of the polish of a court, he had a soldierlike bearing, and the air of one accustomed to command. But, though not polished, there was no embarrassment or rusticity in his address, which, where it served his purpose, could be plausible and even in sinuating. The proof of it is the favourable impression made by him on presenting himself after his second expeditionstranger as he was to all its forms and usages-at the punctilious court of Castile. Unlike many of his countrymen, he had no passion for ostentatious dress, which he regarded as an incumbrance. The costume which he most affected on public occasions was a black cloak, with a white hat, and shoes of the same colour, the last, it is said, being in imitation of the great Captain, whose character he had early learned to admire in Italy, but to which his own certainly bore very faint resemblance. He was temperate in eating, drank sparingly, and generally rose an hour before dawn. He was punctual in attendance to business, and shrunk from no toil. He had, indeed, great powers of patient endurance. Like most of his nation, he was fond of play, and cared little for the quality of those with whom he played, though when his antagonist could not afford to lose he would allow himself it is said to be the loser, a mode of conferring an obligation much commended by a Castilian writer for its delicacy. Though avaricious, it was in order to spend, not to hoard. His ample treasures-more ample than those probably that ever before fell to the lot of an adventurer-were mostly dissipated in his enterprises, his architectural works, and schemes of public improvement, which, in a country where gold and silver might be said to have lost their value from their abundance, absorbed an incredible amount of money. While he regarded the whole country in a manner as his own, and distributed it freely among his captains, it is certain that the princely grant of a territory with twenty thousand vassals made to him by the crown was never carried into effect, nor did his heirs ever reap the benefit of it..... Though bold in action, and not easily turned from his purpose, Pizarro was slow in arriving at a decision. This gave him an appearance of irresolution foreign to his character. Perhaps the consciousness of this led him to adopt the custom of saying 'No' at first to applicants for favour, and afterwards at leisure to revise his judgment, and grant what seemed to him expedient. He took the opposite course from his comrade Almagro, who, it was observed, generally said Yes,' but too often failed to keep his promise. This was characteristic of the careless and easy

nature of the latter, governed by impulse rather than principle. It is hardly necessary to speak of the courage of a man pledged to such a career as that of Pizarro. Courage, indeed, was a chief quality among the Spanish adventurers, for danger was their element; but he possessed something higher than mere animal courage, in that constancy of purpose which was rooted too deeply in his nature to be shaken by the wildest storms of fortune. It was this inflexible constancy which formed the key to his character, and constituted the secret of his success. . . . . There is something oppressive to the imagination in this war against nature. In the struggle of man against man the spirits are raised by a contest conducted on equal terms; but in a war with the elements we feel that however bravely we may contend we can have no power to control. Nor are we cheered on by the prospect of glory in such a contest; for, in the capricious estimate of human glory, the silent endurance of privations, however painful, is little in comparison with the ostentatious trophies of victory. The laurel of the hero-alas for humanity that it should be so!-grows best on the battle-field .... But Pizarro's ruling motives, so far as they can be scanned by human judgment, were avarice and ambition. The good missionaries, indeed, followed in his train to scatter the seeds of spiritual truth, and the Spanish government directed its beneficent legislation to the conversion of the natives. But the moving power with Pizarro and his followers was the lust of gold. This was the real stimulus to their toils, the price of perfidy, the true guerdon of their victories. This gave a base and mercenary character to their enterprise; and when we contrast the ferocious cupidity of the conquerors with the mild and inoffensive manners of the conquered, our sympathies -the sympathies even of the Spaniardare necessarily thrown into the scale of the Indian. But as no picture is without its lights, we must not, in justice to Pizarro, dwell exclusively on the darker features of his portrait. There was no one of her sons to whom Spain was under larger obligations for extent of empire; for his band won for her the richest of the Indian jewels that once sparkled in her imperial diadem. When we contem. plate the perils he braved, the sufferings he patiently endured, the incredible obstacles he overcame, the magnificent results he effected with his single arm as it were, un aided by the government,-though neither a good nor a great man in the highest sense of that term,-it is impossible not to regard him as a very extraordinary one; nor can we fairly omit to notice, in ex

