The present volume opens with an account of the extensive journey from Cuzco to the Collao made by Francisco Pizarro, who had been created a Marquis for his great services, and treats of his visit to Arequipa when he founded that city. He had founded Guamanga previous to this journey. He returned, prematurely old and broken with disease, to welcome rest in his house at Lima, or Los Reyes, as the city was then called, devoting himself mainly to business connected with the grants of estates to his followers and with the improvement of the city he had founded, interesting himself in the introduction and cultivation of new plants, the erection of mills, and the supply of provisions. Cieza de León then, in the next fifteen chapters, makes a digression which must be acknowledged as such, for these chapters have nothing to do with the war of Chupas. They contain a narrative of discoveries and conquests in the region of the Upper Cauca, with Popayán and Cali as bases of operations, chiefly conducted by a leader named Jorge Robledo. They are to a certain extent connected with the history of Peru, because Pizarro nominated the governors who despatched the expeditions. The real cause of the digression was that Cieza de León was serving in these expeditions himself. He was an eye-witness of the events he describes in detail. This gives them a very special interest, and may well be accepted as a sufficient excuse for the digression. The story of the famous expedition of Gonzalo Pizarro follows, and our author then enters upon the events at Lima which led up to the murder of the Marquis Pizarro.[3] In the question between Pizarro and Almagro our author strove hard to be impartial, as well as in his account of the murder of the Marquis; but his bias on the side of Almagro is apparent. In the case of Pizarro he tells the authentic story, but he adds any lying gossip that reaches his ears. In the case of Almagro he never does. I should be the last to defend Pizarro as the destroyer of the Inca empire. As such I execrate his memory. He had no right to execute Atahualpa, although that ruthless usurper and fratricide richly deserved his fate. Pizarro was guilty of several acts of cruelty, his worst crime being the order to put Manco's wife to a cruel death when he was enraged at receiving defiance from the Inca; but I feel that in affairs connected with his countrymen his memory should receive even justice, and that he has been misjudged.