Note 1246 — Chapter IV · (continued 2)

Acosta was the chief source whence the civilized world of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, beyond the limits of Spain, derived a knowledge of Peruvian civilization. Purchas, in his Pilgrimage (ed. of 1623, lib. v. p. 869; vi. p. 931), quotes largely from the learned Jesuit, and an abstract of his work is given in Harris’s Voyages (lib. i. cap. xiii. pp. 751-799). He is much relied upon as an authority by Robertson, and is quoted 19 times in Prescott’s Conquest of Peru, thus taking the fourth place as an authority with regard to that work, since Garcilasso is quoted 89 times, Cieza de Leon 45, Ondegardo 41, Acosta 19.