y a military
expedition, seeking the conquest of the country, or moving with any
hostile intent whatever. De Soto had a conscience; Pizarro had none.
Whatever reproaches might arise in the mind of De Soto in reference to
the course he was pursuing, he silenced them by the very plausible
assumption that he was an ambassador from the king of Spain,
commissioned to make a friendly visit to the monarch of another
newly-discovered empire; that he was the messenger of peace seeking to
unite the two kingdoms in friendly relations with each other for their
mutual benefit. This was probably the real feeling of De Soto. The
expedition was commissioned by the king of Spain. The armed retinue
was only such as became the ambassadors of a great monarch. Such an
expedition was in every respect desirable. The fault--perhaps we ought
in candor to say the calamity--of De Soto was in allowing himself to
be attached to an expedition under a man so thoroughly reckless and
unprincipled as he knew Pizarro to have been. Perhaps he hoped to
control the actions of his ignorant and fanatic superior officer. It
is quite manifest that De Soto did exert a very powerful influence in
giving shape to the expedition.

An Indian courier was sent forward to Cuzco, one of the capitals of
the Peruvian monarch, with a friendly and almost an obsequious message
to the Inca, whose name was Attahuallapa. The courier bore the
communication that Pizarro was an ambassador commissioned by the king
of Spain to visit the king of Peru, and to kiss his hand in token of
peace and fraternity. He therefore solicited that protection in
passing through the country which every monarch is bound to render to
the representatives of a foreign and friendly power.

Pizarro, as it will be remembered, was a rough and illiterate soldier,
unable either to read or write. In this sagacious diplomatic
arrangement, we undoubtedly see the movement of De Soto's reflective
and cultivated mind. The expedition moved slowly along, awaiting the
return of the courier. He soon came back with a very indefinite
response, and with a present of two curiously carved stone cups, and
some perfumery. The guarded reply and the meagre present excited some
alarm in the Spanish camp. It was very evident that the expedition was
not to anticipate a very cordial reception at the Peruvian court.
Pizarro was much alarmed. He was quite confident that the Inca was
trying to lure them on to their ruin. Having called