Page:The Incas of Peru.djvu/13

Rh compared their various statements on each point as it arises. Without such thoroughness, an author is scarcely justified in entering upon so difficult and complicated an inquiry.

Having reached my eightieth birthday, I have abandoned the idea of completing a detailed history which I once entertained. But I have felt that a series of essays, based upon my researches, might at all events be published with advantage, as the subject is one of general interest, alike fascinating and historically important, and as the results of the studies of a lifetime are likely to be of some value. In the form in which the essays are presented, it is my hope that they will be interesting to the general reader, while offering useful material for study to the more serious historical student.