o be drawn however from the conquered country.
Almagro and Luque were also provided for, but in a more modest way,
which proved the beginning of a long, bitter, and deadly feud between
Almagro and his chief. Nor did the instrument fail to make the usual
provision for the conversion to Christianity of the nations to be
subjugated and plundered.

In mustering his recruits Pizarro had the satisfaction of revisiting
his native town of Truxillo, where he had lived in degradation, and to
which he now returned a renowned discoverer and soldier, and a titled
magnate. There he found his three brothers, the Pizarros, all poor and
proud and eager for adventure; and a fourth brother, on his mother's
side. With these and other followers, hardly exceeding one hundred, he
sailed from Seville, in January, 1530; and a year later, namely, in
January, 1531, after a solemn consecration of his enterprise in the
cathedral of Panama, he put forth from that port with one hundred and
eighty men and twenty-seven horses, on his fourth, last, and finally
successful expedition, to overthrow a populous empire.

That empire lay in the bosom and on both sides of the mighty ranges of
the Andes, occupying thirty-seven degrees of the coast south of the
equator, and extending eastward far over the valleys of the Amazon and
its numerous tributaries. It was under the rule of the Incas, a
parental despotism, which spread an iron network of laws over millions
of subjects of different races and languages. Its mountain slopes,
table-lands, sea-coasts, and plains comprised every variety of climate
and almost every diversity of physical features. Its capital was
Cuzco, where dwelt the adored Incas; there also was the famous Temple
of the Sun, with its gorgeous decorations of gold and gems. Canals,
aqueducts, complete systems of irrigation for the rainless regions;
magnificent mountain roads, built to endure for centuries; fine
textile fabrics, utensils of clay and copper, vessels and ornaments of
silver and gold; bridges, fortresses, and edifices of a rude but massy
and symmetrical architecture, well adapted to the climate and the
needs of the inhabitants; armies, magistrates, courts of
justice,--such were some of the tokens of a wide semi-civilized
prosperity, which less than two hundred Spanish adventurers were
proceeding ruthlessly to destroy.

With incredible difficulties still to overcome, Pizarro had in his
favor a circumstance of immense importance. The