armed to attack. Atahualpa's mode of advancing to the interview, has the afpect of a peaceable proceffion, not of a military enterprize. He himself and his followers were, in their habits of ceremony, preceded, as on days of folemnity, by unarmed harbingers. Though rude nations are frequently cunning and falfe, yet, if a scheme of deception and treachery muft be imputed either to a monarch, that had no great reafon to be alarmed at a vifit from ftrangers who folicited admiffion into his prefence as friends, or to an adventurer fo daring, and fo little fcrupulous as Pizarro, one cannot hefitate in determining where to fix the prefumption of guilt. Even amidst the endeavours of the Spanish writers to palliate the proceedings of Pizarro, one plainly perceives, that it was his intention, as well as his intereft, to feize the Inca, and that he had taken measures for that purpose previous to any fufpicion of that monarch's defigns.

Garcilaffo de la Vega, extremely folicitous to vindicate his countrymen, the Peruvians, from the crime of having concerted the deftruction of Pizarro and his followers, and no less afraid to charge the Spaniards with improper conduct towards the Inca, has framed another fyftem. He relates, that a man of majestick form, with a long beard, and garments reaching to the ground, having appeared in vifion to Vi

racocha, the eighth Inca, and declared, that he was a child of the Sun, that monarch built a temple in honour of this perfon, and erected an image of him, refembling as nearly as poffible the fingular form in which he had exhibited himself to his view. In this temple, divine honours were paid to him, by the name of Viracocha. P. i. lib. iv. c. 21. lib. v. c. 22. When the Spaniards first appeared in Peru, the length of their beards, and the drefs they wore, ftruck every perfon fo much with their likeness to the image of Viracocha, that they supposed them to be children of the Sun, who had defcended from heaven to earth. All concluded, that the fatal period of the Peruvian empire was now approaching, and that the throne would be occupied by new poffeffors. Atahualpa himfelf, confidering the Spaniards as meffengers from heaven, was fo far from entertaining any thoughts of refifting them, that he determined to yield implicit obedience to their commands. From those fentiments flowed his profeffions of love and refpect. To thofe were owing the cordial reception of Soto, and Ferdinand Pizarro in his camp, and the fubmiffive reverence with which he himself advanced to vifit the Spanifh general in his quarters; but from the grofs ignorance of Philippillo, the interpreter, the declaration of the Spaniards, and his anfwer to it, were fo ill explained, that by their mutual inability

to comprehend each other's intentions, the fatal rencounter at Caxamalca, with all its dreadful confequences, was occafioned.

It is remarkable, that no traces of this fuperftitious veneration of the Peruvians for the Spaniards, are to be found either in Xerez, or Sancho, or Zarate, previous to the interview at Caxamalca; and yet the two former served under Pizarro at that time, and the latter visited Peru foon after the conqueft. If either the Inca himfelf, or his meffengers, had addreffed the Spaniards in the words which Garcilaffo puts in their mouths, they muft have been struck with fuch fubmiffive declarations; and they would certainly have availed themselves of them to accomplish their own defigns with greater facility. Garcilaffo himself, though his narrative of the intercourfe between the Inca and Spaniards, preceding the rencounter at Caxamalca, is founded on the fuppofition of his believing them to be Viracochas, or divine beings, P. ii. lib. i. c. 17, &c. yet with his ufual inattention. and inaccuracy he admits, in another place, that the Peruvians did not recollect the refemblance between them and the god Viracocha, until the fatal difafters fubfequent to the defeat at Caxamalca, and then only began to call them Viracochas. P. i. lib. v. c. 21. This is confirmed by Herrera, dec. 5. lib. ii. c. 12. In many different parts of America, if we may believe

the Spanish writers, their countrymen were confidered as divine beings who had defcended from Heaven. But in this inftance, as in many which occur in the intercourse between nations whofe progrefs in refinements is very unequal, the ideas of those who ufed the expreffion were different from the ideas of thofe who heard it. For fuch is the idiom of the Indian languages, or fuch is the fimplicity of those who speak them, that when they fee any thing with which they were formerly unacquainted, and of which they do not know the origin; they fay, that it came down frow Heaven. Nugnez. Ram. iii. 327, C.

The account which I have given of the fentiments and proceedings of the Peruvians, appears to be more natural and confiftent than either of the two preceding, and is better fupported by the facts related by the contemporary hiftorians.

According to Xerez, p. 200, two thou fand Peruvians were killed. Sancho makes the number of the flain fix or feven thoufand. Ram. iii. 274, D. By Garcilaffo's account, five thousand were maffacred. P. ii. lib. i. c. 25. The number which I have mentioned, being the medium between the extremes, may probably be nearest the truth,

NOTE VIII. p. 33.

Nothing can be a more ftriking proof of this, than that three Spaniards travelled from

Caxamalea to Cuzco. The diftance betwixt them is fix hundred miles. In every place throughout this vaft extent of country they were treated with all the honours which the Peruvians paid to their fovereigns, and even to ther divinities. Under pretext of amaffing

what was wanting for the ran fom of the Inca, they demanded the plates of gold with which the walls of the Temple of the Sun in Cuzco were adorned; and though the priests were unwilling to alienate those facred ornaments, and the people refufed to violate the fhrine of their God, the three Spaniards, with their own hands, robbed the Temple of part of this valuable treasure; and fuch was the reverence of the natives for their perfons, that though they beheld this act of facrilege with aftonishment, they did not attempt to prevent or difturb the commiffion of it. Zarate, lib. ii. c. 6. Sancho ap. Ramuf. iii. 375, D.

NOTE IX. p. 47.

According to Herrera, the fpoil of Cuzco, after fetting apart the king's fifth, was divided among 480 perfons.

Each received 4000

to 1,920,000 pesos. But as the general, and

other officers, were entitled to a part far greater than that of the private men, the fum total must have rifen much beyond what I have mentioned.