tenuation of his errors, the circumstances of his early life: for, like Almagro, he was the son of sin and sorrow, early cast upon the world to seek his fortunes as he might. In his young and tender age he was to take the impression of those into whose society he was thrown-and when was it the lot of the needy outcast to fall into that of the wise and the virtuous? His lot was cast among the licentious inmates of a camp, the school of rapine, whose only law was the sword, and who looked on the wretched Indian and his heritage

as their rightful spoil. Who does not shudder at the thought of what his own fate might have been, trained in such a school? The amount of crime does not necessarily show the criminality of the agent. History, indeed, is concerned with the former, that it may be recorded as a warning to mankind; but it is He alone who knoweth the heart, the strength of the temptation, and the means of resisting it, that can determine the measure of the guilt."

Almagro at the time of his death was probably not far from seventy years of age, but this is somewhat uncertain, for Almagro was a foundling, and his early history is lost in obscurity. He had many excellent qualities by nature, and his defects, which were not few, may reasonably be palliated by the circumstances of his situation. For what extenuation is not authorised by the position of a foundling -without parents, or early friends, or teachers to direct him-his little bark set adrift on the ocean of life to take its chance among the rude billows and breakers, without one friendly hand stretched forth to steer or to save it. The name of foundling comprehends an apology for much, very much, that is wrong in after life. He was a man of strong passions, and not too well used to control them, but he was neither vindictive nor habitually cruel. I have mentioned one atrocious outrage which he committed on the natives; but insensibility to the rights of the Indian he shared with many a better instructed Spaniard. Yet the Indians, after his conviction, bore testimony to his general humanity, by declaring that they had no such friend among the white men; indeed, far from being vindictive, he was placable, and easily yielded to others. The facility with which he yielded, the result of goodnatured credulity, made him too often the dupe of the crafty; and it shewed certainly a want of that selfreliance which belongs to great strength of character. Yet his facility of temper,

and the generosity of his nature, made him popular with his followers. No commander was ever more beloved by his soldiers. His generosity was often carried to prodigality. When he entered on the campaign of Chili he lent a hundred thousand gold ducats to the poor cavaliers to equip themselves, and afterwards gave them up the debt. He was profuse to ostentation; but his extravagance did no harm among the roving spirits of the camp, with whom prodigality is apt to gain more favour than a strict and wellregulated economy. He was a good soldier, careful and judicious in his plans, patient and intrepid in their execution. His body was covered with the scars of his battles, till the natural plainness of his person was converted almost into deformity. He must not be judged by his closing campaign when, depressed by disease, he yielded to the superior genius of his rival, but by his numerous expeditions, by land and by water, for the conquest of Peru and the remote Chili. Yet it may be doubted whether he possessed those uncommon qualities, either as a warrior or as a man, that, in ordinary circumstances, would have raised him to distinction. He was one of the three, or to speak more strictly of the two, associates who had the good fortune and the glory to make one of the most splendid discoveries in the western world. He shares largely in the credit of this with Pizarro; for, when he did not accompany that leader in his perilous expeditions, he contributed no less to their

success by his exertions in the colonies. Yet his connection with that chief can hardly be considered a fortunate circumstance in his career. A partnership between individuals for discovery and conquest is not likely to be very scrupulously observed, especially by men more accustomed to govern others than to govern themselves. If causes for discord do not arise before, they will be sure to spring up on division of the spoil. But this association was particularly ill-assorted. For the free, sanguine, and confiding temper of Almagro was no match for the cool and crafty policy of Pizarro; and he was invariably circumvented by his companion, whenever their respective interests came

into collision. Still the final ruin of Almagro may be fairly imputed to himself. He made two capital blunders. The first was his appeal to arms by the seizure of Cuzco. The determination of a boundary line was not to be settled by arms; it was a subject for arbitration, and if arbitrators could not be trusted, it should have been referred to the decision of the crown. But having once appealed to arms he should not then have resorted to negotiation-above all to negotiation with Pizarro. This was his second and greatest error. He had seen enough of Pizarro to know that he was not to be trusted; Almagro did trust him, and he paid for it with his life."

