almost invariably rewards the industrious Canadian farmer. The rich fields, the well-fed cattle, the comfortable farm-houses, all tell of prosperity and contentment.

The fisheries of the Dominion form one of its valuable industries. The eastern coasts are resorted to by myriads of fishes, most prominent among which is the cod-fish, whose preference for low temperatures restrains its farther progress southward. Sixty thousand men and twenty-five thousand boats find profitable occupation in reaping this abundant harvest. A Minister of Fisheries watches over this great industry. Seven national institutions devote themselves to the culture of fish, especially of the salmon, and prosecute experiments in regard to the introduction of new varieties. The Mercantile Navy of the Dominion is larger than that of France. It comprises seven thousand ships, of the aggregate_tonnage of one million and a quarter; while the tonnage of Great Britain is six million. Canada has invested in her shipping a capital of seven and a half million sterling. She uses the timber of her forests in building ships for herself and for other countries. The annual product of her building-yards is considerably over a million sterling.

Britain.

The burden laid by taxation upon the Canadians is not oppressive. Taxation is raised almost entirely in the form of custom and excise duties, and amounts to four million sterling. This is an average rate of one pound for each of the population; not differing appreciably from the rate of taxation in the United States, but being considerably less than one-half of that which now prevails in Great Canada trusts for her defence against foreign enemies to her militia and volunteers, of whom she has nominally a large force. But only a handful of these are annually called out for a few days of drill, and the Dominion spends no more than two hundred thousand pounds upon her military preparations. Her fleet is equally modest, and consists of a few small steamers which serve on the lakes and rivers, and mount in all about twenty guns.

Besides the outlays incurred in carrying on the ordinary business of Government, large sums, raised by loan, are annually expended on public works. Navigation on the great rivers of Canada is in terrupted by numerous rapids and falls. Unless these obstructions be overcome, the magnificent water-way with which Canada is endowed will be of imperfect usefulness. At many points on the rivers and lakes canals have been constructed. The formidable impediment which the great Fall of Niagara offers to navigation is surmounted by the Welland Canal, twenty-seven miles in length, and on which, with its branches, two and a half million sterling have been expended. Much care is bestowed, too, upon the deepening of rivers, and the removal of rocks and other obstructions to navigation. The vast distances of Canada render railways indispensable to her development. The Canadian Government and people have duly appreciated this necessity. They have already constructed seven thousand miles of railway, and are proceeding rapidly with farther extension. The cost of railways already made amounts to eighty million sterling, of which Government has provided onefourth. Very soon Canada will have a length of railway equal to one-half that of Great Britain. But the disposition to travel has not kept pace with the increased facilities which have been provided. The average number of journeys performed annually by each Englishman is seventeen, while the Canadian average is not quite two. There still remain in the various provinces of the Dominion about ninety thousand Indians to represent the races who possessed the continent when the white man found it. Two-thirds of these are in the unpeopled wastes of Manitoba and British Columbia; the remainder are settled in the old provinces. The Indian policy of Canada has been from the beginning just and kind, and it has borne appropriate fruits. The Governments of the United States have signally failed in their management of their Indian population. Faith has not been kept with the savages. Treaties have again and again been made by the Government and violated by the people. Lands have been assigned to the Indians, and forcibly taken from them so soon as possession was desired by any considerable number of white men. Large grants of food and clothing have been given by the Government, and shamelessly intercepted by dishonest traders. Out of transactions such as these have sprung bitter hatreds, ruthless massacres, inflicted now by the red man, now by the white, and a state of feeling under which a Western American will, on slight provocation, shoot down an Indian with as little remorse as he would slay a stag. Canada has dealt in perfect fairness with her Indians. She has recognized always the right of the original occupants of the land. She has fulfilled with inflexible faith every treaty into which she has entered. The lands allotted to the Indians have been secured to them as effectively as those of the white settler, or have been acquired from them by fair process of sale and purchase. The Indians have requited with constant loyalty the Government which has treated them with justice. While the French ruled Canada there was perpetual strife with the Indians, as there is to-day in the United States. Canada under the British has never been disturbed by an

Indian war.

The Indians of the older provinces have adopted settled habits

and betaken themselves to agriculture. In Ontario they are steadily increasing in numbers and intelligence. Drunkenness diminishes education is eagerly sought; hunting gives place to farming; the de scendants of the barbarous Iroquois have been transformed into industrious and prosperous citizens. In Quebec there is also progress, but it is less rapid, and the old drunken habits of the people have not yielded so completely to the influences which surround them. The Indians of British Columbia are still very drunken and debased, and their numbers diminish rapidly. In Manitoba and the whok North-west the condition of the Indians is very hopeful. Drunkenness is almost unknown; crime is very rare; the demand for schools and for persons who can teach how to build houses and till the soil is universal and urgent. The buffalo has been the support of the North-western Indian. Its flesh was his food, its skin was his cloth ing, the harness of his horse, the property by whose sale all his re maining wants were supplied. The innumerable multitudes of buffalo which frequented the plains maintained in the Indian camp a rude affluence. But the buffalo gives place before advancing civilization, and the Indians in alarm hasten to find new means of subsistence.

