In my Introduction to the First Part, I gave some account of the author, all indeed that could be gathered from the part of his work then accessible; and I said that he was supposed to have been born in Seville.[16] This is an error. The Spanish editor has pointed out the authority for believing that the place of his birth was the town of Llerena in Estremadura.[17] In my former Introduction I suggested from the dates, and from the company in which we find him immediately on landing in America, that young Cieza de Leon, then a boy between 13 and 15, sailed from his native land in one of the ships which formed the expeditionary fleet of Don Pedro de Heredia, who had obtained a grant of the government of the region between the river Magdalena and the gulf of Darien. This fleet left Cadiz in 1532, and arrived at Cartagena in 1533. But the Spanish editor has shown that there are difficulties in the way of this conclusion, and Cieza himself is slightly contradictory in the matter of dates. He, however, mentions having seen the treasures of Atahualpa at Seville, when they arrived from Caxamarca,[18] which was in 1534. Señor de la Espada, therefore, concludes that our author did not sail for America until 1534, and that he embarked with the ships of Rodrigo Duran, which anchored at Cartagena in November 1534. At all events he was in San Sebastian de Buena Vista in 1537,[19] and was with the first Spaniards who opened a road from the north to the south sea. Thence he accompanied Pedro Vadillo in his expedition up the valley of the Cauca to Cali, and then joined Jorge de Robledo, who established towns in this Cauca valley, and conquered some of the cannibal tribes. It was at this time, in 1541, when at Cartago in the Cauca valley, that our author conceived a strong desire to write an account of the strange things that were to be seen in the new world.[20] “Oftentimes when the other soldiers were reposing, I was tiring myself by writing. Neither fatigue, nor the ruggedness of the country, nor the mountains and rivers, nor intolerable hunger and suffering, have ever been sufficient to obstruct my two duties, namely, writing, and following my flag and my captain without fault.” In 1547 he joined the President Gasca in his march to Cuzco, and was present at the final rout of Gonzalo Pizarro. After a residence at Cuzco he undertook a journey southwards to Charcas, under the special auspices of Gasca, and with the sole object of learning all that was worthy of notice. Returning to Lima he finished his First Part on September 8th, 1550. He says he was then thirty-two years of age, and had passed seventeen of them in the Indies.