ave served the King,"
murmured the dying man, "he would not have given me over in my gray
hairs. But this is my due reward for my pains and study, not regarding
my service to God, but only my duty to my Prince."

PIZARRO CONQUERS PERU

A.D. 1532

HERNANDO PIZARRO WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT

Before Europeans visited Peru, a highly developed
civilization existed there under the native Indian empire of
the Incas, as the chiefs were called who ruled from the
thirteenth to the sixteenth century. These sovereigns
constituted a hereditary aristocratic order, and had long
been the masters of prodigious wealth taken from the gold
and silver mines of the country. It was the rich treasure
which they expected to find there that first led the
Spaniards to look for conquests in that quarter of the
world.

When the "South Sea," as the Spaniards called the Pacific
Ocean, had been discovered by Balboa, and the first
conquests on the mainland secured, another Spanish soldier,
Francisco Pizarro, who had accompanied Balboa, settled in
the new city of Panama. While living there in repose, he
longed to perform further and greater services for the
Spanish sovereign. He therefore obtained permission from the
colonial governor to explore the Pacific coast toward the
south. After an unsuccessful voyage in 1524-1526, he set out
again in the latter year, and sailed for Peru, reaching that
country through many hardships, the surmounting of which
places him fairly among the great discoverers.

Having collected much information concerning the empire of
the Incas, Pizarro went to Spain and received authority to
conquer Peru. Returning to Panama, he sailed from there in
December, 1531, with three ships, one hundred eighty-three
men, and thirty-seven horses. He first landed at the island
of Puna, where he was joined by Hernando de Soto, and then,
crossing to Tumbez, marched inland and reached Cajamarca,
the city of the Incas, in November, 1532.

The circumstantial account of what followed, written by
Hernando Pizarro, half-brother and companion of Francisco,
is fitly supplemented by the narrative of Prescott, whose
story of the last of the Incas is so widely known.

HERNANDO PIZARRO

_To the Magnificent Lords, the Judges of the Royal Audience of his
Majesty, who resid