EXPLORERS IN SOUTH AMERICA
The success of Cortes and his brilliant conquest of Mexico gave a new
impulse to discovery in the New World. The spirit of exploration
dominated every adventurous young Spaniard, and among those living
in the West Indies there were many ready to give up all for the golden
countries in the West, rumours of which were always reaching their
ears.
No sooner had these rich lands been realised than the news of Magellan's
great voyage revealed the breadth of the ocean between America and
Asia, and destroyed for ever the idea that the Spice Islands were near.
Spanish enterprise, therefore, lay in the same direction as heretofore,
and we must relate the story of how Pizarro discovered Peru for the
King of Spain. He had accompanied Balboa to Darien, and had with him
gazed out on to the unknown waters of the Pacific Ocean below. With
Balboa after crossing the isthmus of Darien he had reached Panama on
the South Sea, where he heard of a great nation far to the south. Like
Mexico, it was spoken of as highly civilised and rich in mines of gold
and silver. Many an explorer would have started off straightway for
this new country, but there was a vast tract of dark forest and tangled
underwood between Panama and Peru, which had damped the ardour of even
the most ardent of Spanish explorers.
But Pizarro was a man of courage and dauntless resolution, and he was
ready to do and dare the impossible. He made a bad start. A single
ship with some hundred men aboard left Panama under the command of
Pizarro in 1526. He was ignorant of southern navigation, the Indians
along the shore were hostile, his men died one by one, the rich land
of Peru was more distant than they had thought, and, having at length
reached the island of Gallo near the Equator, they awaited
reinforcements from Panama. Great, then, was the disappointment of
Pizarro when only one ship arrived and no soldiers. News of hardships
and privations had spread through Panama, and none would volunteer
to explore Peru. By this time the handful of wretched men who had
remained with Pizarro, living on crabs picked up on the shore, begged
to be taken home--they could endure no longer. Then came one of those
tremendous moments that lifts the born leader of men above his fellows.
Drawing his sword, Pizarro traced a line on the sand from east to west.
"Friends," he cried, turning to the south, "on that side are toil,
hunger, nakedness, the drenching storm, desertion, and death, and on
this side ease and pleasure. There lies Peru with its riches, here
Panama and its poverty. For my part, I go south."
So saying, he stepped across the line. Twelve stout-hearted men
followed him. The rest turned wearily homewards. The reduced but
resolute little party then sailed south, and a voyage of two days
brought them within sight of the long-sought land of Peru.
Communication with the natives assured them that here was wealth and
fortune to be made, and they hurried back to Panama, whence Pizarro
sailed for Spain, for permission to conquer the empire of Peru. It
is interesting to find Cortes contributing some of his immense wealth
from Mexico towards this new quest.
In February 1531 three small ships with one hundred and eighty soldiers
and thirty-six horses sailed south under Pizarro. It was not till the
autumn of 1532 that he was ready to start on the great march to the
interior. A city called Cuzco was the capital--the Holy City with its
great Temple of the Sun, the most magnificent building in the New World,
had never yet been seen by Europeans. But the residence of the King
was at Caxamalea, and this was the goal of the Spaniards for the
present.
Already the news was spreading through the land that "white and bearded
strangers were coming up from the sea, clad in shining panoply, riding
upon unearthly monsters, and wielding deadly thunderbolts."
[Illustration: PIZARRO. From the portrait at Cuzco.]
Pizarro's march to the heart of Peru with a mere handful of men was
not unlike that of Cortes' expedition to Mexico. Both coveted the rich
empire of unknown monarchs and dared all--to possess. Between Pizarro
and his goal lay the stupendous mountain range of the Andes or South
American Cordilleras, rock piled upon rock, their crests of
everlasting snow glittering high in the heavens. Across these and over
narrow mountain passes the troops had now to pass. So steep were the
sides that the horsemen had to dismount and scramble up, leading their
horses as best they might. Frightful chasms yawned below them,
terrific peaks rose above, and at any moment they might be utterly
destroyed by bodies of Peruvians in overwhelming numbers. It was
bitterly cold as they mounted higher and higher up the dreary heights,
till at last they reached the crest. Then began the
descent--precipitous and dangerous--until after seven days of this
the valley of Caxamalea unrolled before their delighted eyes, and the
little ancient city with its white houses lay glittering in the sun.
But dismay filled the stoutest heart when, spread out below for the
space of several miles, tents as thick as snowflakes covered the ground.
It was the Peruvian army. And it was too late to turn back. "So, with
as bold a countenance as we could, we prepared for our entrance into
Caxamalea."
The Peruvians must already have seen the cavalcade of Spaniards, as
with banners streaming and armour glistening in the rays of the evening
sun Pizarro led them towards the city. As they drew near, the King,
Atahualpa, covered with plumes of feathers and ornaments of gold and
silver blazing in the sun, was carried forth on a throne followed by
thirty thousand men to meet the strangers. It seemed to the Spanish
leader that only one course was open. He must seize the person of this
great ruler at once. He waved his white scarf. Immediately the cavalry
charged and a terrible fight took place around the person of the ruler
of Peru until he was captured and taken prisoner. Atahualpa tried to
regain his liberty by the offer of gold, for he had discovered--amid
all their outward show of religious zeal--a greed for wealth among
these strange white men from over the stormy seas. He suggested that
he should fill with gold the room in which he was confined as high
as he could reach. Standing on tiptoe, he marked the wall with his
hand. Pizarro accepted the offer, and the Spaniards greedily watched
the arrival of their treasure from the roofs of palace and temple.
