundred native warriors, and the governor was killed, with all his companions. His widow, the Ynca princess, went to Spain with a young daughter, who was given in marriage by Philip III. to Juan Henriquez de Borja, heir of the house of Gandia, and was at the same time created Marquesa de Oropesa.

The death of the governor was a signal for a general rising. Within forty-eight hours there were thirty thousand Araucanian warriors in the field under the toqui Paillamacu. All the Spanish towns south of the river Biobio were taken and destroyed, the invasion was hurled back beyond Concepcion, and the Spaniards were placed on the defensive.

* * * * *

The seventeenth century opened in Peru with a period of peace, during which the system of government elaborated by the viceroy Toledo was to be worked out to its consequences,—and in Chili, with the prospect of a prolonged contest and an impoverished treasury. In both countries the future of the native races was melancholy and without hope.

CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.

THE king of Spain instituted the office of historiographer of the Indies, and that post was held for upwards of half a century by the learned Antonio de Herrera, who died in 1625. All the official reports and correspondence were placed in his hands, and he had the use of a great deal of material which is now lost; so that he is indispensable as an authority.[1484] His great work, Historia General de las Indias Occidentales, covers the whole ground from 1492 to 1554, and is divided into eight decades, in strict chronological order. The history of the conquest of Peru and of the subsequent civil wars is recorded with reference to chronological order as bearing on events in other parts of the Indies, and not connectedly. The work first appeared in 1601 and 1615, in five folio volumes, and was republished in 1730. The English version by Stevens, in six octavo volumes (1725), is worthless. The episode relating to the descent of the river Amazon by Francisco de Orellana (Herrera, dec. vi. lib. ix.), was translated by Clements R. Markham, C. B., and printed for the Hakluyt Society in 1859 as a part of the volume called Expeditions into the Valley of the Amazons.

Francisco Lopez de Gomara was another compiler, who never personally visited Peru, and is best known for his history of the conquest of Mexico. His narrative of the conquest of Peru forms an important part of his work entitled Historia de las Indias. Although he was a contemporary, and had peculiarly good opportunities for obtaining trustworthy information, he was careless in his statements, and is an unsafe authority.[1485]

Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdés, born in 1478 of an old Asturian family, was an eye-witness of the events on the isthmus which directly led to the discovery of Peru. He went out with the governor Pedro Arias in 1513, and was at Panamá when Pizarro and Almagro were fitting out their first expedition. He afterwards resided for many years in Hispaniola, and at his death, in 1557, he was chronicler of the Indies, the predecessor of Herrera. He was devoted to historical composition, interspersing his narrative with anecdotes and personal reminiscences; but most of his works long remained in manuscript. His two chapters on the conquest of Peru cover the ground from the landing of Pizarro to the return of Almagro from Chili.[1486]

It is, however, a relief to escape from compilers, and to be able to read the narratives of the actual actors in the events they describe. The first adventurer who attempted to discover Peru was the adelantado Pascual de Andagoya, and he has recorded the story of his failures. Born of a good stock in the province of Alava, Pascual went out to Darien when very young, with the governor Pedro Arias, in 1514. After the failure of his first attempt he was in Panamá for some years, and in 1540 received the government of the country round the Rio San Juan, the scene of Pizarro’s early sufferings. Here he founded the town of Buenaventura; but having got into a dispute with Benalcazar respecting the boundaries of their jurisdictions, Andagoya returned to Spain, where he remained five years. He accompanied the president Gasca to Peru, and died at Cusco on the 18th of June, 1548. He had broken his leg, but was recovering, when fever supervened, which carried him off. Gasca reported that his death was mourned by all, because he was such a good man, and so zealous in the service of his country. The historian Oviedo, who knew him well in the early days of the Darien colony, speaks of Andagoya as a noble-minded and virtuous person. He was a man of some education; and his humane treatment of the Indians entitles his name to honorable mention. His interesting narrative long remained in manuscript at Seville, but it was at length published by Navarrete.[1487] An English translation,[1488] by Clements R. Markham, C. B., with notes and an introduction, was printed for the Hakluyt Society in 1865.[1489]

Francisco de Xeres, the secretary of Pizarro, wrote his account of the early days of the conquest of Peru on the spot, by order (March, 1533) of his master. He left Spain with Pizarro in January, 1530, returned to Seville with the first instalment of gold from Caxamarca in July, 1534; and his narrative, which embraces the period between these dates, was printed at Seville in the same year.[1490] This edition and that of 1547, printed somewhat carelessly at Salamanca, are extremely rare.[1491] The third and best-known edition was published at Madrid in 1749 in the Barcia Collection, Historiadores primitivos de las Indias. Italian editions appeared in 1535,[1492] and in 1556 in Ramusio;[1493] and a French version was published at Paris by M. Ternaux-Compans in 1837.[1494] An English translation, with notes and an introduction by Clements R. Markham, C. B., was printed for the Hakluyt Society in 1872. There is a freshness and reality in the story told by Xeres, owing to his having been an eye-witness of all the events he describes, which the more elaborate accounts of compilers cannot impart. Xeres has increased the value of his book by inserting the narrative of Miguel Astete, who accompanied Hernando Pizarro on his expedition to Pachacamac.

Hernando Pizarro wrote a letter to the royal Audiencia of Santo Domingo, which goes over the same ground as the narratives of Xeres and Astete, but is of course much briefer. It is peculiarly valuable as containing the observations of the man of highest rank in the expedition who was able to write.[1495] The letter is dated November, 1533, and was written on his way to Spain with the treasure. Oviedo gives it in his Historic General,[1496] and it is printed by Quintana in his Vidas de Españoles celebres.[1497] It was translated into English by Clements R. Markham, C. B., and printed for the Hakluyt Society in 1872 in the volume of Reports on the Discovery of Peru.

Pedro Sancho, the notary, wrote a note of the distribution of the ransom of Atahualpa, with a list of the conquerors and the amount each received. It is contained in the inedited work of Francisco Lopez de Caravantes, and was reprinted by Quintana in his Vidas de Españoles celebres. An English translation by Clements R. Markham, C. B., was printed for the Hakluyt Society in 1872, in the volume already cited. See also Ramusio, vol. iii. p. 414, for an Italian version, in which form it was used by Robertson and Prescott.[1498]

Vicente de Valverde, the Dominican friar who accompanied Pizarro in the conquest of Peru and took part in the imprisonment and murder of Atahualpa, was made bishop of Cusco in 1536. On his way to Spain, in 1541, he landed on the island of Puna, in the Bay of Guayaquil, was seized by the natives, and put to death with his brother-in-law and twenty-six other Spaniards. He wrote a detailed Carta-relacion on the affairs of Peru, which is still inedited. He also addressed letters to the emperor Charles V., which contain original information of great value. A copy of one, dated Cusco, April 2, 1539, was among Sir Thomas Phillipps’s collection of manuscripts. It is frequently quoted by Helps.

Pedro Pizarro, a cousin of the conqueror, went out as his page in 1530, when only fifteen. He was an eye-witness of all the events of the Conquest, and of the subsequent civil wars, having retired to Arequipa after the assassination of his patron. Here he probably wrote his Relaciones del Descubrimiento y Conquista de los Reynos del Peru, finished in 1571. It is a plain, unadorned statement of facts, but of the highest value as an authority. It remained in manuscript for centuries, but was at length printed in the Coleccion de documentos inéditos para la historia de Espana, v. 201-388.[1499]

The death-struggle between the Pizarros and the old marshal Almagro is fully told in the above general histories; but light is also thrown upon the story from other directions. Among the manuscripts in the National Library at Madrid[1500] there is an autobiography by a young scapegrace of noble birth named Alonzo Enriquez de Guzman, comprising a period from 1518 to 1543, from his nineteenth to his forty-fourth year. The early part reminds one of the adventures of Gil Blas; but in 1534 he went to Peru, and was a principal actor in the events which took place between the departure of Almagro for Chili in 1535 and his execution in 1538. Don Alonzo seems to have quarrelled with Hernando Pizarro during the siege of Cusco, and warmly espoused the cause of Almagro, who made him one of his executors. The latter portion of the autobiography, including a long letter to the emperor on the conduct of Hernando Pizarro, is very interesting, while the frankness of Don Alonzo’s confessions as regards his own motives is most entertaining. The Life and Acts of Don Alonzo Enriquez de Guzman was translated and edited by Clements R. Markham, C. B., and printed by the Hakluyt Society in 1862. It had up to this time escaped notice.

