446 PLATEAU OP CAXAMARCA. 



mui principal, por Majestad (Garcilasso, Comment. Reales, p. ii. 

 p. 46). 



( 14 ) p. 429." Captivity of Atahuallpa:' 



A short time before the captive Inca was put to death/ he was 

 taken into the open air, in compliance with his request, to see a 

 large comet. The "greenish-black comet, nearly as thick as a man" 

 (G-arcilasso says, p. ii. p. 44, una cometa verdinegra, poco menos 

 gruesa que el cuerpo de un hombre), seen by Atahuallpa before his 

 death, therefore in July or August, 1533, and which he supposed 

 to be the same malignant comet which had appeared at the death 

 of his father, Huayna Capac, is certainly the one observed by Appian 

 (Pingre, Come'tographie, t. i. p. 496; and G-alle's "Notice of all 

 the Paths of Comets hitherto computed," in "Giber's Leichtester 

 Methode die Bahn eines Cometen zu berechnen," 1847, s. 206), 

 and which, on the 21st of July, standing high in the north, near 

 the constellation of Perseus, represented the sword which Perseus 

 holds in his right hand. (Madler, Astronomic, 1846, s. 307; 

 Schnurrer, Die Chronik der Seuchen in Verbindung mit gleich- 

 zeitigen Erscheinungen, 1825, th. ii. s. 82.) Robertson considers 

 the year of Huayna Capac's death uncertain; but, from the re- 

 searches of Balboa and Velasco, that event appears to have occurred 

 towards the close of 1525 : thus the statements of Hevelius (Come- 

 tographia, p. 844) and of Pingre* (t. i. p. 485) derive confirmation 

 from the testimony of Garcilasso (p. i. p. 321) and the tradition 

 preserved among the "amautas, que son los filosofos de aquella 

 Republica." I may here introduce the remark, that Oviedo alone, 

 and certainly erroneously, asserts, in the inedited continuation of 

 his Historia de las Indias, that the proper name of the Inca was 

 not Atahuallpa, but Atabaliva (Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. i. 

 p. 498). 



( 15 ) p. 429. "Ducados de Oro," 



The sum mentioned in the text is that which is stated by Grar- 

 cilasso de la Vega in the Commentaries reales de los Incas, parte ii. 

 1722, pp. 27 and 51. The statements of Padre Bias' Valera and 

 of Gomara, Historia de las Indias, 1553, p. 67, differ, however, 



