detachment, immediately told Huascar that they would put him to death, if he did not instantly give orders to his army to retire:  and at the same time assured him that his brother Atahualpa had no farther desire than to be permitted to enjoy the kingdom of Quito in peace, for which he would do homage to him as his king and lord.  Huascar, terrified by the prospect of death, and believing their promise of restoration to liberty and dominion, issued peremptory orders to his army to desist from their intended attack and to return to Cuzco, which they did accordingly; and the Atahualpan officers carried Huascar a prisoner to Caxamarca, where they delivered him up to their master.  Thus were the affairs of Peru situated when Don Francisco Pizarro arrived in that country with the Spaniards; which conjuncture was exceedingly favourable to his views of conquest, of which we shall give an account in the next section, as the great army of Huascar was entirely dispersed, and Atahualpa had dismissed a great proportion of his troops, after this fortunate event, which had placed his enemy in his hands.

* * * * *

Of the Peruvian History before the arrival of the Spaniards[35].

“Peru, like the rest of the New World, was originally possessed by small independent tribes, differing from each other in manners, and in their forms of rude policy.  All, however, were so little civilized, that, if the traditions concerning their mode of life, preserved among their descendants, deserve credit, they must be classed among the most unimproved savages of America.  Strangers to every species of cultivation or regular industry, without any fixed residence, and unacquainted with those sentiments and obligations which form the first bonds of social union, they are said to have roamed naked about the forests with which their country was then covered, more like wild beasts than like men.  After they had struggled for ages with the hardships and calamities which are inevitable in such a state, and when no circumstance seemed to indicate the approach of any uncommon effort towards improvement, we are told that there appeared on the banks of the lake Titicaca, a man and woman of majestic form, and clothed in decent garments.  They declared themselves to be children of the sun, sent by their beneficent parent, who beheld with pity the miseries of the human race, and who had commanded them to instruct and reclaim them.  At their persuasion, enforced by reverence for the divinity in whose name they were supposed to speak, several of the dispersed savages united together, and receiving their commands as heavenly instructions, followed them to Cuzco where they settled, and where they begun to lay the foundations of a city, afterwards the capital of Peru.”