INHABITANTS OF PERU. 



thousand forms. The majesty of the portico could not be de- 

 scribed, unless by saying that Nature and Art had challenged 

 each other at that spot, to vie in the produ6i:ion of its beau- 

 ties. The staircases and entrances were most sumptuous. In 

 all the inner apartments the energy of the pencil was displayed 

 on jaspar, in portraying the august heroes, the lords of this 

 favoured region. The floors were covered with the richest 

 carpets of feathers, and the air perfumed with the most fra- 

 grant aromatics. Our adventurer having been ushered into 

 the royal cabinet, found the sovereign reclined on a throne of 

 ivory, and surrounded by his principal courtiers, who occu- 

 pied various estrades of gold, superior to that of Arabia. 



He was received with every token of humanity, and placed 

 next to the throne. The ceremonials, festivals, and tourna- 

 ments by which the monarch, in exhibiting his own magni- 

 ficence, endeavoured to afford him pleasure, were essentials 

 which required, for their description, the pen of Homer, or 

 of Virgil, or, rather, that of Miguel Cervantes Saavedra. 

 The diversions being concluded, and he being desirous to set 

 out on his return, the eldest daughter of the king, into whose 

 bosom the god Cupid had introduced the violent flame of love, 

 enveloped in the graceful form of the stranger, made a tender 

 to him of her person. But our Bohorquez, in whom the mad- 

 ness of Don Quixote must have been blended with the address 

 of Cacus, chose rather to be the depredator, than the peace- 

 ful possessor of the new empire. After having beguiled Peru 

 with his fabulous Enim, he entered that territory, accom- 

 panied by thirty-six Spaniards, in the year 1643, achieve 

 its conquest ; but was guilty of so many piracies, not only 

 among the barbarians, but likewise in Jauxa and Tarma,. 



M m 2 ' that 



