Excerpt from Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 1: Part II It is necessary, however, to bear in mind that the empire of the Incas, in its final development, was formed of several nations which had, during long periods, worked out their destinies apart from each other; and that one, at least, appears to have been entirely distinct from the Incas in race and language.1 These facts must be carefully borne in mind in pursuing inquiries relating to the history of Inca civilization. It is also essential that the nature and value of the evidence on which conclusions must be based should be understood and carefully weighed. This evidence is of several kinds. Besides the testimony of Spanish writers who witnessed the conquest of Peru, or who lived a generation afterwards, there is the evidence derived from a study of the characteristics of descendants of the Inca peo ple, of their languages and literature, and of their architectural and other remains. These various kinds of evidence must be compared, their respec tive values must be considered, and thus alone, in our time, can the nearest approximation to the truth be reached. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.