It has been the fashion to depreciate Montesinos, but I find it impossible to discover the reasons by which this depreciation can be justified. It is alleged that he uses fanciful hypotheses to explain Peru. The reply to this seems to me conclusive. In the first place, he is, in this respect, like all other writers of his time. That was an age of fanciful theories. Montesinos is certainly no worse than others in this respect, while he has the merit of being somewhat more original. He brought the Peruvian civilization from Armenia, and argued that Peru was Solomon’s Ophir. Undue importance has been accorded to several of the old Spanish chroniclers, whose works contain suggestions and fancies much more irrational. In the second place, his theories have nothing whatever to do with his facts, by which they are sometimes contradicted. He found in Peru materials for the scheme of its ancient history, which he sets forth. Readers will form their own estimates of its value, but no reasonable critic will confound this part of his work with his fanciful explanations, which are sometimes inconsistent with it. For instance, his theory assumes that the first monarch of the old kingdom began his reign as far back in the past as the year 2500 B.C. But he reports only sixty-four rulers of that old kingdom. Now, if there were so many as sixty-four, and if we allow an average of twenty years to each reign (which is sufficient), we can not carry back the beginning of that first reign to the year 1200 B.C. There is another objection, which must be stated in the words of one of the critics who have urged it: “Montesinos treats the ancient history of Peru in a mode so original and distinct from all others that we can perceive it to be a production alike novel and unknown.” If this means any thing, it means that it was highly improper for Montesinos to find in Peru what was “unknown” to poorly-informed and superficial Spanish writers, who had already been accepted as “authorities.” It would have been singular if his careful investigation, continued through fifteen years, had not given him a great amount of information which others had never taken pains to acquire. His treatment of the subject was “original and distinct from all others,” because he knew what other writers did not know. His information did not allow him to repeat the marvelous story of Manco-Capac and Mama Oello, nor to confine Peruvian history to the time of the Incas. But when the result of his inquiries was announced in Europe, Garcilasso and others regulated the fashion of Peruvian studies, and the influence of their limited and superficial knowledge of the subject has been felt ever since.