The problem which savage occupants present to the civilized men who settle on their lands has been solved in Canada by the simple but rare device of friendly and perfectly fair dealing. The red mea of Canada live contentedly under the rule of the strangers, and prove that they are able to uphold themselves by the white man's industries. They adopt his language, often to the disuse of his own, his dress, his customs, his religion. Not only do the two races live in concord; their blood has been largely mixed. The native race is probably doomed to disappear, but this will not be the result of violence or even of neglect. The history of the Indian race in Canada will close with its peaceful absorption by the European races which possess the continent.

Thirty years ago the Canadians, borrowing largely from their neighbors of the United States, perfected their common-school system. Schools adequate to the wants of the population are provided. A Board chosen by the people conducts the school business of the district. The costs are defrayed by a local tax, supplemented by a grant from the treasury of the province. In general, no fees are charged; primary education is absolutely free. The French Canadians manifest less anxiety for education than their British neighbors, and have not yet emerged from the ignorance which they brought with them from Europe, and in which they were suffered for generations to remain. In Toronto and the maritime provinces the means of education are ample, and are very generally taken advantage of by the colonists.

A noble heritage has been bestowed upon the Canadian people. Treasures of the sea and of the soil, of forest and of mine, are theirs in lavish abundance. Their climate, stern but also kindly, favors the growth of physical and mental energy. They enjoy freedom in its utmost completeness. Their peaceable surroundings exempt them from the blight of war and the evils of costly defensive preparation. For generations these inestimable advantages were in large measure neutralized by the enfeebling rivalries which divided the provinces. But internal dissension has been silenced by confedera tion, and Canada has begun to consolidate into a nation. Differences of religion and of race still hold a place among the forces which are shaping out her future, but the antipathies which they once inspired have almost passed away. The distinctions of Catholic and Protestant, Englishman and Frenchman, are being merged in the common designation of Canadian, which all are proud to bear. The welfare of Canada, her greatness in the years of the future, are assured not merely by the vastness of her material resources, but still more by the spirit which animates her people. The destiny toward which the Canadian people are hastening is fittingly indicated by the eloquent words of one of the ablest of their Governor-generals. "However captivating," said Lord Dufferin, "may be the sights of beauty prepared by the hands of Nature, they are infinitely enhanced by the contemplation of all that man is doing to turn to their best advantage the gifts thus placed within his reach. In every direction you see human industry and human energy digging deep the foundations, spreading out the lines, and marking the inviolable boundaries upon and within which one of the most intelligent and happiest offsets of the English race is destined to develop into a proud and great nation. The very atmosphere seems impregnated with the exhilarating spirit of enterprise, contentment, and hope. The sights and sounds which caressed the senses of the Trojan wanderer in Dido's Carthage' are repeated and multiplied in a thousand different localities in Canada, where flourishing cities, towns, and villages are rising in every direction with the rapidity of a fairy tale. And better still, pari passu with the development of these material evidences of wealth and happiness is to be observed the growth of political wisdom, experience, and ability, perfectly capable of coping with the difficult problems which are presented in a country where new conditions, foreign to European experience, and complications arising out of ethnological and geographical circumstances, are constantly requiring the application of a statesmanship of the highest order."

the Spaniards loved, and vainly begged them to forbear from coming to his capital. Fifteen miles from Tlascala stood the city of Cholula, which Cortes now received an invitation to visit. Cortes found Cholula "a more beautiful city than any in Spain," lying in a well-tilled plain, with many lofty towers, and with a dense population. Montezuma had enticed the Spaniards hither that he might destroy them, and to that end he had prepared an ambuscade of twenty thousand Mexican troops. But Cortes detected the plot, and having drawn a large assemblage of the chiefs and their followers into the great square, he gave the signal for an indiscriminate and unsparing massacre. The defenceless people fell in thousands; and Cortes, satisfied with the fearful lesson he had taught, erected an altar and cross, addressed the priests and chiefs on the excellences of the Christian religion, and resumed his advance on Mexico.

