nd listened while a
native described a mighty potentate, many days to the south, who
reigned over the mountains and the sea, who was rich in gold, and who
possessed a four-footed beast of burden, the only one yet encountered,
which was taken at first for a camel. He waited many years for his
opportunity. Then, with 168 armed men, and with aid from an associate
who risked his money in the business, he started for the Andes and the
civilised and prosperous monarchy in the clouds, which he had heard of
when he was the lieutenant of Balboa. The example of Cortez, the
fundamental fact of American history, had shown what could be done by
getting hold of the king, and by taking advantage of internal
dissension. How much could be accomplished by treachery and
unflinching vigour Pizarro knew without a teacher. Whilst he
established his power in the highlands under the equator, Almagro
occupied the coast in the temperate zone, 1000 miles farther.
Together they had conquered the Pacific. Then, as no man had the
ascendency of Cortez, the time that succeeded the occupation was
disturbed by internal conflict, in which both the conquerors perished.
They had done even more for the Spanish empire than their greater
rival. There were 4,600,000 ducats in the treasury of the Inca, and
he filled his prison with gold as high as he could reach for the
ransom which did not save his life. The mines were soon in working
order; and, as the expanse of fertile soil was 3000 miles long, it was
clear that Peru, added to Mexico, constituted an important factor in
European finance.

As time carried away the tumult of conquest, and the evil generation
that achieved it, Spanish America became the seat of such abundance
and profusion as was not found in any European capital; and the
natives, instructed and regulated by the missionaries, were the object
of an elaborate protective legislation, which gave reason for
attachment to the mother country. The prodigality of nature was too
much for tropical society, and it accomplished nothing of its own for
the mind of man. It influenced the position of classes in Europe by
making property obtained from afar, in portable shape, predominate
over property at home. Released from the retarding pressure of
accumulated years, it developed towards revolution; and all the
colonies founded by the Conquistadors on the continent of America
became Republics. These events shifted the centre of political
gravity f