Page:Myths of Mexico and Peru.djvu/471



Pablo José de Arriaga, a priest who policed the country, destroying the false gods, compiled in 1621 Extirpacion de la Idolatria del Peru, describing the downfall of the ancient Inca religion.

Antonio de la Calancha compiled an interesting history of the Incas in his work on the Order of St. Augustine in Peru (1638-1653).

In his Historia de Copacabana y de su Milagrosa Imagen (1620) Alonzo Ramos Gavilan disclosed much information concerning the colonists during the time of the Inca rule.

A valuable history of the Incas is provided by Garcilasso el Inca de la Vega in his Comentarios Reales. The works of previous authors are reviewed, and extracts are given from the compilations of the Jesuit Bias Valera, whose writings are lost. The English translation is published by the Hakluyt Society.

Relacion de Antiguedades deste Reyno del Peru, by Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamayhua, an Indian of the Collao, was translated into English by Sir C. R. Markham, and published by the Hakluyt Society.

The Historia del Reino del Quinto, compiled by Juan de Velasco, was translated into French by Ternaux-Compans in 1840.

Antonio de Herrera gives a brief account of the history and civilisation of the Inca people in his General History of the Indies.

In his History of America Robertson was the first to compile a thorough account of the Incas. Prescott, however, in 1848 eclipsed his work by his own fascinating account. Sir Arthur Helps has also given a résumé of Inca progress in his Spanish Conquest. (1855).

The Peruvian Sebastian Lorente published in 1860 a history of ancient Peru, which presents the subject more broadly than the narratives of the American and English authors, and as the result of many years of further research he contributed a series of essays to the Revista Peruana.

One of the best works dealing with the antiquities of the Inca period is Antiguedades Peruanas, by Don Mariano Rivero (English translation by Dr. Hawkes, 1853). The compilation on Peru by E. G. Squier (1877), and a similar narrative by C. Weiner (Paris, 1880), both of which stand in accuracy above the others, are also worthy of mention.

The work of Reiss and Stubel, narrating their excavations at Ancon, is richly presented in three volumes, with 119 plates.

The works of Sir Clements Markham are the best guide to English scholars on the subject. Rh