Le Condor est le meme oiseau que le Roc des Orientaux.  Buffon.  ’By the Peruvians,’ says Vega, ’he was antiently worshipped; and there were those who claimed their descent from him.’  In these degenerate days he still ranks above the Eagle.

NOTE a.

High-hung in forests to the casing snows.

A custom not peculiar to the Western Hemisphere.  The Tunguses of Siberia hang their dead on trees; ’parceque la terre ne se laisse point ouvrir.’  Recherches Philos. sur les Americ.  I. 140.

NOTE b.

_——­and, thro’ that dismal night,_

‘Aquella noche triste.’  The night, on which Cortes made his famous retreat from Mexico through the street of Tlacopan, still goes by the name of LA NOCHE TRISTE. HUMBOLDT.

NOTE c.

By his white plume reveal’d and buskins white,

It is said that Pizarro used to dress in this fashion; after Gonzalo, whom he had served under in Italy.

NOTE d.

’Twas MERION’S self, covering with dreadful shade.

                              Now one,
   Now other, as their shape serv’d best his end.

Undoubtedly, says Herrera, the Infernal Spirit assumed various shapes in that region of the world.

NOTE e.

Then, inly gliding, &c.

The original passage is here translated at full length.

   Then, inly gliding like a subtle flame,
   Thrice, with a cry that thrill’d the mortal frame,
   Call’d on the Spirit within.  Disdaining flight,
   Calmly she rose, collecting all her might. [Footnote]
   Dire was the dark encounter!  Long unquell’d,
   Her sacred seat, sovereign and pure, she held. 
   At length the great Foe binds her for his prize,
   And awful, as in death, the body lies! 
      Not long to slumber!  In an evil hour
   Inform’d and lifted by the unknown Power,
   It starts, it speaks’.  “We live, we breathe no more!” &c.

Many a modern reader will exclaim in the language of Pococurante, ‘Quelle triste extravagance!’ Let a great theologian of that day, a monk of the Augustine order, be consulted on the subject.  ’Corpus ille perimere vel jugulare potest; nec id modo, verum et animam ita urgere, et in angustum coarctare novit, ut in momento quoque illi excedendum sit.’

[Footnote:  —­magnum si pectore possit
    Excussisse deum.]

NOTE f.

The scum of Folly, and of Fraud the prey;

      Nudo nocchier, promettitor di regni!

By the Genoese and the Spaniards he was regarded as a man resolved on ‘a wild dedication of himself to unpath’d waters, undream’d shores;’ and the court of Portugal endeavoured to rob him of the glory of his enterprise, by secretly dispatching a vessel in the course which he had pointed out.  ‘Lorsqu’il avail promis un nouvel hemisphere,’ says Voltaire, ’on lui avait soutenu que cet hemisphere ne pouvait exister; et quand il l’eut decouvert, on pretendit qu’il avait ete connu depuis long-temps.’