Having mentioned the work of Garcilasso de la Vega, which we have employed as an auxiliary on the present occasion, it may be worth while to give a short account of it in this place: For there never was, perhaps, a literary composition so strangely mixed up of unconnected and discordant sense and nonsense, and so totally devoid of any thing like order or arrangement, in the whole chronology of authorship, or rather of book-making, as has been produced by this scion of the Incas. No consideration short of our duty to the public, could have induced us to wade through such a labyrinth of absurdity in quest of information. It is astonishing how the honest knight could have patience to translate 1019 closely printed folio pages of such a farrago; and on closing the work of the Inca for ever, we heartily joined in the concluding pious thanksgiving of the translator, Praised be God. This enormous literary production of the Inca Garcilasso, is most regularly divided and subdivided into parts, books, and chapters; which contain here a little history, then digressions on manners, customs, opinions, ceremonies, laws, policy, arts, animals, vegetables, agriculture, buildings, &c. &c. &c. intermixed with bits and scraps of history, in an endless jumble; so that for every individual circumstance on any one of these topics, the pains-taking reader must turn over the whole work with the most anxious attention. We quote an example, taken absolutely at random, the titles of the Chapters of Part I. Book ix.
Chap. I. Huayna Capac makes a gold chain as big as a cable, and why. II. Reduces ten vallies of the coast. III. Punishes some murderers. IV.-VII. Incidents of his reign, confusedly related. VIII. Gods and customs of the Mantas. IX. Of giants formerly in Peru. X. Philosophical sentiments of the Inca concerning the sun. XI. and XII. Some incidents of his reign. XIII. Construction of two extensive roads. XIV. Intelligence of the Spaniards being on the coast. XV. Testament and death of Huayna Capac. XVI. How horses and mares were first bred in Peru. XVII. Of cows and oxen. XVIII.-XXIII. Of various animals, all introduced after the conquest. XXIV.-XXXI. Of various productions, some indigenous, and others introduced by the Spaniards. XXXII. Huascar claims homage from Atahualpa. XXXIII.-XL. Historical incidents, confusedly arranged, all without dates.
The whole work is equally confused at best, and often much more so; often consisting of extracts from other writers, with commentaries, argumentations, ridiculous speeches, miracles, and tales recited by old Incas and Coyas, uncles aunts and cousins of the author. To add to the difficulty of consultation, Sir Paul, having exhausted his industry in the translation, gives no table of contents whatever, and a most miserable Index which hardly contains an hundredth part of the substance of the work. Yet the author of the Bibliotheque des Voyages, says "that this work is very precious, as it contains the only remaining notices of the government, laws, manners, and customs of the Peruvians."--Ed.
PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR.
After having enjoyed the office of secretary to the royal council of Castille for fifteen years, the king was graciously pleased to order me to Peru in 1543, as treasurer-general of that province and of the Tierra Firma; in which employment I was entrusted with the entire receipt of the royal revenues and rights, and the payment of all his majesties officers in those countries. I sailed thither in the fleet which conveyed Blasco Nugnez Vela the viceroy of Peru; and immediately on my arrival in the New World, I observed so many insurrections, disputes, and novelties, that I felt much inclined to transmit their memory to posterity. I accordingly wrote down every transaction as it occurred; but soon discovered that these could not be understood unless the previous events were explained from which they originated. I found it necessary, therefore, to go back to the epoch of the discovery of the country, to give a detail of the occurrences in their just order and connection. My work might perhaps have been somewhat more perfect, if I had been able to compose it in regular order while in Peru; but a brutal major-general, who had served under Gonzalo Pizarro[1], threatened to put any one to death who should presume to write a history of his transactions, so that I was obliged to satisfy myself with collecting all the documents I could procure for enabling me to compose my history after returning into Spain. He was perhaps right in wishing these transactions might fall into oblivion, instead of being transmitted to posterity.
[1] Even the orthography of the name of Pizarro is handed down to us with some variety. In the work of Garcilasso de la Vega it is always spelt Piçarro: Besides which, the Inca Garcilasso, in his almost perpetual quotations of our author Zarate, always gives the name Carate; the ç, or cerilla c, being equivalent in Spanish to the z in the other languages of Europe.--E.
Should my style of writing be found not to possess all the polish that my readers may desire, it will at least record the true state of events; and I shall not be disappointed if it only serve to enable another to present a history of the same period in more elegant language and more orderly arrangement. I have principally directed my attention to a strict regard for truth, the soul of history, using neither art nor disguise in my description of things and events which I have seen and known; and in relating those matters which happened before my arrival, I have trusted to the information of dispassionate persons, worthy of credit. These were not easy to find in Peru, most persons having received either benefits or injuries from the party of Pizarro or that of Almagro; which were as violent in their mutual resentments as the adherents of Marius and Sylla, or of Caesar and Pompey of old.
In all histories there are three chief requisites: the designs, the actions, and the consequences. In the two latter particulars I have used all possible care to be accurate. If I may not always agree with other authors in regard to the first of these circumstances, I can only say that such is often the case with the most accurate and faithful historians. After I had finished this work, it was my intention to have kept it long unpublished, lest I might offend the families of those persons whose improper conduct is therein pourtrayed. But some persons to whom I had communicated my manuscript, shewed it to the king during his voyage to England, who had it read to him as an amusement from the tiresomeness of the voyage. My work had the good fortune to please his majesty, who honoured it with his approbation, and graciously commanded me to have it printed; and which I have the more readily complied with, as his royal commands may protect my book from the cavils of the censorious readers.
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Much difficulty occurs respecting the origin of the people who inhabited Peru and the other provinces of America, and by what means their ancestors could have crossed the vast extent of sea which separates that country from the old world. In my opinion this may be explained from what is said by Plato in his Timaeus, and the subsequent dialogue entitled Atlantis. He says: "That the Egyptians report, to the honour of the Athenians, that they contributed to defeat certain kings who came with a numerous army by sea from the great island of Atlantis, which, beginning beyond the Pillars of Hercules, is larger than all Asia and Africa together, and is divided into ten kingdoms which Neptune gave among his ten sons, Atlas, the eldest, having the largest and most valuable share." Plato adds several remarkable particulars concerning the customs and riches of that island; especially concerning a magnificent temple in the chief city, the walls of which were entirely covered over with gold and silver, having a roof of copper, and many other circumstances which are here omitted for the sake of brevity; though it is certain that several customs and ceremonies mentioned by Plato are still practised in the provinces of Peru. Beyond the great island of Atlantis, there were other large islands not far distant from the Firm Land, beyond which again was the True Sea. The following are the words which Plato attributes, in his Timaeus, to Socrates, as spoken to the Athenians. "It is held certain, that in ancient times your city resisted an immense number of enemies from the Atlantic Ocean, who had conquered almost all Europe and Asia. In those days the Straits were navigable, and immediately beyond them there was an island, commencing almost at the Pillars of Hercules, which was said to be larger than Asia and Africa united; from whence the passage was easy to other islands near and opposite to the continent of the True Sea." A little after this passage, it is added. "That nine thousand years before his days, a great change took place, as the sea adjoining that island was so increased by the accession of a prodigious quantity of water, that in the course of one day it swallowed up the whole island; since when that sea has remained so full of shallows and sand banks as to be no longer navigable, neither has any one been able to reach the other islands and the Firm Land."