AT the time when the news of the conquest of Mexico by Cortes, and the
report of its marvellous stores of treasure, were inflaming the minds of
the men of Spain with an ardent desire for fresh discoveries, there
happened to be living in the Spanish colony of Panama a man named
Francisco Pizarro, to whose lot it fell to discover and conquer the
great and flourishing empire of Peru. He was a distant kinsman of
Hernando Cortes, but had from his childhood been neglected and left to
make his living as best he might. He could neither read nor write, and
had chiefly been employed as a swineherd near the city of Truxillo,
where he was born. But as he grew older and heard the strange and
fascinating stories of adventure in the New World which were daily more
widely circulated, he took the first opportunity of escaping to Seville,
from which port he, with other Spanish adventurers, embarked to seek
their fortunes in the West, the town being at this time left almost
entirely to the women, so great was the tide of emigration.
Thenceforward he lived a stirring life. We hear of him in Hispaniola,
and serving as lieutenant in a colonising expedition under Alonzo de
Ojeda. After this he was associated with Vasco Nunez de Balboa in
establishing a settlement at Darien, and from Balboa he may first have
heard rumours of Peru itself, for it was to Balboa that an Indian chief
had said concerning some gold which had been collected from the natives:
'If this is what you prize so much that you are willing to leave your
homes and risk even life itself for it, I can tell you of a land where
they eat and drink out of golden vessels, and gold is as common as iron
with you.' Later, Pizarro was sent to traffic with the natives on the
Pacific side of the isthmus for gold and pearls, and presently from the
south came Andagoya, bringing accounts of the wealth and grandeur of
the countries which lay beyond, and also of the hardships and
difficulties endured by the few navigators who had sailed in that
direction. Thus the southern expeditions became a common subject of talk
among the colonists of Panama.
Pizarro does not at first seem to have shown any special interest in the
matter, nor was he rich enough to do anything without assistance; but
there were two people in the colony who were to help him. One of them
was a soldier of fortune named Diego Almagro, an older man than Pizarro,
who in his early life had been equally neglected; the other was a
Spanish ecclesiastic, Hernando de Luque, a man of great prudence and
worldly wisdom, who had, moreover, control of the necessary funds.
Between these three, then, a compact was made, most of the money being
supplied by De Luque, Pizarro taking command of the expedition, and
Almagro undertaking the equipment of the ships. Only about a hundred men
could be persuaded to join the explorers, and those but the idle
hangers-on in the colony, who were eager to do anything to mend their
fortunes. Everything being ready, Pizarro set sail with these in the
larger of the two ships, in the month of November 1524, leaving Almagro
to follow as soon as the second vessel could be fitted out. With such
slender means did Pizarro begin his attack on a great people, and invade
the mysterious empire of the Children of the Sun.