This part of his work, resting, as it does, on the best authority, confirmed
in many instances by his own observation, is of unquestionable value,
and is written with an apparent respect for truth, that engages the
confidence of the reader. The concluding portion of the manuscript is
occupied with the civil history of the country. The reigns of the early
Incas, which lie beyond the sober province of history. he despatches
with commendable brevity. But on the three last reigns, and fortunately
of the greatest princes who occupied the Peruvian throne, he is more
diffuse. This was comparatively firm ground for the chronicler, for the
events were too recent to be obscured by the vulgar legends that gather
like moss round every incident of the older time. His account stops with
the Spanish invasion: for this story, Sarmiento felt, might be safely left to
his contemporaries who acted a part in it, but whose taste and education
had qualified them but indifferently for exploring the antiquities and
social institutions of the natives.
Sarmiento's work is composed in a simple, perspicuous style, without
that ambition of rhetorical display too common with his countrymen. He
writes with honest candor, and while he does ample justice to the merits
and capacity of the conquered races, be notices with indignation the
atrocities of the Spaniards and the demoralizing tendency of the
Conquest.
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