Cu. Iir. SOUTH AMERICA. 333 



vinces being now comprehended under the jurisdic- 

 tion of one single tribunal ; and those which before 

 were under a niuldtude of curacas acknowledgino- 

 one sovereign, and composing one province, where 

 justice is administered to them in the name of the 

 prince ; and the governments being in juridical af- 

 fairs dependent on the audience of Quito j they can 

 only be considered as ptirts of its province. It is 

 therefore requisite, in order to form a proper idea of 

 this countryy that I should treat of them in the same 

 circumstantial manner I have already observed in de- 

 scribing the jurisdictions. 



I. The first government in the province of Quito, 

 and which terminates it on the north, is that of Po- 

 payan. It is not indeed wholly dependent on it, 

 being divide/l into two jurisdictions, of which that on 

 the north and east belons: to the audience of Santa 

 Fé, or the new kingdom of Grenado ; Quito havmg 

 only those parts lying towards the south and west; so 

 that, without omitting any thing remarkable in the 

 whole government, I shall be a little more explicit in 

 my account of the department belonging to Quito. 



The conquest of the whole country now contain- 

 ing the government of Popayan, or at least the greater 

 part of it, was performed by that famous commander 

 Sebastian de Belalcazar, who, being governor of the 

 province of Quito, where he had settled a perfect 

 tranquillity, and finished the building of that city, 

 being informed that on the north side ofhis govern- 

 ment lay a country of great extent, and richer than 

 the parts he already possessed, protnpted by that spirit 

 which had animated the Spaniards to extend their re- 

 putation by a series of amazing conquests in this part 

 of the globe, he set out on his enterprise in 1536, at 

 the head of 300 Spaniards ; and after several sharp en- 

 counters with the Indians of Pasto, who first opposed 

 his march, he proceeded in his conquests, and reduced 

 the two principal curacas of that country, Calam- 



bas 



