Busching, Martinlere, La Croix, &c. either forbear, in their geographical tracts, to make mention of such a country, or misrepresent it most lamentably. The learned and laborious Alcedo[1] was unable to be very exact, or to go into any great length of detail, in his description of this province. In the Memoirs of Dr. Cosme Bueno, some valuable information may, indeed, be collected on this head; but the system which that distinguished cosmographer had traced out, did not allow him to follow rigorously either the historical or political style of writing. Several authentic manuscripts which we have collected from various parts, enable us to elucidate this subject, to which we now proceed without further preamble.
In those calamitous circumstances, coeval with the conquest of these kingdoms, in which the most powerful were constantly justified, and the weak, however replete with virtue, deemed culpable, there were not wanting several among the conquerors, who abandoned the leaders of the predominating factions, Pizarro and Almagro, and who, actuated by the same spirit of domineering, enriching themselves, and immortalizing their memory, proceeded, with a few companions, to the more distant parts of Peru, and there established themselves. Among these was a certain Francisco Tarija, whose country has not been precisely ascertained, although there is some reason to presume that he was a native of Seville. This adventurer, after having wandered for a considerable
- ↑ In his Diccionario Historico Geographico, &c. (Historical and Geographical Dictionary of die West Indies, or America), tom. i. page 479, in which part, as well as in many others, he almost literally copies what was said by Dr. Cosme Bueno in his Memoirs.