The last years of the marquis Pizarro were occupied in laying out and building the capital of Peru, and we are indebted to the researches of the learned Peruvian, Don Manuel Gonzalez de la Rosa, for having discovered the most detailed account of the founding and early history of Lima among the manuscripts in the Biblioteca Colombina at Seville. The Historia de la Fundacion de Lima was written by the Jesuit Bernabé Cobo between 1610 and 1629, and was first printed under the superintendence of Dr. De la Rosa in the Revista Peruana.[1501]

The story of the murder of Pizarro is told in the general histories, and there are some additional particulars in Montesinos. A very laudatory life of the marquis, which, however, contains the results of original research, is contained in the Varones Ilustres del Nuevo Mundo, by Fernando Pizarro y Orellana (Madrid, 1639). This work also contains Lives of Pizarro’s brothers and of Almagro.[1502]

But by far the best life of Pizarro, both as regards literary merit and conscientious research, is contained in the Vidas de Españoles Celebres by Don Manuel Josef Quintana.[1503] Quintana also gives the texts of the original agreement (1526) between Pizarro, Almagro, and Luque, and of the capitulation (July 26, 1529, at Toledo) between Queen Juana and Pizarro. These documents are also given by Prescott in the Appendix to the second volume of his Conquest of Peru.[1504]

After the assassination of Pizarro, the licentiate Vaca de Castro, having defeated the younger Almagro, succeeded as governor of Peru, and the history of his rule is told in his own letters. The first is to the emperor, reporting his arrival at Santo Domingo, and is very brief. The second, also to the emperor, is from Quito, and announces the assassination of Pizarro and the rebellion of Almagro the lad. The third is addressed to the emperor from Cusco, after the battle of Chupas, and is a straightforward statement of his proceedings. The fourth is a long letter from Cusco to his wife on private affairs. There is also a long letter on the revolt of young Almagro and the battle of Chupas from the municipality of Cusco to the emperor. These letters are included in the great official volume of Cartas de Indias published at Madrid in 1877, pp. 463-521. The Vida y elojio del licenciado Vaca de Castro, Gobernador del Peru, was written by Antonio de Herrera, the chronicler of the Indies.[1505]

A good historian accompanied the ill-fated viceroy Blasco Nuñez de Vela to Lima. Augustin de Zarate was comptroller of accounts for Castile, and was sent out with the first viceroy to examine into the financial affairs of Peru. He collected notes and materials during his residence at Lima, and began the compilation of a history from the discovery by Pizarro to the departure of Gasca, when he returned to Spain. He had access to the best official sources of information, and his work is not without value; but he was strongly prejudiced, and his style is tedious and inelegant. He assigns as the reason for not having begun his narrative in Peru, that Carbajal had threatened any one who should attempt to record his exploits. In the earlier portions he relied on the testimony of the actors still living; but for the later part he was himself a spectator and actor. He had not intended to publish it in his lifetime; but the commendation of the emperor, to whom it was shown, induced him to depart from his purpose. The original manuscript of Zarate is or was preserved at Simancas; and Muñoz has disclosed how the printed volume differs considerably from it, in suppressing things too frankly stated, and in taking on a literary flavor not in the draft. Muñoz supposed that Florian d’Ocampo performed this critical office in passing the book through the press.[1506] His Historia del Descubrimiento y Conquista de la Provincia del Peru was printed at Antwerp in 1555,[1507] and a folio edition appeared at Seville in 1577;[1508] but the best edition of Zarate is in the Barcia Collection, vol. iii. It was included in 1853 in the Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, vol. xxvi.[1509]

A more important narrative of the civil war, which ended with the death of the viceroy Blasco Nuñez, was written by Pedro de Cieza de Leon, and has been recently published. Cieza de Leon landed in South America when he was barely fifteen, in the year 1534, and during his military service he conceived a strong desire to write an account of the strange things that were to be seen in the new world. “Oftentimes,” he wrote, “when the other soldiers were reposing, I was tiring myself by writing. Neither fatigue, nor the ruggedness of the country, nor the mountains and rivers, nor intolerable hunger and suffering have ever been sufficient to obstruct my two duties; namely, writing, and following my flag and my captain without fault.” In 1547 he joined the president Gasca, and was present at the final rout of Gonzalo Pizarro. He was many years in Peru, and he is certainly one of the most important authorities on Ynca history and civilization, whether we consider his peculiar advantages in collecting information, or his character as a conscientious historian. He lived to complete a great work, but unfortunately only a small portion of it has seen the light. The first and second parts of the Chronicle of Cieza de Leon have been published, but they relate to Ynca civilization and are discussed in a chapter in the first volume of the present work. The third part, treating of the discovery and conquest of Peru by Pizarro, is inedited, though the manuscript is believed to have been preserved. Part IV. was divided into five books relating the history of the civil wars of the conquerors. Only the third book has been published in the Biblioteca Hispano-Ultramarina. It was very ably edited by Don Márcos Jiménez de la Espada (Madrid, 1877), and is entitled La Guerra de Quito. The volume begins with the departure of the viceroy Blasco Nuñez de Vela from Spain, and consists of fifty-three chapters in the first part, the concluding portion forming a subsequent volume.[1510]

The proceedings of the president, Pedro de la Gasca, were recorded by himself in very full reports to the Council of the Indies, which almost amount to official diaries. The first, dated at Santa Marta on his way out, July 12, 1546, has been published in the official volume of Cartas de Indias (Madrid, 1877). Other published correspondence throws light on the astute proceedings of the president while he was at Panamá. His instructions to Lorenzo de Aldana, his letters to Gonzalo Pizarro, and the detailed report of his agent Paniagua have been published in the Revista de Lima, 1880. His report to the Council of the Indies, when on his way to attack Gonzalo Pizarro at Cusco (dated Andahuaylas, March 7, 1548), has not been edited. But the Chilian historian Don Diego Barros Arana has published[1511] the long despatch from Gasca to the Council, dated at Cusco, May 7, 1548, in which he describes the rout of Sacsahuana, the executions of Gonzalo Pizarro and Carbajal, and the subsequent bloody assize at Cusco. The document frequently quoted by Prescott (in book v. chap. iii. of his history)[1512] as Relacion del Licenciado Gasca MS. is an abridged and mutilated copy of this despatch of May 7, 1548, from the Muñoz Collection,[1513] and is preserved at Simancas. The sentence pronounced on Gonzalo Pizarro is published in the Revista Peruana (1880), from the original manuscript of Zarate’s Chronicle.[1514] Gasca continues his narrative in the despatches to the Council, dated at Lima, Sept. 25 and Nov. 26, 1548, which are also published by Barros Arana.[1515] There are six other despatches of the president from Lima, dated in 1549, in the Cartas de Indias. The invaluable papers of the president Gasca are not in the Archives at Seville, but have been preserved by his family.[1516]

But the best-known historian of the period during which the president Gasca was in Peru was Diego Fernandez de Palencia, usually called “el Palentino,” from the place of his birth. He went out to Peru, served in the army which was raised to put down the rebellion of Giron, and having collected materials for a history, he was appointed chronicler of Peru by the viceroy Marquis of Cañete. Fernandez first wrote the history of the rebellion of Giron, in the suppression of which he was personally engaged; and afterwards he undertook to write a similar account of the rebellion of Gonzalo Pizarro and the administration of Gasca. Fernandez is a very painstaking writer, and no history of the time enters so fully into detail; yet it is pleasantly written, and the graver narrative is frequently relieved by anecdotes of personal adventures, and by amusing incidents. He is however a thorough-going partisan, and can see no redeeming feature in a rebellion, nothing but evil in the acts of rebels. His book is called Primera y Secunda Parte de la Historia del Peru, que se mando escrebir á Diego Fernandez, vecino de la ciudad de Palencia. It was published at Seville in 1571 (folio; primera parte, pp. 142; segunda parte, pp. 130). This is the only edition.[1517]

