2 



GENERAL IDEA OF PERU. 



From such loose materials as the above, and from the slight 

 information which a few travellers have picked up in a cursory 

 way, all the histories, refl.e6lions, charts, geographical tra6ts, 

 and compendiums, which have been published respefting Peru 

 on the banks of the Seine and of the Thames, have been com- 

 piled. The spirit of system, national prejudices, ignorance, 

 and caprice, have by turns so much influenced the greater part 

 of these produ6lions, that the Peru which they describe to us, 

 appears to be a country altogether different from the one with 

 which we are practically acquainted. 



The consequence which we deduce from this exposition is, 

 that we may, without presumption, set out by giving a gene- 

 ral sketch of Peru, without fearing- to incur the imputation of 

 plagiarism ; and with the certainty of furnishing more precise, 

 and, at the same time, more novel information, than any that 

 has been hitherto given. 



This great empire, the foundation of which by the Incas 

 remains enveloped in the obscurity of a series of fables, and of 

 an uncertain tradition, has lost much of its local grandeur 

 since the time when it was stripped, on the north side, of the 

 provinces vv^hich form the kingdom of Quito*, and afterwards 

 of those which, towards the east, constitute the viceroy alty of 

 Buenos-Ayresf . Its present extent j: in length runs, north 



* In 17 18. 

 t In 1778. 



X The geographical map of Santa Cruz, and the hydrographical chart of Don 

 Ulloa, inserted in the third volume of his voyage to South America, have been useful 

 to us in fixing the longitudes and latitudes, respedting wliich Busching, Lacroix, and 

 various other geographers, differ most essentially. 



. r ^ and 



