In regard to the Incas: As a background there are the old, picturesque chronicles which read like romances, but on which reposes most of the knowledge that modern authorities have corroborated in regard to the earlier inhabitants of Peru. These contemporary accounts have to be carefully studied in order to distinguish fact from fiction. Next to the _Crónica_ of Cieza de Leon are the _Comentarios Reales_ of Garcilasso de la Vega, in whose own veins the turbulent blood of the Conquistador mingled with the blood of the Sun. During his lifetime the imperial race of his mother was exterminated by the fierce adventurers becoming grandees, of whom his father was one. His book has the value of personal reminiscence. His enthusiasm adds a certain glamor; but even if his unique work has been spurned as an Utopian romance, it has been reluctantly accredited as the foundation of facts set forth by its critics. _De las Antiguas Gentes del Perú_ by Bartolomé de las Casas, works by Diego Fernandez, Betanzos, Oviedo, Sarmiento, Cobo, Ondegardo, Molina’s _Fables and Rites of the Incas_, and the great _Miscelaneas_ of Balboa must be consulted. Many of them have been translated by Sir Clements Markham and published by the Hakluyt Society of London. It is bewildering to try to single out one or two modern works upon the Incas, for their name is legion. The definitive authority in English is of course Sir Clements Markham, whose _Incas of Peru_ (1910) has followed numberless more detailed works of his own upon the subject.