It May Be Proper To Mention, However, That The Following
Translation, Though Faithful, Has Been Made With Some Freedom Of
Retrenching A Superfluity Of Useless Language; Though Nothing Has Been
Omitted In Point Of Fact, And Nothing Altered.
Having mentioned the work of Garcilasso de la Vega, which we have employed
as an auxiliary on the present occasion, it may be worth while to give a
short account of it in this place:
For there never was, perhaps, a
literary composition so strangely mixed up of unconnected and discordant
sense and nonsense, and so totally devoid of any thing like order or
arrangement, in the whole chronology of authorship, or rather of
book-making, as has been produced by this scion of the Incas. 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.
[1] History of America, _note_ cxxv.
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.
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.
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