For a few leagues the way led up the steep side of a great volcanic mountain, then in a state of eruption, although its fires are now extinguished. A dense forest fora time impeded their march; then, as they ascended, vegetation ceased, and they passed within the line of everlasting snow. At length, rounding a shoulder of the mountain, the great valley of Mexico, seen afar in that clear air, spread itself before them in all its glory of lake and city, of garden and forest and cultivated plain. There were Spaniards who looked with fear upon the evidences of a vast population, and demanded to be led back to the security of the coast; but for the most part the soldiers, trusting to the skill of their leader and the favor of Heaven, thought joyfully of the vast plunder which lay before them, and hastened down the mountain-side.

The city of Mexico contained then a population which the Spaniards estimated at three hundred thousand souls. It was built in a shallow salt-water lake, and was approached by many broad and massive causeways, on some of which eight horsemen could ride abreast. The streets were sometimes wholly of water; sometimes they were of water flanked by solid foot-paths. There were numerous temples; the royal palaces excelled those of Europe in magnificence; the market-place accommodated fifty thousand persons, and the murmur of their bargaining spread far over the city; the dwellings and the aspect of the common people spoke of comfort and

contentment.

Montezuma received his unwelcome visitors with munificent although reluctant hospitality, and assigned one of his palaces as their place of residence while it should please them to remain. Cortes, whose desire to convert the heathen was of equal urgency with his desire to plunder them, took an early opportunity to acquaint Montezuma with the leading doctrines of the Christian faith, and to assure him that the gods of the Mexicans were not gods at all, but "evil things which are called devils." But the unconvinced heathen refused his doctrine, and expressed himself satisfied with his gods such as they were.

For several days Cortes lived peaceably as the guest of Montezuma, pondering deeply the next step which he must take in this marvellous career. He perceived the full danger of his position. A handful of invaders had thrust themselves among a vast population, whose early feelings of wonder and fear were rapidly passing into hatred, and who would probably, erelong, attempt their destruction. Against this danger no guarantee was so immediately available as possession of the King's person. With the calm decision in which lay much of his strength, Cortes rode down to the palace, attended by a competent escort, and brought the astonished but unresisting Montezuma home to the Spanish quarters. The Mexicans revered their sovereign with honors scarcely less than divine, and Cortes felt that while he possessed the King he was able to command the people. In a few days more Montezuma and his great lords professed themselves vassals of the King of Spain. For six months Cortes ruled Mexico. He dethroned the Mexican gods, and he suppressed the human sacrifices which the Mexican priests offered profusely to their hideous idols. He built ships for defence; he sowed maize for food; he gave attention to mining, that he might have gold to satisfy the needs of the King of Spain. While he was thus occupied, he learned that eighteen ships had arrived | near his little settlement of Vera Cruz. They carried a force of eighty horsemen, fourteen hundred foot-soldiers, and twenty pieces of cannon, sent by the Governor of Cuba, who was jealous of his success, with instructions to arrest Cortes and his companions. It was a threatening interruption to a victorious career. Cortes devolved his government upon Alvarado, a rugged soldier in whom he had confidence, and with only seventy men hastened to encounter his new foes. By skill and daring he achieved decisive success, and within a few weeks from the day he quitted Mexico he was ready to return, strengthened by the arms of those whom he had subdued, and whom he now gained over to his cause.

But during those weeks events of grave import had occurred in Mexico. The absence of Cortes resulted in a visible diminution of the meek submission with which the Mexicans had hitherto demeaned themselves toward their conquerors. Rumors arose that a revolt was in contemplation. Alvarado resolved to anticipate the expected treachery. The time of the annual religious festival had come, and the great lords of Mexico were engaged in the sacred dance which formed the closing ceremonial. Suddenly a strong force of armed Spaniards attacked the undefended worshippers, six hundred of whom were slaughtered. The outraged city instantly rose against

its murderous tyrants. The Spaniards endured at the hands of their despised assailants a blockade which must have quickly ended ir ruin unless Cortes had hastened to their relief.

Cortes returned in time at the head of thirteen hundred soldiers, of whom one hundred were horsemen. He found the city wholly turned against him. The next day a formidable attack was made. The streets and terraced roofs of the houses could not be seen, so densely were they covered by assailants; stones were thrown in such numbers that it seemed as if it rained stones; the arrows shot by the Mexicans so covered the courts of the fortress that it became difficult to move about. The Indians attempted almost successfully to scale the walls, offering their undefended bosoms, with reckless disregard of life, to the musketry and artillery whose discharge swept them down by hundreds. Their feeble weapons wounded, but scarcely ever killed; but at the close of each day Cortes found his fighting strength diminished by the loss of sixty or eighty men. Food could scarcely be obtained, for the people with held supplies. To such a measure of intensity had the cruelty of their oppressors kindled the hatred of the Indians, that they were willing to spend thousands of their own lives if by the costly sacri fice they might compass the death of one Spaniard. It was necessary for Cortes to be gone. First, however, he would endeavor to conjure his assailants into submission by the voice of their King. The unhappy Montezuma came forth upon a balcony and besought the infuriated people to cease from resistance. But the spell had lost its power, and the fallen monarch was struck down and fatally injured by a shower of arrows and of stones. Cortes left the city that night. His stealthy retreat was discovered, and the vengeful savages caught him at fearful disadvantage. They swarmed in their canoes around the broken bridges where the Spaniards had to pass. In the darkness the retreat speedily became a hopeless and bloody rout. Four hundred and fifty Spaniards perished, with a large number of their Indian allies and one-half of the horses. The artillery was wholly lost. It is said that when Cortes became aware of the ruin which had been wrought, he sat down upon a great stone in a Mexican vil lage and wept bitterly.*

