18 / 1060
Royal
Commentaries.
BooK
I.
a
•
and at len th he fo well fucceeded in his emerprize, that he
e–
lafied
dlonhberN,
,
Worldg with all its riches
upon
Spain'
anci
therefore defer–
fiowe
t
e
ev
'
.
"b d
'1 .
Ar
.
vedly
obtained
this Motto
to
be
mfcn
e on us
mes .
To
Cafiile ,
and to
Leon ,
The
New World wtU
given bJ
Colon.
In
this manner
the
:tew
World was
firfi:
difc?vered,
for
whichgreatnefs
Spain
is
beholding
-w
that little Village of
Helva,
which produced
fu.cha Son, as. gave
Colon
information of things not feen, or known before ; the
whichfecrecs,_ like
a
d
fon
he concealed till under aifuraoces of filence he
firll:
difclofed
ih~~~~ r~~h ~rfons
of autho:ity about
t~e
Catholick IGngs, as were. to be affi–
ft
·
d
ufef~l
to him
in
his ddign which
could
never have been laid, or chal–
k~dt:u~
the
art
of
Cofmography, 'or the
imagina~on
ofman,
h~d
not
Alonfo
de
Sanche~ gi~en
the
firfl:
light and conjelture
to
this difcovery; which
Colon
f?
r~a-
dil
·
d that
m·
7 8
days he made
his
Voyage to the
Ifie
of
Gua»atuimco,
y
improve ,
k .
p
ill
though he was detained fome days at
Gomera
to ta em rov
10ns.
.
C H A P.
II.
The derivation of the word
Peru,
and how the
Countrey
came
to be
Jo
called.
S
lnce we are to treat of the Countrey of
Peru,
it '
ill
be requifite to enquire,
how
it
came to be fo called,
in
regard the
Indi1tns
have no fuch word in their
language: to which end we mufi: know, That a certain Gentleman, Native of
Xere~
called
Barco
Nunne~,
having
in
the
year
15'13,
been
the
firft
Spaniard,
who
difco~ered
the Sea
of
Zur,
or the
Pacifick
Sea; in reward thereof the Kings of
Spain
honoured him with the title of Admiral of thofe eas, and with the go–
vernment of thofe Kingdoms and Countries which he !hould farther difcover and
conquer. During thofe few years he lived after thefe Honours (for his Son-in–
la\
Pedro AritU
de Avila
being Governour,
in
recompence of all
his fervices,
cue
off
his
head) his great
care
was to difcover, and know what tbat Countrey was
called,
which
fr-01n
Panama
runs all along the coafl: of the Sea of
Zr-1r;
to which
purpofe he built three or four Ve!fels, and employed them
in
feveral quaners to
make
their difcoveries ; every one of which did afterwards return widi relations
of great
tralts
of land running along that coaft : one of which Veifels
firetching .
farther than the others to the
very
Equinoillal
line,
and failing
by
the iliore, they
efpied an
Indian,
as he was fiiliing at the mouth of a River, of which there are
many, which
in
that Countrey fall into the Sea; fo foon as the
Spanj11rd1
faw
him,
they
~oded
four of their men with all privacy imaginable, fuch as could run and
fwim well, that
fo
he might not
be
able to efcape them either by land or water.
Having fo done, they pafied with their hip, as near as was poffible before the
Indian,
that
whilll:
he amu[ed himfelf with the fuangenefS of ilie objeC!, he might
more eafily be taken by the ambufh which was laid for him: the
Indian
behold–
ing fo unufoal a fight as a Ship
f
wimming with all her ails on the Sea, which he
had never before feen or heard of, his eyes were fo fixed , and his imagination
fo
taken
up with looking, and confideriog what thing that was, which offered
it
felf
to hi fight, that he was not fenfible of the fnare laid for him , untill he found
hirn[elf taken in the Armes of the
Spaniards,
who with great joy and [port brought
him o .their¥eifel; the poor man was
f<
amazed with the furprizal, and to fee
the
SpaniardJ
with Beard , and m a different habit to his, and
to
find himfc lf in
a
Ship,
a~d u~der
.Sails, that
it
is no
\~onder
if
he la?oured under the greaten:
·
confiemat1on
imagma e ; but the
Spaniards
ufing all kind means
to
treat nd ca–
refs him, he, in a ibort time, recovered hirnfelf from the dillra&ion of I · fear ·
and then they asked him
y
figns and words, what Countrey that was, and
ho~
it
was called
?
The
Indian
by their motion and gefl:ures knew that they asked hi
fome quefilon, but
could
not
underfiand 4vbat
they
demanded,
but anfwering
readily
2