O O K VI. 1531. lofing a moment, he began to advance towards в the south, taking care, however, not to depart far from the fea-fhore, both that he might easily effect a junction with the fupplies which he expected from Panama, and fecure a retreat in cafe of any difafter, by keeping as near as poffible to his fhips. But as the country in feveral parts on the coast of Peru is barren, unhealthful, and thinly peopled; as the Spaniards had to pass all the rivers near their mouth, where the body of water is greatest, and as the imprudence of Pizarro, in attacking the natives when he should have studied to gain their confidence, had forced them to abandon their habitations; famine, fatigue, and diseases of various kinds, brought upon him and his followers calamities hardly inferior to those which they had endured in their former expedition. What they now experienced correfponded fo ill with the alluring defcription of the country given by Pizarro, that many began to reproach him, and every foldier muft have become cold to the service, if even in this unfertile region of Peru they had not met with fome appearances of wealth and cultivation, which feemed to justify the report of their leader. At length they April 14. reached the province of Coaque; and, having surprised the principal settlement of the natives, they feized their veffels and ornaments of gold and BOOK and filver, to the amount of thirty thousand pefos, with other booty of fuch value, as difpelled all their doubts, and infpired the most defponding with fanguine hopes'. 1531. His meafures for obtaining a reinforcement. PIZARRO himself was fo much delighted with this rich spoil, which he confidered as the first fruits of a land abounding with treasure, that he inftantly dispatched one of his fhips to Panama with a large remittance to Almagro ; and another to Nicaragua with a confiderable fum to feveral perfons of influence in that province, in hopes of alluring adventurers, by this early display of the wealth which he had acquired. Meanwhile, he continued his march along the coaft, and difdaining to employ any means of reducing the natives but force, he attacked them with such violence in their scattered habitations, as compelled them either to retire into the interior country, or to fubmit to his yoke. This fudden appearance of invaders, whofe afpect and manners were so strange, and whofe power seemed to be so irresistible, made the fame dreadful impreffion as in other parts of America. Pizarro hardly met with refiftance until he attacked the island of Puna in the bay of Guayquil. As that was better peopled than the country through which Herrera, dec. 4, lib. vii. c. 9. lib. ii. c. 1. Xeres, 182. he VI. 1531. he had paffed, and its inhabitants fiercer and BOOK lefs civilized than thofe of the continent, they defended themselves with fuch obftinate valour, that Pizarro spent fix months in reducing them to fubjection. From Puna he proceeded to Tumbez, where the diftempers which raged among his men compelled him to remain for three months". + fome, and advance. WHILE he was thus employed, he began to reap advantage from his attention to spread the fame of his first fuccefs at Coaque. Two differ- Receives ent detachments arrived from Nicaragua, which, continues to though neither exceeded thirty men, he confidered as a reinforcement of great confequence to his feeble band, especially as the one was under the command of Sebastian Benalcazar, and the other of Hernando Soto, officers not inferior in merit and reputation to any who had ferved in America. From Tumbez he proceeded May 16. to the river Piura, and in an advantageous ftation near the mouth of it, he established the first Spanish colony in Peru; to which he gave the name of St. Michael. P. Sancho ap. Ramuf. iii. p. 371. F. Herrera, dec. 4. lib. vii. c. 18. lib. ix. c. 1. Zarate, lib. ii. c. 2, 3. Xetes, p. 182, &c. As 1534 BOOK 1532. State of the Peruvian empire. As Pizarro continued to advance towards the centre of the Peruvian empire, he gradually received more full information concerning its extent and policy, as well as the fituation of its affairs at that juncture. Without fome knowledge of thefe, he could not have conducted his operations with propriety; and without a fuitable attention to them, it is impoffible to account for the progress which the Spaniards had already made, or to unfold the caufes of their fubfequent fuccefs. AT the time when the Spaniards invaded Peru, the dominions of its fovereigns extended in length, from north to fouth, above fifteen hundred miles along the Pacific Ocean. Its breadth, from east to west, was much lefs confiderable; being uniformly bounded by the vast ridge of the Andes, ftretching from its one extremity to the other. Peru, like the reft of the New World, was originally poffeffed by fmall independent tribes, differing from each other in manners, and in their forms of rude policy.. All, however, were fo little civilized, that, if the traditions concerning their mode of life, preferved among their defcendants, deferve credit, they must be claffed among the most unimproved favages of America. Strangers to VI. X532. every fpecies of cultivation or regular industry, BOOK without any fixed refidence, and unacquainted with those fentiments and obligations which form the first bonds of focial union, they are faid to have roamed about naked in the forests, with which the country was then covered, more like wild beafts than like men. After they had ftruggled for feveral ages with the hardships and calamities which are inevitable in fuch a ftate, and when no circumftance feemed to indicate the approach of any uncommon effort towards improvement, we are told that there appeared, on the banks of the lake Titiaca, a man and woman of majestic form, and clothed in decent garments. They declared themfelves to be children of the Sun, fent by their beneficent parent, who beheld with pity the miferies of the human race, to inftruct and to reclaim them. At their perfuafion, enforced by reverence for the divinity in whose name they were fuppofed to fpeak, feveral of the difperfed favages united together, and receiving their commands as heavenly injunctions, followed them to Cuzco, where they fettled, and began to lay the foundations of a city. MANCO CAPAC and Mama Ocollo, for fuch were the names of thofe extraordinary perfon ages, |