The first part of the work of the Ynca Garcilasso de la Vega relates to the history and civilization of the Yncas, and is discussed in the first volume of the present work. But the second part is a general history of the discovery of Peru, and of the civil wars down to the termination of the administration of the viceroy Toledo in Peru, and to the death of the governor Loyola in Chili. Like the first part, the second is rather a commentary than a history, for the Ynca quotes largely from other writers, especially from the Palentino, always carefully indicating the quotations and naming the authors. But his memory was well stored with anecdotes that he had heard when a boy; and with these he enlivens the narrative, while often a recollection of the personal appearance or of some peculiarity of the historical character whose deeds he is recording enables him to give a finishing touch to a picture. His father was a conqueror and an actor in most of the chief events of the time;[1518] his mother, an Ynca princess, and born in the city of Cusco; so the future author had special advantages for storing up information. He was born in 1539, but a few years after the conquest and one year after the death of Almagro. He passed his school days at Cusco, with many other half-caste sons of the conquerors, and went to Spain in 1560, dying at Cordova in 1616. The first part of his great work on Peru originally appeared at Lisbon in 1609, the second part at Cordova in 1617. The second and best edition of the two parts appeared at Madrid in 1723. The English translation of Sir Paul Rycaut (1688) is worthless, and there has never been a complete English version of the second part, which is entitled Historia General del Peru. The episode of the expedition of Gonzalo Pizarro to the land of cinnamon (part ii. lib. iii.) was translated by Clements R. Markham, C.B., and printed for the Hakluyt Society in 1859.[1519]

The licentiate Fernando Montesinos is an authority of some reputation, but chiefly valuable for his studies of native lore. He was altogether upwards of fifteen years in Peru. He was there a century after the conquest. His Memorias Antiguas Historiales exclusively relate to Ynca history; but his Annales contain a history of the conquest and of subsequent events, and include some original documents, and a few anecdotes which are not to be found elsewhere.[1520]

* * * * *

The authorities for the final settlement of Peru, after the crushing of the spirit of revolt by the Marquis of Cañete, are a good deal scattered. A learned account of the life and administration of Andres Marquis of Cañete himself will be found in the admirable Diccionario Histórico-Biografico del Peru by General Mendiburu, published at Lima in 1880; which also contains a Life of his successor, the licentiate Lope Garcia de Castro.

The viceroy Don Francisco de Toledo has left a deeper mark on the history of Peru by his Libro de Tasas and Ordenanzas relating to mines and the treatment of Indians. The transactions with reference to the judicial murder of Tupac Amaru and the persecution of the Ynca family are briefly related by Garcilasso de la Vega; but there is a much more detailed account in the Coronica Moralizada del Orden de San Augustin en el Peru by Fray Antonio de la Calancha, published at Barcelona in 1638.[1521] Calancha also gives the remorseful will of Mancio Sierra de Leguizamo, whose life-story is fully related by Don José Rosendo Gutierrez in the Revista Peruana (tomo ii. 1880).

The story of the capture and execution of Tupac Amaru by the viceroy Toledo is told in very full detail by Baltasar d’Ocampo, who was an eye-witness. His narrative has all the charm of honest truthfulness; and yet the incidents, thus simply related, are as interesting as the most ingeniously constructed romance. Unfortunately the story, as told by Ocampo (Descripcion de la Provincia de San Francisco de Villcapampa), has never been printed. It is among the manuscripts of the British Museum.[1522]

Polo de Ondegardo, the learned lawyer, was the principal adviser of the viceroy Toledo. He arrived in Peru before the president Gasca, and held the important posts of corregidor of Potosi and of Cusco. He had a profound knowledge of the Ynca system of government, and his two Relaciones,[1523] addressed to the Marquis of Cañete and the Conde de Nieva, discuss the land tenures, colonial policy, and social legislation of the natives. His labors were all undertaken with a view to adapting the best parts of the Ynca system to the new polity to be instituted by the Spanish conquerors; and his numerous suggestions, from this standpoint, are wise and judicious. A feeling of sympathy for the Indians, and the evidence of a warm desire for their welfare pervade all his writings. There is another rough draft of a report by Polo de Ondegardo, a manuscript in the National Library at Madrid,[1524] which contains much information respecting the administrative system of the Yncas; and here, also, he occasionally points out the way in which native legislation might usefully be imitated by the conquerors. This report of Polo de Ondegardo was translated by Clements R. Markham, C.B., and printed for the Hakluyt Society in 1873 in the volume called Rites and Laws of the Incas. It is believed that Polo de Ondegardo died at Potosi in about the year 1580.

The other adviser of the viceroy Toledo was a man of a very different character, a hard, relentless politician, indifferent alike to the feelings and the physical well-being of the conquered people. Judge Matienzo wrote a work in two parts on the condition of the people, the mita, or forced labor, the tribute, the mining laws, and on the duties of the several grades of Spanish officials. The Gobierno de el Peru of Matienzo is a manuscript in the British Museum.[1525]

The whole body of ordinances and regulations relating to the aboriginal people and their treatment by the conquerors is fully explained and discussed by Dr. Don Juan de Solorzano, a profoundly learned jurist, and member of the Council of the Indies, in his Politica Indiana (Madrid, 1648). The history of encomiendas in Peru is well and ably discussed by Enrique Torres Saldamando in the Revista Peruana (vol. ii. 1880).[1526]

The second Marquis of Cañete, who was viceroy of Peru in the last decade of the sixteenth century, was best known for his conduct of the Araucanian war, when, as a young man, he was governor of Chili. That famous war formed the subject of the epic poem of Alonzo de Ercilla, the warrior-poet. Born at Bermeo on the shores of the Bay of Biscay, where the house of his ancestors is still standing, Ercilla began life as a page to the prince of Spain, and volunteered to go out and serve against the Araucanians, when news arrived of an outbreak and the death of Valdivia. Born in 1533, he was only twenty-one when he set out for Chili under the command of the youthful governor Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza. Ercilla was present at seven regular battles, and suffered much from hardships during the harassing campaigns. He returned to Spain in 1562, after an absence of eight years. His Araucana[1527] is a versified history of the war, in which he describes all the events in their order, enumerates the contending chiefs, with a few lines to denote the character or special characteristic of each, and is minutely accurate even in his geographical details. He tells us that much of the poem was composed in the country, and that by the light of the camp-fires at night he wrote down what had occurred during the day. Ticknor looks upon the Araucana as an historical rather than an epic poem;[1528] and he considers the descriptive powers of Ercillo—except in relation to natural scenery—to be remarkable, the speeches he puts in the mouths of Araucanian chiefs often excellent, and his characters to be drawn with force and distinctness. Pedro de Oña, in his Arauco Domado,[1529] praises the governor, Hurtado de Mendoza, the future Marquis of Cañete; and Lope de Vega made his Araucanian war the subject of one of his plays.

The Life of the viceroy Marquis of Cañete (Garcia) was written by Don Cristóval Suarez de Figueroa, a man of some literary fame in his day. When the marquis returned from Peru broken in health, he was treated with neglect and ingratitude; nor had he received full justice from Ercilla for his youthful exploits,—at least so thought his heirs when he died in 1599; and they applied to Suarez de Figueroa to undertake his biography, placing all the viceroy’s family and official papers in the author’s hands. The result was the Hechos de Don Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza, cuarto Marques de Cañete, which was printed in 1613.[1530] It was reprinted in the Coleccion de Historiadores de Chile,—a work published in seven volumes at Santiago in 1864, edited by Don Diego Barros Arana. This work contains a very full account of the administration of the marquis while he was viceroy of Peru.

Pedro de Valdivia has written his own history of his conquest and settlement of Chili, in his letters to the emperor, Charles V. They are preserved in the Archives at Seville among the documents sent from Simancas, and have been published by Claudio Gaye in his Historia de Chile (Paris, 1846), and also in the first volume of the Coleccion de Historiadores de Chile (Santiago, 1864). The first of Valdivia’s despatches is dated from La Serena, Sept. 4, 1545, and the second from Lima, June 15, 1548. In the third he reports fully on the state of affairs in Chili, and refers to his own previous career. It is dated from Concepcion, Oct. 15, 1550. There are two others, dated Concepcion, Sept. 25, 1551, and Santiago, Oct. 26, 1552, which are short, and not so interesting.

Some discontented soldiers brought a series of fifty-seven accusations against Valdivia, which were considered by the president Gasca at Lima in October, 1548,—the result being acquittal. The Acta de Accusacion was published at Santiago in 1873 by Barros Arana, together with Valdivia’s defence and several other important historical documents. That accomplished Chilian historian has also edited a very interesting letter from Pedro de Valdivia to Hernando Pizarro, dated at La Serena on the 4th of September, 1545, which fell into the hands of the president Gasca, and remained among his papers; and when he was at Seville in 1859, he discovered one more unimportant letter from the Chilian conqueror to Charles V., dated at Santiago, July 9, 1549. The first book of the records of the Santiago municipality, called the Libro Becerro, embraces the years from 1541 to 1557. It has been published in the first volume of the Coleccion de Historiadores de Chile, etc. (Santiago, 1861), and contains the appointment of Valdivia as governor of Chili, the founding of Santiago, with the nomination of the first municipal officers, ordinances for mines, and other important entries.

