INTRODUCTION.
Pascual de Andagoya was one of the officers who accompanied Pedrarias, when he went out as governor of the newly discovered isthmus between the North and South Seas in 1514. Andagoya was engaged in several of the exploring expeditions which were despatched from Darien, and he was the first Spaniard who obtained authentic information respecting the rich empire of the Yncas. His discoveries led to the expeditions of Pizarro and Almagro, and Andagoya himself was eventually governor, for a very short time, of the provinces round Popayan. His narrative is that of an eye-witness of some of the most stirring events which preceded the discovery of Peru. The conquest of the isthmus and the establishment of a colony at Panama were the necessary preliminaries to Spanish dominion along the shores of the South Sea. An account of these events, written by one of the actors in them, therefore, possesses peculiar interest, and the narrative of Pascual de Andagoya[1] has
- ↑ It is printed in the work of Navarrete. Coleccion de los viages y descrubrimientos, que hicieron por mar los Españoles, desde fines de siglo xv. Seccion iii. Establicimientos de los Españoles en el Darien. Tom. iii, No. vii, p. 393. The original MS. is preserved in the Indian Archives at Seville.
