ident of gathering, from the decorations of her palaces
and her temples, abounding wealth. Bitter was their disappointment.
The Peruvians, conscious of their probable inability to resist the
invaders, had generally abandoned the city, carrying with them, far
away into the mountains, all their treasures.

The Spaniards, who had entered the city with hideous yells of triumph,
being thus frustrated in the main object of their expedition, found,
by inquiry, that at the distance of several leagues easterly from the
sea-coast, among the pleasant valleys of the mountains, there were
populous cities, where abundance of booty might be found.

The whole number of Spaniards, then invading Peru, did not exceed two
hundred and fifty. The Peruvians were daily becoming more deeply
exasperated. With such a number of men, and no fortified base to fall
back upon, Pizarro did not deem it safe to enter upon a plundering
tour into the interior. Keeping therefore about one hundred and
thirty men with him, and strongly fortifying himself at Tumbez, he
sent De Soto, at the head of eighty men, sixty of whom were mounted,
back into the mountains, to search for gold, and to report respecting
the condition of the country, in preparation for future expeditions.

The bad fame of Pizarro was spreading far and wide. And though De Soto
enjoined it strictly upon his men, not to be guilty of any act of
injustice, still he was an invading Spaniard, and the Peruvians
regarded them all as the shepherd regards the wolf. De Soto had passed
but a few leagues from the seashore, ere he entered upon the hilly
country. As he was ascending one of the gentle eminences, a band of
two thousand Indians, who had met there to arrest his progress, rushed
down upon him. His sixty horsemen instantly formed in column and
impetuously charged into their crowded ranks. These Peruvians had
never seen a horse before. Their arrows glanced harmless from the
impenetrable armor, and they were mercilessly cut down and trampled
beneath iron hoofs. The Spaniards galloped through and through their
ranks, strewing the ground with the dead. The carnage was of short
duration. The panic-stricken Peruvians fled wherever there was a
possibility of escape. The trumpets of the conquerors pealed forth
their triumphant strains. The silken banners waved proudly in the
breeze, and the victors exultingly continued their march through one
of the defiles of the mountains.

Whatever excuses De Soto