While the lawyers turned their attention chiefly to the civil administration of the conquered people, the priests naturally studied the religious beliefs and languages of the various tribes, and collected their historical traditions. The best and most accomplished of these sacerdotal authors appears to have been Blas Valera, judging from the fragments of his writings which have escaped destruction. He was a native of Peru, born at Chachapoyas in 1551, where his father, Luis Valera,[1239] one of the early conquerors, had settled. Young Blas was received into the Company of Jesus at Lima when only seventeen years of age, and, as he was of Inca race on the mother’s side, he soon became useful at the College in Cuzco from his proficiency in the native languages. He did missionary work in the surrounding villages, and acquired a profound knowledge of the history and institutions of the Incas. Eventually he completed a work on the subject in Latin, and was sent to Spain by his Jesuit superiors with a view to its publication. Unfortunately the greater part of his manuscript was burnt at the sack of Cadiz by the Earl of Essex in 1596, and Blas Valera himself died shortly afterwards. The fragments that were rescued fell into the hands of Garcilasso de la Vega, who translated them into Spanish, and printed them in his _Commentaries_. It is to Blas Valera that we owe the preservation of two specimens of Inca poetry and an estimate of Inca chronology. He has also recorded the traditional sayings of several Inca sovereigns, and among his fragments there are very interesting chapters on the religion, the laws and ordinances, and the language of the Incas, and on the vegetable products and medicinal drugs of Peru. These fragments are evidence that Blas Valera was an elegant scholar, a keen observer, and thoroughly master of his subject. They enhance the feeling of regret at the irreparable loss that we have sustained by the destruction of the rest of his work.