"Francisco de Carbajal was one of the most extraordinary characters of these dark and turbulent times, the more extraordinary from his great age, for at the period of his death he was in his 84th year, an age when the bodily powers and, fortunately, the passions are usually blunted, when, in the witty words of the French moralist, We flatter ourselves we are leaving our vices, whereas it is our vices that are leaving us.' But the fires of youth glowed fierce and unquenchable in the bosom of Carbajal. The date of his birth carries us back towards the middle of the fifteenth century, before the times of Ferdinand and Isabella. He was of obscure parentage, and born, as it was said, at Arevalo. For forty years he served in the Italian wars, under the most illustrious captains of the day, Gonsalvo de Córdova, Navarro, and the Colonnas. He was an ensign at the battle of Ravenna, witnessed the capture of Francis the First at Pavia, and followed the banner of the ill-starred Bourbon at the sack of Rome. He got no gold for his share of the booty on this occasion, but simply the papers of a notary's office, which Carbajal shrewdly thought would be worth gold to him, and so it proved, for the notary was fain to redeem them at a price which enabled the adventurer to cross the seas to Mexico, and seek his fortune in the New World. On the insurrection of the Peruvians he

was sent to the support of Francis Pizarro, and was rewarded by that chief with a grant of land in Cuzco. Here he remained for several years, busily employed in increasing his substance, for the love of lucre was a ruling passion in his bosom. On the arrival of Vaca de Castro we find him doing good service under the royal banner, and at the breaking out of the great rebellion under Gonzalo Pizarro he converted his property into gold, and prepared to return to Castille. He seemed to have a presentiment that to remain where he was would be fatal. But though he made every effort to leave Peru he was unsuccessful, for the viceroy had laid an embargo on the shipping. He remained in the country therefore, and took service, as we have seen, though reluctantly, under Pizarro. It was his destiny. The tumultuous life on which he now entered roused all the slumbering passions of his soul,* which lay there perhaps unconsciously to himself-cruelty, avarice, revenge. He found ample exercise for them in the war with his countrymen; for civil war is proverbially the most sanguinary and ferocious of all. The atrocities recorded of Carbajal in his new career, and the number of his victims, are scarcely credible. For the honour of humanity we may trust the accounts are greatly exaggerated; but that he should have given rise to them at

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all is sufficient to consign his name to infamy. He even took a diabolical pleasure, it is said, in amusing himself with the sufferings of his victims, and in the hour of execution would give utterance to frightful jests, that made them taste more keenly the bitterness of death. He had a sportive vein, if such it could be called, which he freely indulged on every occasion. Many of his sallies were preserved by the soldiery, but they are for the most part of a coarse, repulsive character, flowing from a mind familiar with the weak and wicked side of humanity, and distrusting every other. He had his jest for everything-for the misfortunes of others, and for his own. He looked on life as a farce, though he too often made it a tragedy. Carbajal must be allowed one virtue, that of fidelity to his party. This made him less tolerant of perfidy in others. He was never known to shew mercy to a renegade. This undeviating fidelity, though to a bad cause, may challenge something like a feeling of respect where fidelity was so rare. As a military man, Carbajal takes a high rank among the

soldiers of the New World. He was strict, even severe, in enforcing discipline, so that he was little loved by his followers. Whether he had the genius for military combinations requisite for conducting war on an extended scale may be doubted; but in the shifts and turns of guerilla warfare he was unrivalled. Prompt, active, and persevering, he was insensible to danger or fatigue, and after days spent in the saddle seemed to attach little value to the luxury of a bed. He knew familiarly every mountain pass, and such were the sagacity and resources displayed in his roving expeditions that he was vulgarly believed to be attended by a familiar.* With a character so extraordinary, with powers prolonged so far beyond the usual term of humanity, and passions so fierce in one tottering on the verge of the grave, it was not surprising that many fabulous stories should be eagerly circulated respecting him, and that Carbajal should be clothed with mysterious terrors as a sort of supernatural being-the demon of the Andes."