* * * * *

There is thus ample original material for the opening chapter of the history of Chili. Moreover, the first connected work on the subject was written by one of the early conquerors. Gongora Marmolejo served under Valdivia, and was an eye-witness of all the stirring events of the time. His history begins at the discovery of Chili, in 1536, and is brought down to the year 1575. Written in Santiago, it is addressed to the president of the Council of the Indies; and though the style is confused, and often obscure, the narrative has the merit of impartiality, and supplies many interesting details. It also has annexed documents, including a letter from Gonzalo Pizarro to Valdivia giving an account of events in Peru, down to the death of Blasco Nuñez de Vela. The Historia de Chile of Gongora Marmolejo remained in manuscript in the Biblioteca de Salazar (H. 45) until it was edited by Don Pascual de Gayangos, in 1850, for the fourth volume of the Memorial Histórico Español. It has since been published in the Coleccion de Historiadores de Chile.

The story of the surprise and death of the governor, Martin Garcia de Loyola, and of the subsequent formidable rising of the Araucanians in 1598, was written in the form of a poem by Captain Fernando Alvarez de Toledo. The work has no literary merit, and is only valuable as an historical narrative. The manuscript is in the National Library at Madrid, and it was published by Don Diego Barros Arana, in the Collection d’Ouvrages inédits ou rares sur L’Amérique (Paris, 1861). An interesting modern account of the death of the governor Loyola, entitled La sorpresa de Curalava, was written by the accomplished Chilian, Miguel Luis Amunátegui, and published as one of his Naraciones Históricas (Santiago, 1876).[1531]

The history of Chili, which follows Marmolejo in point of time, is by Cordova y Figueroa, a native of the country, and a descendant of Juan de Negrete, one of the followers of Valdivia. Cordova y Figueroa was born at Concepcion in 1692, served with credit in a war with the Araucanians, and is believed to have written the history between 1740 and 1745. Beginning with the expedition of Almagro, it comes down to the year 1717, and is the most complete history that had been written up to that date. The manuscript was in the National Library at Madrid, and a copy was made for the Chilian government, under the auspices of Don Francisco S. Astaburriaga, who was then minister to Spain. It was published in the Coleccion de Historiadores de Chile.

In this review of works on the conquest and first settlement of Peru and Chili, those which refer only to the history and civilization of the Yncas, or to geography and natural history, have been omitted, as they receive notice in the chapter on ancient Peru in the first volume of this History.

EDITORIAL NOTES.

=A.= CIEZA DE LEON.—It does not seem desirable to divide the bibliographical record of Cieza de Leon between the present and the first volume. His work was separated into four parts,—the first relating to the geography and description of Peru; the second, to the period of the Incas; the third, to the Spanish Conquest; the fourth, to the civil wars of the conquerors. The fate of each part has been distinct.

=Part I.= Prescott (Peru, vol. ii. p. 306) speaks of this as more properly an itinerary or geography of Peru, presenting the country in its moral and physical relations as it appeared to the eye of the conquerors; and not many of them, it is probable, were so impressed as Cieza de Leon was with the grandeur of the cordilleras. This, as Parte primera de la chronica del Peru, was published in folio at Seville, in 1553. In Rich’s time (1832) it was worth £5 5_s._[1532] It was reprinted the next year (1554) at Antwerp in two distinct editions. One, La chronica del Peru, in duodecimo, has the imprint of Nucio; the other, likewise in duodecimo, is printed in an inferior manner, and sometimes has the name of Bellero, and sometimes that of Steelsio, as publisher. This last edition has the larger title, Parte primera de la chronica del Peru, etc., and was the one used by Prescott, and followed by Markham in the translation, Travels of Cieza de Leon, published by the Hakluyt Society in 1864.[1533]

In 1555 an Italian translation, La prima parte de la cronica del ... Peru, appeared at Rome, made by Agostino Cravaliz, or Augustino di Gravalis.[1534] A second edition—La prima parte dell’istorie del Peru—appeared the next year (1556) at Rome, and is found with the names of two different publishers.[1535]

At Venice, in 1560, appeared the Cronica del gran regno del Peru. This makes a work of which the first volume is a reprint of Gravaliz’ version of Cieza, and volumes ii. and iii. contain an Italian version of Gomara in continuation offered by the same publisher, Ziletti, under the title, La seconda, terza parte delle historie dell India.[1536]

The English translation of Stevens (The Seventeen Years’ Travels of Peter de Cieza through the mighty Kingdom of Peru and the large Provinces of Cartagena and Popayan in South America, from the City of Panama on the Isthmus to the Frontiers of Chile) was printed at London in 1709, and appeared both separately and as a part of his collection of Voyages. It gives only ninety-four of the one hundred and nineteen chapters.

=Part II.= Rich, though he had heard of this part, supposed it to have disappeared; and it is spoken of as missing by Markham in 1864, and by Harrisse in his Bibl. Amer. Vet. (p. 319). The manuscript of it was meanwhile in the Escurial, preserved in a bad copy made about the middle or end of the sixteenth century; but it is deficient in chapters i. and ii. and in part of chapter iii. Another manuscript copy not well done is in the Academy of History at Madrid. Lord Kingsborough had a copy, and from this Rich had a fifth copy made, which was used by Prescott; but it does not appear that any of these students suspected it to be the second part of Cieza de Leon. Prescott, supposing it to be written by the president of the Council of the Indies, Sarmiento, instead of for that officer, ascribed it to him; but Kirk, Prescott’s editor (Peru, vol. ii. p. 308), has recognized its identity, which Dr. Manuel Gonzales de la Rosa established when he edited the Escurial manuscript in 1873. This edition, though wholly printed in London, has not been made public. Following another transcript, and correcting the spelling, etc., Márcos Jiménez de la Espada printed it at Madrid in 1880 as vol. v. of the Biblioteca Hispano-Ultramarina. An English translation of it was made by Mr. Markham, and published by the Hakluyt Society in 1883.

=Part III.= Markham reports that Espada says that this part is in existence, but inaccessible.

=Part IV.= Espada is cited as asserting that books i. and ii. of this part are in existence, but inaccessible.

A manuscript of book iii. is in the Royal Library at Madrid, in handwriting of the middle of the sixteenth century. It covers the period from the appointment of Blasco Nuñez as viceroy in 1543 to a period just previous to Gasca’s departure from Panamá for Peru in 1547. A copy of this manuscript, belonging to Uguina, passed to Ternaux, thence to Rich, who sold it for £600 to Mr. Lenox; and it is now in the Lenox Library.

It has since been included under Espada’s editing in the Biblioteca Hispano-Ultramarina, and was published at Madrid in 1877 as Tercero libro de las Guerras Civiles del Peru.[1537]

Books iv. (war of Huarina) and v. (war of Xaquixaguana), and two appended commentaries on events from the founding of the Audiencia to the departure of the president, and on events extending to the arrival of the viceroy Mendoza, are not known to exist, though Cieza refers to them as written. These would complete the fourth part, and end the work.

What we know of Cieza is mainly derived from himself and the brief notice in Antonio’s Bibliotheca Hispana Nova (Madrid, 1788). The writer of the foregoing chapter gives an account of Cieza’s career, as well as it could be made out, in his translation of the Travels; but he supplements that story in the introduction to his version of Part II.

=B.= GARCILASSO DE LA VEGA.—The Primera parte de los Commentarios reales seems to have been printed—according to the colophon at Lisbon—in 1608, but to have been published in 1609. It has incidental notices of Spanish-American history, though concerned mainly with chronicles of the Incas.[1538]

The second part, called Historia General del Peru, was printed at Cordova in 1616, though most copies are dated 1617. The titles of the two dates slightly vary. This volume is of larger size than that of 1609.[1539]

The two parts were reprinted by Barcia at Madrid in 1722-1723.[1540] There have been later editions of the Spanish at Madrid in 1800, and in 1829, in four volumes, as a part of a series; Conquista del Nuevo Mondo, in nine volumes, which embraced also Solis’s Mexico, Garcilasso de la Vega’s Florida, and the Florida of Cardenas y Cano.

Rycaut’s English Royal Commentaries of Peru (London, 1688) was priced by Rich (no. 420) in 1832 at £1 4_s._, and is not worth more now.[1541] Markham’s English version of the first part was issued in two volumes by the Hakluyt Society in 1869-1871.

