TOPOGRAPHY. 



307 



Busching, Martiniere, La Croix, &c. either forbear, in their 

 geographical tra6ts, to make mention of such a country, or 

 misrepresent it most lamentably. The learned and laborious 

 Alcedo* was unable to be very exaft, or to go into any great 

 length of detail, in his description of this province. In the 

 Memoirs of Dr. Cosme Bueno, some valuable information may, 

 indeed, be colle6led on this head ; but the system which that 

 distinguished cosmographer had traced out, did not allow 

 him to follow rigorously either the historical or political style 

 of writing. Several authentic manuscripts which we have 

 colle6led from various parts, enable us to elucidate this sub- 

 je6l, to which we now proceed without further preamble. 



In those calamitous circumstances, coeval with the conquest 

 of these kingdoms, in which the most powerful were con- 

 stantly justified, and the weak, however replete with virtue, 

 deemed culpable, there were not wanting several among the 

 conquerors, who abandoned the leaders of the predominating 

 fa6lions, Pizarro and Almagro, and who, a6tuated by the 

 same spirit of domineering, enriching themselves, and im- 

 mortalizing their memory, proceeded, with a few compa- 

 nions, to the more distant parts of Peru, and there established 

 themselves. Among these was a certain Francisco Tarija, 

 whose country has not been precisely ascertained, although 

 there is some reason to presume that he was a native of Seville. 

 This adventurer, after having wandered for a considerable 



* In his Dicdonario Historico Geographko, i^fc. (Historical and Geographical 

 Di'dlionary of the West Indies, or America), torn. i. page 479, in which part, 

 as well as in many others, he almost literally copies what was said by Dr. Cosme 

 Bueno in his Memoirs. 



n r z time 