They gained a sum of something like three million sterling and then
put the King to death. Pizarro was the conqueror of Peru, and he had
no difficulty in controlling the awestruck Peruvians, who regarded
the relentless Spaniards as supernatural--the Children of the Sun
indeed.
[Illustration: PERU AND SOUTH AMERICA. From the Map of the World of
1544, usually ascribed to Sebastian Cabot. At the top is shown the
river Amazon, discovered by Orellana in 1541.]
A year later these Children of the Sun entered the old town of
Cuzco--the capital of this rich empire--where they found a city of
treasure surpassing all expectation. Meanwhile Almagro, one of the
most prominent among the Spanish explorers, had been granted a couple
of hundred miles along the coast of Chili, which country he now
penetrated; but the cold was so intense that men and horses were frozen
to death, while the Chilians, clad in skins, were difficult to subdue.
Almagro decided that Cuzco belonged to him, and miserable disputes
followed between him and Pizarro, ending in the tragic end of the
veteran explorer, Almagro.
As the shiploads of gold reached the shores of Spain, more and more
adventurers flocked over to the New World. They swarmed into "Golden
Castile," about the city of Panama, and journeyed into the interior
of the yet new and unknown world. There are terrible stories of their
greed and cruelty to the native Indians. One story says that the Indians
caught some of these Spaniards, tied their hands and feet together,
threw them on the ground, and poured liquid gold into their mouths,
crying, "Eat, eat gold, Christian!"
Amongst other adventurers into South America at this time was Orellana,
who crossed the continent from ocean to ocean. He had accompanied one
of Pizarro's brothers into the land of the cinnamon forests, and with
him had crossed the Andes in search of another golden kingdom beyond
Quito. The expedition under Pizarro, consisting of some three hundred
and fifty Spaniards, half of whom were horsemen, and four thousand
Indians, set forward in the year 1540 to penetrate to the remote regions
in the Hinterland, on the far side of the Andes. Their sufferings were
intense. Violent thunderstorms and earthquakes terrified man and
beast; the earth opened and swallowed up five hundred houses; rain
fell in such torrents as to flood the land and cut off all communication
between the explorers and cultivated regions; while crossing the lofty
ridge of the Andes the cold was so intense that numbers of the party
were literally frozen to death. At length they reached the land of
the cinnamon trees, and, still pushing on, came to a river which must
be crossed to reach the land of gold. They had finished their provisions,
and had nothing to subsist on now save the wild fruit of the country.
After following the course of the river for some way, Pizarro decided
to build a little vessel to search for food along the river. All set
to work, Pizarro and Orellana, one of his chief captains, working as
hard as the men. They set up a forge for making nails, and burnt charcoal
with endless trouble owing to the heavy rains which prevented the
tinder from taking fire. They made nails from the shoes of the horses
which had been killed to feed the sick. For tar they used the resin
from the trees, for oakum they used blankets and old shirts. Then they
launched the little home-made boat, thinking their troubles would be
at an end. For some four hundred miles they followed the course of
the river, but the supply of roots and berries grew scarcer and men
perished daily from starvation. So Pizarro ordered Orellana to go
quickly down the river with fifty men to some inhabited land of which
they had heard, to fill the boat with provisions, and return.
Off started Orellana down the river, but no villages or cultivated
lands appeared; nothing was to be seen save flooded plains and gloomy,
impenetrable forests. The river turned out to be a tributary of a much
larger river. It was, indeed, the great river Amazon. Orellana now
decided to go on down this great river and to desert Pizarro. True,
his men were utterly weary, the current was too strong for them to
row against, and they had no food to bring to their unhappy companions.
There was likewise the possibility of reaching the kingdom of gold
for which they were searching. There were some among his party who
objected strongly to the course proposed by Orellana, to whom he
responded by landing them on the edge of the dense forest and there
leaving them to perish of hunger.
It was the last day of 1540 that, having eaten their shoes and saddles
boiled with a few wild herbs, they set out to reach the kingdom of
gold. It was truly one of the greatest adventures of the age, and
historic, for here we get the word El Dorado, used for the first time
in the history of discovery--the legendary land of gold which was never
found, but which attracted all the Elizabethan sailors to this
romantic country. It would take too long to tell how they had to fight
Indian tribes in their progress down the fast-flowing river, how they
had to build a new boat, making bellows of their leather buskins and
manufacturing two thousand nails in twenty days, how they found women
on the banks of the river fighting as valiantly as men, and named the
new country the Amazon land, and how at long last, after incredible
hardship, they reached the sea in August 1541. They had navigated some
two thousand miles. They now made their rigging and ropes of grass
and sails of blankets, and so sailed out into the open sea, reaching
one of the West India islands a few days later.
And the deserted Pizarro? Tired of waiting for Orellana, he made his
way sorrowfully home, arriving after two years' absence in Peru, with
eighty men left out of four thousand three hundred and fifty, all the
rest having perished in the disastrous expedition. And so we must leave
the Spanish conquerors for the present, still exploring, still
conquering, in these parts, ever adding glory and riches to Spain.
Indeed, Spain and Portugal, as we have seen, entirely monopolise the
horizon of geographical discovery till the middle of the sixteenth
century, when other nations enter the arena.
[Illustration: PERUVIAN WARRIORS OF THE INCA PERIOD. From an ancient
Peruvian painting.]