The French version (by J. Baudoin) of the first part was printed at Paris in 1633 as Le Commentaire Royal,[1542] and of the second part as Histoire des Guerres Civiles in 1650, and again in 1658 and 1672,[1543] and at Amsterdam in 1706.[1544] A French version of the first part was also printed at Amsterdam in 1715,[1545] and joined with the book on Florida; another French edition appeared at Amsterdam in 1737.[1546] A new translation of this first part, made by Dalibard, was printed in Paris in 1744.[1547] Baudoin’s version of both parts was reissued in Paris in 1830.[1548] There was a German translation in 1798.

An account of Garcilasso de la Vega and his ancestry is given by Markham in the introduction to his version of the Royal Commentaries of the Yncas. Another account is in the Documentos inéditos (España), vol. xvi.[1549]

The estimate held of him by Robertson has been largely shared among the older of the modern writers, who seem to think that Garcilasso added little to what he borrowed from others, though we find some traces in him of authorities now lost. The later writers are more generous in their praise of him. Prescott quotes him more than twice as often as he cites any other of the contemporary sources. (Cf. his Peru, vol. i. p. 289.)

Helps says that “with the exception of Bernal Diaz and Las Casas, there is not perhaps any historical writer of that period, on the subject of the Indies, whose loss would be more felt than that of Garcilasso de la Vega.”

=C.= MEMORANDA.—An early voyage to the coast is supposed to be indicated in an Italian tract of 1521, mentioned in the catalogue of the Biblioteca Colombina. It is not now known, except in what is supposed to be a German version.[1550] The first tidings (March 15, 1533) which Europe got of Pizarro’s success came from a letter which was addressed to the emperor, probably in Spanish, though we have no copy of it in that tongue; but it is preserved in Italian, Copia delle lettere del prefetto della India, la Nuova Spagna detta, a plaquette of two leaves, of which there is a copy in the Lenox Library. It is supposed to have been printed at Venice.[1551] This version is also included in the Libro di Benedetto (Venice, 1534). A German translation was printed at Nuremberg, February, 1534, as Newe Zeitung aus Hispanien, of four leaves.[1552] A French issue, Nouvelles certaines des isles du Peru, dated 1534, is in the British Museum.[1553] Ticknor[1554] cites Gayangos’ references to a tractate of four leaves, La Conquista del Peru, which he found in the British Museum.[1555]

It is not very clear to what city reference is made in a plaquette, Letera de la nobil cipta, novamente ritrouvata alle Indie ... data in Peru adi. xxv de novembre, de MDXXXIIII. An edition of the next year (1535) is “data in Zhaual.”[1556] Marco Guazzo’s Historie di tutte le cose degne di memoria qual del anno MDXXIIII., etc., published at Venice in 1540, gives another early account.[1557] It was repeated in the edition of 1545 and 1546.

The De Peruviæ regionis, inter novi orbis provincias celeberrimæ inventione of Levinus Apollonius of Ghent was published at Antwerp in 1565, 1566, 1567, for copies with these respective dates are found;[1558] though Sabin thinks Rich and Ternaux are in error in assigning an edition to 1565. It covers events from the discovery to the time of Gasca and the death of Gonzalo Pizarro.[1559] It also appeared as a third part to the German translation of Benzoni (Basle 1582).

Ternaux-Compans in his Voyages has preserved in a French version several early chronicles of minor importance. Such is Miguel Carello Balbóa’s Histoire du Peru (in vol. xvii.), the work of one who went to Bogota in 1566, and finished his work at Quito in 1586. It rehearses the story of the Inca rule, not always agreeing with Garcilasso, and only touches the Spanish Conquest as it had proceeded before the murder of Atahualpa.[1560] Another work is the Histoire du Pérou of Father Anello Oliva, a Jesuit, who was born at Naples in 1593, came to Peru as a Jesuit in 1597, and died at Lima in 1642. It was apparently written before 1631; but what Ternaux affords us is only the first of the four books which constitute the completed work.[1561] Juan de Velasco’s Histoire de Quito, a work of a later day but based on the early sources, makes volumes xviii. and xix. of Ternaux’s collection.

Alonso de Ovalle’s historical account of Chili was issued at Rome in 1646, in Italian, as Historica Relatione del Regno di Cile, and the same year at the same place in Spanish, as Histórica Relacion del Reyne de Chile. Six of the eight books are given in English in Churchill’s Voyages (1732), and in Pinkerton.[1562]

Among the minor documentary sources there is much of interest to be found in the Documentos inéditos (España), vols. v., xiii., xxvi., xlix., l., and li.

The Ministerio de Fomento of Peru printed at Madrid in 1881 the first volumes—edited by Jiménez de la Espada—of Relaciones geográficas de Indias. The editor supplied a learned introduction, and the volume contained twelve documents of the sixteenth century, which were then published for the first time;[1563] and they contribute to our knowledge of the condition of the country during that period.

There are other documents covering the whole course of Peruvian history in the collection of Documentos históricos del Peru en las epocas del coloniage despues de la conquista y de la independencia hasta a presente, colectados y arreglados por el coronel Manuel Odriozola, the first volume of which was published at Lima about twenty-five years ago (1863).

Harrisse (Bibl. Amer. Vet., pp. 320-322) enumerates many copies of manuscripts preserved in New York and Boston, some of which have since been printed. There is record of other manuscripts in New York in the Magazine of American History, i. 254.

The Varias relaciones del Peru y Chile y Conquista de la isla de Santa Catalina, 1535-1658 (Madrid, 1879)[1564] constitutes vol. xiii. of Coleccion de libros raros ó curiosos, which includes anonymous manuscripts in “Relacion del sitio del Cusco, 1537-1539,” in the “Rebelion de Giron, 1553,” and in some others of the seventeenth century. Vol. xvi. of the same Coleccion is edited by Jiménes de la Espada, and is entitled Memorias antiguas historiales y políticas del Perú, por D. Fernando Montesinos, seguidas de las Informaciones acerca del señorío de los Incas, hechas por mandado de D. Francisco de Toledo, virey del Perú [1570-1572]. Madrid, 1882. An account of the original which this edition of the work of Montesinos follows is given in the preface. The editor criticises the translation by Henri Ternaux-Compans in his Mémoires historiques sur l’ancien Pérou (forming part of his Voyages), Paris, 1840.[1565]

Leclerc in 1878[1566] offered for 2,500 francs an unprinted manuscript containing the military Lives of Pedro Alvarez de Holguin and Martin de Almendral (Almendras), consisting of depositions respecting their services by eye-witnesses, taken in pursuance of a claim by their families for the possession of titles and property, their ancestors having been among the conquerors.

The most conspicuous writers upon Peruvian history in English are Prescott, Helps, and Markham,—the first two as the historians of the Conquest, and the third as an annotator of the original sources and an elucidator of controverted points. Prescott’s Conquest of Peru was published in 1843. He had been fortunate enough to secure copies from the manuscript stores which Muñoz had gathered, and Navarrete allowed his collections to be gleaned for the American’s use. He did not fail of the sympathy and support of Ternaux and of Gayangos. The ingenious and active assistance of Obadiah Rich secured him a good share of the manuscripts of the Kingsborough Collection when that was scattered. The Conquest of Peru was promptly translated into Spanish, and published at Madrid in 1847-1848; and again in a version supposed to have been made by Icazbalceta. It was printed at Mexico in 1849. A French translation was introduced to the world by Amédée Pichot, and the English on the continent were soon able to read it in their own tongue under a Paris imprint. The Dutch and German people were not long without versions in their vernaculars. Since Mr. Prescott’s death the revision, which the American reader was long kept from (owing to the obstructions to textual improvements imposed by the practice of stereotyping), was made by Mr. Kirk, who had been Prescott’s secretary; and the new edition, with that gentleman’s elucidatory and corrective notes, appeared at Philadelphia in 1874.

As was the case with the hero of Mexico, the chapters in Helps’s Spanish Conquest on the conqueror of Peru have, since the publication of that book, been extracted and fitted newly together under the title of The Life of Pizarro, with some account of his Associates in the Conquest of Peru, published in London in 1869. Pizarro is not, under Helps’s brush, the abhorrent figure of some other historians. “He is always calm, polite, dignified,” he says. “He was not one of the least admirable of the conquerors.”

Mr. Markham, referring to a visit which he made to Prescott, says: “He it was who encouraged me to undertake my Peruvian investigations and to persevere in them. To his kindly advice and assistance I owe more than I can say, and to him is due, in no small degree, the value of anything I have since been able to do in furtherance of Peruvian research.” The first fruit of Mr. Markham’s study was his Cusco and Lima in 1856. Three years later (1859) he was sent by the British Government to superintend the collection of cinchona plants and seeds (quinine) in Peru, and to introduce them into India. In pursuit of this mission, he formed the acquaintance with the country which was made public in his Travels in Peru and India in 1862. In 1880 he epitomized his great knowledge in a useful little handbook on Peru, which was published in London in the series of Foreign Countries and British Colonies. His greatest aid to the historian has come, however, from the annotations given by him to numerous volumes of the Hakluyt Society, which he has edited, and in his communications to the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society.

