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saw a comet dart from the east side of the city towards the mountains of the _Antis_, so great and clear that it enlightened all places round with more splendor than a full moon at midnight. Its motion was directly downwards, its form was globular, and its dimensions as big as a large tower; and coming near the ground, it divided into several sparks and streams of fire; and was accompanied with a thunder so loud and near as struck many deaf with the clap, and ran from east to west; which when the Indians heard and saw, they all cried out with one voice, _Auca, Auca, Auca_, which signifies in their language, _tyrant, traitor, rebel_[44], and every thing that may be attributed to a violent and bloody traitor. This happened on the nineteenth of June 1553, when the feast of our Lord was celebrated; and this prognostication which the Indians made, was accomplished on the 13th of November in the same year, when Francisco Hernandez Giron began a rebellion, which we shall now relate[45]." [Footnote 44: In the language of Chili at least, _Auca_ signifies _free_, or a _freeman_; it is possible however that in an absolute government, the same term may signify a rebel, yet it is a singular stretch of interpretation to make it likewise signify a tyrant.--E.] [Footnote 45: This paragraph, within inverted commas, is given as a short specimen of the taste of Garcilasso, and the respectable talents of his translator, Sir Paul Rycant, in 1688. It gives an account of one of these singular meteors or fire balls, improperly termed a comet in the text, which some modern philosophers are pleased to derive from the moon, and to suppose that they are composed of ignited masses of iron alloyed with nickel. It were an affront to our readers to comment on the ridiculous pretended prognostication so gravely believed by Garcilasso Inca.--E.] SECTION IV. _Continuation of the Troubles in Peru, to the Viceroyalty of the Marquis de Cannete._ On the 13th of November 1553, a splendid wedding was celebrated at Cuzco, between Alonzo de Loyasa, one of the richest inhabitants of the city, and Donna Maria de Castilla, at which all the citizens and their wives attended in their best apparel. After dinner an entertainment was made in the street, in which horsemen threw balls of clay at each other, which I saw from the top of a wall opposite the house of Alonzo de Loyasa; and I remember to have seen Francisco Hernandez Giron sitting on a chair in
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