him into his new existence. In this wonderful
monarchy each successive Inca seems to have been content with the policy
of his father, to have carried out his schemes and continued his
enterprises, so that the State moved steadily forward, as if under one
hand, in its great career of civilisation and conquest.

PIZARRO'S EXPEDITION

This, then, was the country which Pizarro with a mere handful of
followers had set out to discover and subdue. He had sailed at a most
unfavourable time of year, for it was the rainy season, and the coast
was swept by violent tempests. He steered first for the Puerto de Pinas,
a headland which marked the limit of Andagoya's voyage. Passing this,
Pizarro sailed up a little river and came to anchor, and then landed
with his whole force to explore the country; but after most toilful
wanderings in dismal swamps and steaming forests they were forced to
return exhausted and half-starved to their vessel, and proceed again on
their voyage to the southward. Now they met with a succession of
terrific storms, their frail ship leaked, and their stock of food and
water was nearly gone, two ears of Indian corn a day being all that
could be allowed to each man. In this strait they were glad to turn back
and anchor once more a few leagues from their first halting-place. But
they soon found that they had gained very little; neither bird nor beast
was to be seen in the forest, and they could not live upon the few
unwholesome berries which were all the woods afforded. Pizarro felt that
to give up at this juncture would be utter ruin. So to pacify his
complaining followers he sent an officer back in the ship to the Isle of
Pearls, which was only a few leagues from Panama, to lay in a fresh
stock of provisions, while he himself with half the company made a
further attempt to explore the country. For some time their efforts were
vain; more than twenty men died from unwholesome food and the wretched
climate, but at last they spied a distant opening in the woods, and
Pizarro with a small party succeeded in reaching the clearing beyond it,
where stood a small Indian village. The Spaniards rushed eagerly forward
and seized upon such poor stores of food as the huts contained, while
the astonished natives fled to the woods; but finding presently that no
violence was offered to them they came back, and conversed with Pizarro
as well as they could by signs. It was cheering to the adventurers to
hear that these Indians