The Peruvian story is but an incidental feature of Hubert H. Bancroft’s Central America, where Alvarado’s report of May 12, 1535, and other documents which fell into that author’s hands with the Squier manuscripts afford in part the basis of his narrative, vol. ii. chap. vii. Bancroft accounts Pizarro himself the most detestable man in the Indies after Pedrárias. He collates the authorities on many disputed points, and is a valuable assistant, particularly for the relations of operations on the isthmus to those in Peru,—such as the efforts of Gonzalo Pizarro to make the isthmus the frontier of his Peruvian government, and Gasca’s method of breaking through it. In his chapter on “Mines and Mining” in his Mexico (vol. iii.) he incidentally recapitulates the story of the wealth which was extracted from Peru.

The dignified and well-balanced story as told in Robertson’s America (book vi.) is not without use to-day, and his judgment upon authorities (note cxxv.) is usually sound. He has of course fallen behind that sufficiency which Dr. Smyth found in him, when he gave his Lectures on Modern History (lecture xxi.). The latter writer reflected an opinion not yet outgrown when he says that “Pizarro was, after all, a vulgar conqueror, and is from the first detested, though he seizes upon our respect, and retains it in defiance of ourselves, from the powerful and decisive nature of his courage and of his understanding.”

The latest English summarized view of the Conquest will be found in R. G. Watson’s Spanish and Portuguese South America during the Colonial Period (London, 1884). The author lived in South America about twenty years ago, in various parts, as a diplomatic agent of the English government.

THE

AMAZON AND ELDORADO.

BY THE EDITOR.

IN 1528, in order to follow up the explorations of Ojeda and others on the coast of Venezuela the Emperor had agreed with the great German mercantile house of the Velsers to protect a colony to be sent by them to found cities and to mine on this northern coast.[1567] This was the origin of the expedition led by Ambrosio de Alfinger to find a fabulous golden city, of which reports of one kind and another pervaded the Spanish settlements along the coast. It was in 1530 that Alfinger started inland. This march produced the usual story of perfidy and cruelty practised upon the natives, and of attack and misery experienced by the invaders. Alfinger died on the way, and after two years (in 1532) what was left of his followers found their way back to the coast.

Meanwhile an expedition inland had started under Diego Ordaz in 1531, by way of the Orinoco; but it had failed, its leader being made the victim of a mutiny. One of his officers, Martinez, being expelled from the force for misbehavior, wandered away until he fell into the hands of people who blindfolded him and led him a great way to a city, where the bandage was removed from his eyes. Here they led him for a day and night through its streets till they came to the palace of Inga their Emperor, with whom being handsomely entertained he stayed eight months, when, being allowed to return, he came down the Orinoco to Trinidad, and thence to Porto Rico, where, when dying, he told this tale of Manoa, as he called the city. He was the first, the story goes, to apply the name of Eldorado to the alluring kingdom in the depths of the continent. This is the pretended story as Raleigh sixty years later learned from a manuscript which Berreo the Governor of Trinidad showed to him.[1568]

Again, the Germans made another attempt to penetrate the country and its mystery. George of Spires, under the imperial sanction, coming from Spain with four hundred men, started inland from Coro in 1534. He succeeded in penetrating about fifteen hundred miles, and returned with the survivors in 1538.

A lieutenant had played him false. Nicolaus Federmann[1569] had been disappointed in not getting the command of the expedition, but being made second, was instructed to follow after his chief with supplies. Federmann avoided making a junction with George, and wandered at the head of about two hundred men, who were faithful to him, seeking glory on his own account, till after three years of labor he emerged in April, 1539, from the mountain passes upon the plains of Bogotá. Two years before this (in 1537) Gonzalo Ximenes Quesada, following up the Magdalena River, had arrived on the same plateau, and completed the conquest of New Granada. The year following (1538), Sebastian de Belalcazar, marching north from Quito, had reached the same point.[1570]

Thus the three explorers from three directions came together. They joined forces and descended the Magdalena to Santa Martha, where Pedro Fernandez de Lugo, the associate of Quesada, died, while Quesada himself proceeded to Spain to obtain the government of the newly discovered region. Meanwhile Hernan Perez, a brother of Quesada, being left in command in Bogotá, committed the usual cruel excesses upon the Chibchas, but finally left them, to follow another adventurer who had arrived in the track of Federmann, with the same stories of the golden city. So the recreant Governor joined the new-comer Montalvo de Lugo, and together they marched eastward on their golden quest. He returned to Bogotá in a year’s time, wiser but not happier.

Meanwhile a new expedition was forming on the Venezuela side. Among the followers of George of Spires had been one Philip von Huten,[1571] who after George’s death, and when Rodrigo Bastidas had succeeded him, was made the commander of an expedition which left Coro in 1541 by vessels, and, prepared for an inland march, landed at Barburata. The next spring he got on the track of Quesada and resolved to follow it; but the expedition only journeyed in a circle, and after suffering all sorts of hardships found itself at the point of setting out. Huten, undaunted, again started with a smaller force. He encountered and made friends of the Uaupe Indians, and under their guidance proceeded against the towns of the Omaguas, where they encountered resistance; and Huten being wounded, the invaders retreated, and brought to an end another search for Eldorado. The expedition had added a new synonym, Omaguas, for the attractive lure.

Huten, on his return to Coro, found that Carbajal had seized the government. This brutal soldier now executed Huten, and held his iniquitous sway until the licentiate Juan Perez de Tolosa arrived with the imperial authority in 1546, when Carbajal was in turn put to death. Thus ended the German efforts at South American discovery on this side of the continent.

Meanwhile Gonzalo Ximenes Quesada’s visit to Spain had failed in making him the Governor of New Granada, as he had hoped. Luis Alonzo de Lugo, the son of Quesada’s associate, was the successful applicant for the position. The new Governor arrived in 1542, but a residencia interrupted his career, and Pedro de Ursua, a nephew of Armendariz, the judge who had taken the residencia, was sent to Bogotá to take charge. Thence his patron sent him on the old quest for the rivers flowing over golden sands. He failed to find Eldorado; but he founded the city of Pampluna in the wilds, and ruled its stately lots for two years. Then Armendariz had his downfall in turn, and Pedro de Ursua in 1549 found favor enough with those who then administered the government to get command of another expedition to Eldorado, during which he founded another city, which he had to abandon in 1552 because the natives attacked it so persistently. Next, Pedro was put in command of Santa Martha, and began to fight the Indians thereabout; but seeking a larger field, he started for Peru. His fame was sufficient to induce the authorities at Panamá to engage him to quell the Cimarrones, who infested the Isthmus. In two years Ursua accomplished this task, and then went on to Peru, where at Lima, in 1559, the new viceroy Cañete appointed him to lead a well-equipped expedition to Eldorado and the Omaguas. If the fabled city should not be reached, the quest for it would draw away from Cañete’s province the prowling ruffians whom the cessation of the civil wars had left among the settlements. But it was thought the quest was more likely to be successful than any previous one had been, since Viraratu, a coast chieftain of Brazil, had with two Portuguese recently ascended the Amazon, and had confirmed to Cañete the old stories of a hidden lake and its golden city.

Pedro de Ursua started in boats down the Huallaga to the Marañon, and so on to the neighborhood of Machiparo. At this point, on New Year’s day, 1561, conspirators murdered Ursua, threw off allegiance to Spain, and made Fernando de Guzman their sovereign. One Lope de Aguirre was the leader of the insurrection, and it was not long before Guzman paid the penalty of his life in turn, and Aguirre became supreme. The conspirators went on to the mouth of the Negro, but from this point authorities differ as to their course. Humboldt and Southey supposed they still kept to the Amazon until they reached the sea. Acuña, Simon, Acosta, and among the moderns Markham, suppose they ascended the Negro, crossed by the Cassiquiari canal to the Orinoco, and so passed on to the ocean; or if not by this route, by some of the rivers of Guiana. Mr. Markham[1572] balances the testimony. Once on the ocean, at whatever point, Aguirre steered his vessels for the north and west till they came to the island of Margarita, then colonized by the Spanish. Having seized this settlement, Aguirre led his followers across the intervening waters to Venezuela, with the aim of invading and conquering New Granada; but in due time a Spanish force led by Gutierrez de la Peña confronted the traitor and his host, and overthrew them. Many of Aguirre’s men had deserted him; when killing his own daughter, that she might not survive to be stigmatized as a traitor’s child, he was set upon and despatched by his conquerors.