"Gonzalo Pizarro had reached only his forty-second year at the time of his death, being just half the space allotted to his follower Carbajal. He was the youngest of the remarkable family to whom Spain was indebted for the acquisition of Peru. He came over to the country with his brother Francisco, on the return of the latter from his visit to Castile. Gonzalo

was present in all the remarkable passages of the conquest. He witnessed the seizure of Atahuallpa, took an active part in the suppression of the insurrection of the Incas, and especially in the reduction of Charcas. He afterwards led the disastrous expedition to the Amazon, and finally headed the memorable rebellion which ended so fatally to himself. There are but few men whose lives abound in such wild and romantic adventure, and for the most part crowned with success. The space which he occupies in the page of history is altogether disproportioned to his talents. It may be in some measure ascribed to fortune, but still more to those showy qualities which form a sort of substitute for mental talent, and which secured his popularity with the vulgar. He

had a brilliant exterior; excelled in all martial exercises; rode well; fenced well; managed his lance to perfection; was a first-rate marksman with the arquebuse; and added the accomplishment of being an excellent draughtsman. He was bold and chivalrous even to temerity; courted adventure, and was always in the front of danger. He was a knight-errant in short in the most extravagant sense of the term; 'and, mounted on his favourite charger,' says one who had often seen him, 'made no more account of a squadron of Indians than of a swarm of flies.'t While thus, by his brilliant exploits and showy manners, he captivated the imaginations of his countrymen, he won their hearts no less by his soldier-like frankness, his trust in their fidelity-too often abused--and his liberal largesses; for Pizarro, though avaricious of the property of others, was, like the Roman conspirator, prodigal of This was his portrait in happier days, when his heart had not been corrupted by success; for that some change was wrought on him by his prosperity is well attested. His head was made giddy by his elevation; and it is proof of a want

his own.

of talent equal to his success that he knew not how to profit by it. Obeying the dictates of his own rash judgmeut, he rejected the warnings of his wisest counsellors, and relied with blind confidence on his destiny. Garcilasso imputes this to the malignant influence of the stars. But the superstitious chronicler might have better explained it by a common principle of human nature,-by the presumption nourished by success; the insanity, as the Roman, or rather Grecian, proverb calls it, with which the gods afflict man when they design to ruin him.* Gonzalo was without education, except such as he had picked up in the rough school of war. He had little even of that wisdom which springs from natural shrewdness and insight into character. In all

this he was inferior to his elder brothers, although he fully equalled them in ambition. Had he possessed a tithe of their sagacity, he would not have madly persisted in rebellion, after the coming of the president. Before this period he represented the people. Their interests and his were united. He had their support, for he was contending for the redress of their wrongs. When these were redressed by the government, there was nothing to contend for. From that time he was battling only for himself. The people had no part nor interest in the contest. Without a common sympathy to bind them together, was it strange that they should fall off from him, like leaves in winter, and leave him exposed, a bare and sapless trunk, to the fury of the tempest ? "

"Gasca was plain in person, and his countenance was far from comely; he was awkward and ill proportioned, for his limbs were too long for his body, so that when he rode, he appeared to be much shorter than he really was. Ilis dress was humble, his manners simple, and there was nothing imposing in his presence; but on a nearer intercourse there was a charm in his discourse that effaced every unfavourable impression produced by his exterior, and won the hearts of his hearers. The president's character may be thought to be sufficiently pourtrayed in the history already given of his life. It presented a combination of qualities which generally serve to neutralize each other, but which were mixed in such proportions in him as to give it additional strength. He was gentle, yet resolute, by nature intrepid, yet prefering to rely on the softer arts of policy. He was frugal in his personal expenditure, and economical in the public, yet caring nothing for riches on his own account, and never stinting his bounty when the public good required it. He was benevolent and

* See Euripidis Fragmenta,—

placable, yet could deal sternly with the impenitent offender; lowly in his deportment, yet with a full measure of that self-respect which springs from conscientious rectitude of purpose; modest and unpretending, yet not shrinking from the most difficult enterprizes; deferring greatly to others, yet in the last resort relying mainly on himself; moving with deliberation, patiently waiting his timebut when that came, bold, prompt, and decisive. Gasca was not a man of genius in the vulgar sense of that term. At least no one of his intellectual powers seems to have received an extraordinary development beyond what is found in others. He was not a great writer, nor a great orator, nor a great general. He did not affect to be either. He committed the care of his military matters to military men; of ecclesiastical,' to the clergy; and his civil and judicial concerns he reposed on the members of the Audience. He was not one of those little great men who aspire to do everything themselves, under the conviction that nothing can be done so well by others. But the president was a