Afur touching at several villages on the coast, they landed at
Tumbez, a place of some note, about three degrees south of the
tine, distinguished for its stately temple, and a palace of the Incas,
or sovereigns of the country. There the Spaniards feasted their
eyes with the first view of the opulence and civilization of the Peru-
vian empire. They beheld a country fully peopled and cultivated
with an appearance of regular industry ; the natives decently cloth-
ed, and possessed of ingenuity so far surpassing the other inhabi-
tants of the New World, as to have the use of tame and domestic
animals. But what chiefly attracted their notice, was such a show
of gold and silver not only in the ornaments of their persons and
temples, but in several vessels and utensils for common use, form-
ed of those precious metals, as left no room to doubt that it abound-
ed with profusion in the country. Pizarro and his companions now
seemed to have attained the completion of their mast sanguine
hopes, and fancied that all their wishes and dreams of rich do-
mainSf andinexhaustible treasures, would soon be realized.