The earliest account of the expedition of Ursua and Aguirre is a manuscript in the Royal library at Madrid written by one of the company, Francisco Vasquez, who remained with Aguirre under protest till he reached Margarita. Vasquez’s story was a main dependence of Pedro Simon, in the sixth of the Primera parte de las Noticias historiales de las Conquistas de Tierra Firme en las Indias Occidentales, published at Cuenca in 1627. Simon, who was born in Spain in 1574, had come to Bogotá in 1604, in time to glean much from men still living. After many years of gathering notes, he began to write his book in 1623. Only one part, which included the affairs of Venezuela and the expedition of Ursua and Aguirre, was printed. Two other parts are in existence; and Colonel J. Acosta, in his Compendio histórico del descubrimiento y colonizacion de la Nueva Granada en el siglo décimo sexto, published at Paris in 1848, made use of them, and says they are the most valuable recital of the sixteenth century in existence which relates to these regions.[1573] The account of Simon, so far as it relates to the expedition of Ursua, has been translated by William Bollaert, and properly annotated by Mr. Markham; it constitutes the volume published by the Hakluyt Society in 1861, called The Expedition of Pedro de Ursua and Lope de Aguirre in search of Eldorado and Omagua in 1560-1561. It has a map which marks the alternative courses of Aguirre.[1574]

The main dependence of Simon, besides the manuscript of Vasquez, was a metrical chronicle by Juan de Castellanos, Elegias de Varones ilustres de Indias, the first part of which, containing, besides the accounts of Ursua and Aguirre, the exploits of Columbus, Ponce de Leon, Garay, and others, was printed at Madrid in 1589.[1575] De Bry makes use of this versified narrative in the eighth part of his Grand Voyages. Castellanos’ first part is reprinted in the Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, 1847-1850, where are also to be found the second and third parts, printed there for the first time. The text is there edited by Buenaventura Carlos Aribau. Ercilla has recorded his opinion of the faithfulness of Castellanos, but Colonel Acosta thinks him inexact. These second and third parts recount the adventures of the Germans in their search for Eldorado, and record the conquests of Cartagena by Lugo, of Popayan by Belalcazar, and of Antischia. A fourth part, which gave the conquest of New Granada, though used by Piedrahita, is no longer known.

Castellanos could well have derived his information, as he doubtless did, from men who had made part of the exploits which he celebrates; and as regards the mad pranks of Aguirre, such is also the case with another contemporary account, preserved in the National Library at Madrid, which was written by Toribio de Ortiguera, who was at Nombre de Dios in 1561, and sent forces against Aguirre when that conspirator was on his Venezuela raid. The story written from the survivors’ recitals does not materially differ from that of Vasquez. He gives also a short account of the expedition of Gonzalo Pizarro and Orellana, later to be mentioned.

Lucas Fernandez Piedrahita was a native of Bogotá, and, like Garcilasso de la Vega, had the blood of the Incas in his veins. He became a priest, and was successively Bishop of Santa Martha and of Panamá, and after having lived a life of asceticism, and been at one time a captive of the buccaneers, he died at Panamá in 1688, at the age of seventy. He depended chiefly in his Historia General de las Conquistas del nuevo Reyno de Granada,[1576] on the Compendio of Ximenes de Quesada, no longer known, the Elegias of Castellanos, and the Noticia of Simon. He borrows liberally from Simon, and says but little of Aguirre till he lands in Venezuela. Aguirre’s career in the Historia de la Conquista y poblacion de Venezuela of Oviedo y Baños is in like manner condensed from Simon, and is confined also to his final invasion of the main. The book is rare, and Markham says that in 1861 even the British Museum had no copy.[1577] The general historians, De la Vega, Herrera, and Acosta, give but scant accounts of the Ursua expedition. Markham[1578] points out the purely imaginative additions given to Aguirre’s story in Gomberville’s translation of Acuña, misleading thereby not a few later writers. Much the same incorrectness characterizes the recitals in the Viage of the Ulloas, in Velasco’s Historia de Quito (1789).

* * * * *

The faithlessness of Orellana and his fifty followers in deserting Gonzalo Pizarro in 1540, while this leader was exploring the forests of the Cinnamon country, is told in another place. Orellana, as has been said, was sent forward in an improvised bark to secure food for Pizarro’s famished followers, but was tempted to pursue the phantom of golden discovery. This impulse led him to follow the course of the river to the sea. It gave him the distinction of being the discoverer of the weary course of the great Amazon. In his intercourse with some of the river Indians he heard or professed to hear of a tribe of women warriors whom it was easy, in recognition of the classic story, to name the Amazons. At one of the native villages on the river the deserters built themselves a stancher craft than they had escaped in; and so they sailed on in a pair of adventurous barks, fighting their way past hostile villages, and repelling attacks of canoes, or bartering with such of the Indians as were more peaceful. In one of the fights, when Orellana landed his men for the conflict, it is affirmed that women led the native horde. From a prisoner they got signs which they interpreted to mean that they were now in the region of the female warriors, and not far from all the fabled wealth of which they were in search. But the marks of the tide on the banks lured them on with the hope of nearing the sea. They soon got unmistakable signs of the great water, and then began to prepare their frail crafts for encountering its perils. They made sails of their cloaks. On the 26th of August they passed into the Atlantic. They had left the spot where the river Napo flows into the Amazon on the last day of December, 1541; and now, after a voyage of nearly eight months, they spread their sails and followed the coast northward. The vessels parted company one night, but they reached the island of Cubagua within two days of each other. Here they found a Spanish colony, and Orellana was not long in finding a passage to Spain. The story he had to tell was a thrilling one for ears eager for adventure, and a joyous one for such as listened for the tales of wealth. Orellana might be trusted to entrap both sorts of listeners.

The King was the best of listeners. He gave Orellana a commission to conquer these fabulous countries, and in May, 1544, Orellana sailed with four ships and four hundred men. Misfortune followed him speedily, and only two of his vessels reached the river. Up they went for a hundred leagues or so; but it was quite different making headway against the current from floating down it, as he had done before. His men died; his vessels were stranded or broken up; he himself became ill, and at last died. This ended the attempt; and such of his followers as could, made their way back to Spain; and New Andalusia, as the country was to be named, remained without a master.

Of the expedition of Gonzalo Pizarro there is no account by any one engaged in it; but we have the traditions of the story told by Garcilasso de la Vega in the second part, book third, of the Royal Commentaries, and this account is put into English and annotated by Mr. Markham in the Expeditions into the Valley of the Amazons, published by the Hakluyt Society in 1859,—and to this book its editor contributes a summary of the later explorations of the valley. Orellana’s desertion and his experiences are told by Herrera in his Historia General; and this, which Markham calls the best account possessed by us, is also translated by him in the same publication. Wallace, in his Amazon and Rio Negro, has of late years suggested that the woman-like apparel of the men, still to be found among the tribes of the upper Amazon, gave rise to the belief in the story of the female warriors.[1579]

* * * * *

The form which the story of Eldorado oftener took, and which it preserved for many years, gave representation of a large inland sea, called finally Parima, and of a golden city upon it called Manoa, the reminiscences of Martinez’s tale. Somehow, as Mr. Markham thinks, these details were evolved in part out of a custom prevalent on the plains of Bogotá, where a native chief is said to have gilded himself yearly, and performed some rites in a large lake. All this array of wealth was clustered, in the imagination of the conquerors of northern Peru, about the fabled empire of the Omaguas; and farther south the beckoning names were Paytiti and Enim. Whatever the names or details, the inevitable greed for gold in the mind of the Spanish invaders was quite sufficient to evolve the phantom from every impenetrable region of the New World. In 1566 Martin de Proveda followed in the track of Ursua; but sweeping north, his men dropped by the way, and a remnant only reached Bogotá. He brought back the same rumors of rich but receding provinces.

In 1568 the Spanish Government mapped out all this unknown region between two would-be governors. Pedro Malaver de Silva was to have the western part, and Diego Fernando de Cerpa to have the eastern as far as the mouths of the Orinoco. Both of the expeditions which these ambitious heroes led came to nothing beyond their due share of trials and aimless wandering; and one of the leaders, Silva, made a second attempt in 1574, equally abortive, as the one survivor’s story proved it to be.

