308 



TOPOGRAPHY. 



time by the rugged tracks of the Cordillera, escorted by a few 

 Indians, and with a small band of followers under his com- 

 mand, at length stopped at the valley which has still con- 

 tinued to bear his name, and which is the subje6l of the pre- 

 sent details. Its peaceable inhabitants, who were strangers to 

 the yoke of the domination of the Yncas, and unacquainted 

 with the tragedies that were a6ling in the western part of 

 this continent, received their guests with that awful respe6l 

 with which the Indian of those times viewed the European, 

 the superiority of whose powers excited his surprize and ad- 

 miration. Francisco Tarija, charmed by the mildness of the 

 climate, by the fertility of the soil, and still more by the do- 

 cility of the happy natives, came to a resojution not to pro- 

 ceed further. He settled among them, and laid the founda- 

 tion of a small colony, agreeably to the plan of those which 

 had been established in other parts of subjugated America. 



As those who accompanied him were too few in number to 

 afford him an effe6lual support, and as he could not expe6t 

 any succour from the sea-coast, on account both of the dis- 

 tance and of the disturbances which prevailed there, he did 

 not undertake any expedition worthy of being transmitted to 

 posterity. Nothing more is, at least, known respe6ling him ; 

 and even this short sketch of his arrival in the valley, was de- 

 posited, in a loose way, in various papers belonging to the 

 archives of the chapter of San Bernardo de Tarija. These do- 

 cuments were taken possession of by different notaries who 

 filled that employment, and distributed throughout the king- 

 dom. Several of them are now in the possession of a virtuoso 

 belonging to the city of Piuro, who has had the goodness to 

 transmit us a copy of them. 



It 



