Full name: Last of the Incas: A Romance of the Pampas

Author: Gustave Aimard Year: 1875 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Free books Purchase/reserch links: Amazon Project Gutenberg Goodreads ISBNs: 9781522703679 1522703675

Patagonia is as little known at the present day as it was when Juan Diaz de Solis and Vicente Yanez Pinzon landed there in 1508, sixteen years after the discovery of the New World. The earliest navigators, whether involuntarily or not, threw over this country a mysterious veil, which science and frequent relations have not yet entirely removed. The celebrated Magalaes (Magellan) and his historian, the Chevalier Pigafetta, who touched at these coasts in 1520, were the first to invent these Patagonian giants so tall that Europeans scarce reached their girdle, who were upwards of nine feet high, and resembled Cyclops. These fables, like all fables, have been accepted as truths, and in the last century became the theme of a very lively dispute among learned men. Hence the name of Patagonians (great feet) was given to the inhabitants of this country, which extends from the western watershed of the Andes to the Atlantic Ocean.