Markham says that the last expedition to achieve any important geographical discovery was that of Antonio de Berreo in 1582. He had received by right the adventurous impulse, through his marriage with the daughter or heiress of Gonzalo Ximenes de Quesada. He followed down the Cassanare and the Meta, and pursued the Orinoco to its mouth. The English took up the quest when Raleigh sent Jacob Whiddon in 1594 to explore the Orinoco. Berreo, who was now the Spanish governor of Trinidad, threw what obstacles in the way he could; and when Raleigh arrived with his fleet in 1595, the English leader captured the troublesome Spaniard, and was confirmed in his belief, by what Berreo told him, that he could reach the goal. This lure was the lying account of Juan Martinez, already mentioned. The fortunes of Raleigh have been told elsewhere,[1580] and the expeditions which he conducted or planned, says Markham, may be said to close the long roll of searches after the fabulous Eldorado.

Nearly the whole of the northern parts of South America had now been thridded by numerous adventuring parties, but without success in this fascinating search. There still remained an unknown region in Central Guiana, where were plains periodically inundated by the overflow of the Rupununi, Essequibo, and Branco (Parima) rivers. Here must Eldorado be; and here the maps, shortly after this, placed the mysterious lake and its auriferous towers of Manoa down to a comparatively recent time. According to Humboldt[1581] and Schomburgk,[1582] it was after the return of Raleigh’s and Keymis’s expedition that Hondius was the first in his Nieuwe Caerte van het goudreyke landt Guiana (1599),[1583] to introduce the Laguna Parima with its city Manoa in a map. He placed it between 1° 45´ and 2° north latitude, and made it larger than the Caspian Sea.

We find the lake also in the Nieuwe Wereldt of De Laet in 1630, and in the editions of that year in other languages. Another Dutch geographer, Jannson, also represented it. Sanson, the French geographer, puts it one degree north of the equator in his Terre Ferme in 1656, and is particular enough to place Manoa at the northwest corner of a squarish inland sea; but he omits it in his chart of the Amazons in 1680. We find the lake again in Heylin’s Cosmographie of 1663, and later editions; in Blaeu’s Atlas in 1685. Delisle omits the lake in 1703, but gives a legend in French, as Homann does in his map in Latin, “In hac regione aliqui ponunt lacum Parima urbemque Manoa del Dorado.” In another of Delisle’s maps a small lake appears with the legend: “Guiane proprement dite ou Dorado, dans laquelle quelques-uns mettent le lac Parime.” We have it again in the map in Herrera, edition of 1728; and in 1729. Moll, the English geographer, likewise shows it. In the middle of the century (1760) the maps of Danville preserve the lake, though he had omitted it in an earlier edition; and the English edition, improved by Bolton in 1755, still continues it, as does an Italian edition (Venice) in 1779. The original Spanish of Gumilla’s El Orinoco (2d edition, Madrid, 1745) has a map which gives the lake, and it is repeated in the French edition at Avignon in 1758, and in a later Spanish one at Barcelona in 1781. Kitchen’s map, which was prepared for Robertson’s History of America, again shows it; and it is in the centre of a great water system in the large map of La Cruz, made by order of the King of Spain in 1775, which was re-engraved in London the same year. It is also represented in the maps in the Historia de la nueva Andalucia, of Antonio Caulin,[1584] Madrid, 1779, and in the Saggio di Storia Americana, Rome, 1780. Conrad Mannert’s map, published at Nuremberg in 1803, gives it; as do the various editions of François Depons’ Voyage dans l’Amerique méridionale, Paris, 1806. The lake here is given under thirty degrees north latitude, and Manoa is put at the northeast corner of it.

The same plate was used for the English version “by an American gentleman,” published in New York in 1806; while the translation published in London in 1807, apparently the same with a few verbal changes, has a like configuration on a map of reduced scale. One of the latest preservations of the myth is the large map published in London by Faden in 1807, purporting to be based on the studies of D’Arcy de la Rochette, where the inland sea is explained by a legend: “Golden Lake, or Lake Parime, called likewise Parana Pitinga,—that is, White Sea,—on the banks of which the discoverers of the sixteenth century did place the imaginary city of Manoa del Dorado.” I have seen it in German maps as late as 1814, and the English geographer, Arrowsmith, kept it in his maps in his day.[1585]

It was left for Humboldt to set the seal of disbelief firmly upon the story.[1586] Schomburgk says that the inundations of extensive savannas during the tropical winter gave rise, no doubt, to the fable of the White Sea, assisted by an ignorance of the Indian language. Nevertheless, as late as 1844, Jacob A. van Heuvel, in his Eldorado, being a Narrative of the Circumstances which gave rise to Reports in the Sixteenth Century of the Existence of a Rich and Splendid City in South America, published in New York, clung to the idea; and he represents the lake somewhat doubtingly as in 4° north, and between 60° and 63° west, in the map accompanying his book.

* * * * *

Later in the seventeenth century the marvellous story took on another guise. It was remembered that after the conquest of Peru a great emigration of Inca Indians had taken place easterly beyond the mountains, and in the distant forests it was reputed they had established a new empire; and the names of Paytiti and Enim, already mentioned, were attached to these new theatres of Inca magnificence. Stories of this fabulous kingdom continued to be hatched well on into the eighteenth century, and not a few expeditions of more or less imposing strength were sent to find this kingdom. It never has been found; but, as Mr. Markham thinks, there is some reason to believe that the Inca Indians who fled with Tapac Amaru into the forests may for a considerable period have kept up their civilization somewhere in those vast plains east of the Andes. The same writer says that the belief was not without supporters when he was in Peru in 1853; and he adds that it is a pleasant reflection that this story may possibly be true.[1587]

The most considerable attempt of the seventeenth century to make better known the course of the Amazon was the expedition under Texeira, sent in 1639 to see if a practicable way could be found to transport the treasure from Peru by the Amazon to the Atlantic coast. Acuña’s book on this expedition, Nuevo descubrimiento del gran Rio de las Amazons,[1588] published at Madrid in 1641, is translated in Markham’s Valley of the Amazons, published by the Hakluyt Society. It was not till 1707, when Samuel Fritz, a Bohemian and a missionary, published his map of the Amazons at Quito, that we find something better than the vaguest delineation of the course of the great river.[1589]

* * * * *

It is not the purpose of the present essay to continue the story of the explorations of the Amazon into more recent times; but a word may be spared for the strange and sorrowful adventures along its stream, which came in the train of the expedition that was sent out by the French Government in 1735 to measure an arc of the meridian in Peru, for comparing the result with a similar measurement in Lapland. The object was to prove or to disprove the theory of Sir Isaac Newton that the earth was flattened at the poles. The commissioners—Bouguer, La Condamine, and Godin (the last accompanied by his wife)—arrived at Quito in June, 1736. The arc was measured; but the task did not permit them to think of returning before 1743, when La Condamine resolved to return by descending the Amazon and then making his way to the French colony of Cayenne. He and his companion, a Spanish gentleman seeking some adventure, had their full content of it, but safely accomplished the journey.

Another of the commissioners, Godin, having tarried a few years longer in Peru, had finally proceeded to Cayenne, where he made arrangements for embarking for France. Through the favor of the Portuguese Government he had been provided with a galiot of sixteen to twenty oars on a side, to ascend the river and meet his wife, who on receiving a message from him was to leave Peru with an escort and come down the river and meet him. Illness finally prevented the husband from proceeding; but he despatched the vessel, having on board one Tristan, who was charged with a letter to send ahead. By some faithlessness in Tristan, the letter miscarried; but Madame Godin sent a trusty messenger in anticipation, who found the galiot at Loreto awaiting her arrival, and returned with the tidings. The lady now started with her father and two brothers; and they allowed a certain Frenchman who called himself a physician to accompany them, while her negro servant, who had just returned over the route, attended them, as well as three Indian women and thirty Indian men to carry burdens. They encountered the small-pox among the river Indians, when their native porters deserted them. They found two other natives, who assisted them in building a boat; but after two days upon it these Indians also deserted them. They found another native, but he was shortly drowned. Then their boat began to leak and was abandoned. On pretext of sending assistance back, the French physician, taking with him the negro, pushed on to a settlement; but he forgot his promise, and the faithful black was so impeded in attempting alone the task of rescue, that he arrived at the camp only to find unrecognizable corpses. All but the lady had succumbed. She pushed on alone through the wilderness, encountering perils that appall as we read; but in the end, falling in with two Indians, she passed on from one mission station to another, and reached the galiot.

Thus a hundred years later than Orellana, the great river still flowed with a story of fearful hazards and treachery.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us