“The Indians esteeme it much, and in time of their Kings Yncas it was not lawfull for any of the common people to use this coca without licence from the governor. Their use is to carry it in their mouthes, chawing it and sucking out the juyce, but they swallow it not. They say it gives them great courage, and is very pleasing unto them. Many grave men holde this as a superstition and a mere imagination; for my part, and to speak the truth, I perswade not my selfe that it is an imagination but contrariwise, I thinke it works and gives force and courage to the Indians; for we see the effects which cannot be attributed to imagination, as to go some daies without meat, but only a handfull of coca, and other like effects.”[33] II [Sidenote: Garcilaso de la Vega] [Sidenote: Parents of Garcilaso] By his ancestry Garcilaso de la Vega was connected with some of the most distinguished families of Spain, the families of Mendoza and Vargas. His father was the son of Alonso de Hinestrosa de Vargas, whose wife was Blanca Suárez de Figueroa, a descendant of that Garcilaso de la Vega on whom the name was originally conferred for his famous duel with the gigantic Moor on the Vega of Granada. This name was adopted by the historian’s father as that of a maternal ancestor. The son of Hinestrosa de Vargas thus became Garcilaso de la Vega. This Garcilaso de la Vega was born in the city of Badajoz in Estremadura in 1506. At the age of twenty-five, in 1531, he went to America as a captain of infantry, at the time of Pedro de Alvarado’s return to resume the government of Guatemala. He became a member of Alvarado’s ill-fated expedition to Quito, that landed at Caraques in March, 1534. After Alvarado’s surrender to Almagro, Garcilaso de la Vega entered the service of Pizarro, and was sent to subdue the natives about the port of Buenaventura. Owing to the difficulties of the march and the loss of a large part of his men he was obliged to abandon the undertaking. He then went to Lima, where he found Pizarro besieged by the Indians. His next service was in the campaign for the relief of Cuzco, that appeared to be in danger of falling into the hands of the insurgent natives. [Sidenote: Garcilaso the elder]