The arrival of Pizarro and his band upon the coast of Peru, occurred at a moment most favourable to their projects of appropriation. The country had just emerged from a sanguinary civil war, in which many of its best warriors had perished; the throne of the Incas was occupied by a usurper, who, to cement his power, had shed the blood of hundreds of the royal family, his own brethren and relatives. These events had been thus brought about:--The warlike Inca and conqueror of Quito, Huayna Capac, forgot, on his death-bed, the sagacity that had marked his reign; and, in direct contravention of the fundamental laws of the empire, divided his dominions between Huascar, his legitimate heir, and Atahuallpa, a pet son whom he had had by one of his numerous concubines. The old Inca died, and, for five years, his two successors reigned, without quarrel, over their respective territories. Then dissensions arose between them; war broke out; and in two great fights, one at the foot of Chimborazo, the other on the plains of Cuzco, Atahuallpa’s troops, veterans grown gray under his father’s banner, were completely victorious. Huascar was taken prisoner and shut up in the fortress of Xauxa; his rival assumed the _borla_ or scarlet diadem of the Incas, and, using his victory with little moderation, if Garcilasso de la Vega and subsequent Spanish writers are to be believed, butchered, with circumstances of great cruelty, all of the Inca blood upon whom he could lay hands. Mr Prescott, however, doubts the veracity of Garcilasso, the son of a niece of Huayna Capac and of a Spanish cavalier, who arrived in Peru, soon after its conquest, in the suite of Pedro de Alvarado. His origin, and familiarity with the Peruvian tongue, should ensure the correctness of his statements; whilst his relationship, by the father’s side, with a family illustrious in letters as in arms, seems to guarantee his literary capacity. But Garcilasso was sadly given to romancing; and his pages exhibit, amidst much that is really valuable, great exaggeration and credulity. If we could implicitly credit his statements of Atahuallpa’s atrocities, our sympathy with the Inca, betrayed, dethroned, and finally murdered, by the Spaniards, would be materially lessened. The triumph of the usurper occurred only a few months previous to the invasion of Peru by Pizarro, in the spring of 1532.