Cortes withdrew to Tlascala, where his allies, unacquainted with the practice of civilized life, adhered with unswerving loyalty to a fallen cause. Many of his soldiers were eager to quit the scene of their crushing defeat. Cortes resolved to maintain his hold upon the country he had won. He united many states in a great league for the overthrow of Mexico. He sent ships to Hispaniola for horses, men, and arms. He ordered brigantines to be built at Tlascala. Six months after his defeat he was again before Mexico with a force of nearly a thousand Spaniards and a hundred thousand native allieswith horsemen, and musketeers, and a fleet of brigantines, to command the lake and the approaches to the city. It was not till May, however, that active operations were commenced.

The siege lasted for almost three months. During many days Cortes forced his way constantly into the city, retiring at nightfall to his camps in the outskirts. Always he inflicted fearful slaughter upon the Indians, sparing neither age nor sex. Occasionally the brave savages had their revenge, and the Spaniards, looking up to the summit of the great temple, witnessed in horror comrades offered in sacrifice to the Mexican gods. Unwonted horrors attended this cruel siege. The Indian allies of Cortes frequently banqueted upon the bodies of their slain enemies, and frequently supplied the materials for a like ghastly feast. Famine and disease pressed heavily on the doomed city; but no suffering or danger quelled the heroic resistance of the despairing people. At length Cortes resolved to destroy the beautiful city, step by step as he gained it. The houses were pulled down and their materials thrown into the lake. The Mexicans refused to yield; they desired only to die. Enfeebled by hunger they ceased to fight, and the siege became little more than a ruthless slaughter of unresisting wretches. At length the new King was taken, and all opposition was at an end. The great mass of the population had perished. The lake and the houses and the streets were full of dead bodies. Palaces and temples and private dwellings had fallen. The Spanish historian, † who was present, and who in his time had witnessed many horrors, "does not know how he may describe" these. He had read the awful story of the destruction of Jerusalem, but he doubts whether its terrors equalled those which attended the fall of Mexico.

The fame of this appalling success spread far and wide in Central America. From great distances southward embassies sought the conqueror, to conciliate his favor, to offer submission to the great monarch whose servants had beaten to the ground the power of the Aztec tyrants. A thousand miles away Cortes had allies and vassals, Still farther to the south was the rich province of Guatemala, with great and well-built cities, the home of a people whose progress in the arts of civilized life was not inconsiderable. Regarding these people reports were carried to Cortes that they had lately manifested to his allies dispositions less cordial than had heretofore existed. Three years had now passed since the conquest of Mexico, and Cortes and his followers were ready for new enterprises. An expedition,

The great cypress-tree behind which Cortes hid himself at one period during the Noche Trista still retains some measure of vitality. Beside it stands "the Church of the Sad Night." A tramway line runs to the temple at Tacuba, where he is said to have reviewed his troops next day. Part of the temple was removed to give space for the tramway. † Bernal Diaz.

composed of two hundred and eighty men, with four cannon, with "much ammunition and powder," was sent forth under Pedro de Alvarado to ascertain the truth of those statements which had been reported to Cortes. Alvarado, a gallant but ruthless warrior, forced his way into the fertile valleys of Guatemala. He fought many battles against great native armies, and inflicted vast slaughter-himself almost unharmed. He slew the King; he overthrew cities; he gath ered together the chiefs of a certain province, "and as it was for the good and pacification of this country, he burnt them." The people were given over as slaves to Spaniards who desired them. While busied with these awful arrangements the devout Alvarado did not fail to entreat that Cortes would appoint a solemn procession of Mexican clergy, to the effect that Our Lady might procure for him the succor of Heaven against the urgent perils of his enterprise. Under such auspices Guatemala became a Spanish possession.

Among the followers of Vasco Nuñez there was a middle-aged Spanish warrior, slow, silent, but gifted with a terrible pertinacity in following out his purposes. His name was Francisco Pizarro. He probably heard the young Indian tell of the wealth of Peru.* He was beside Vasco Nuñez when that eager discoverer waded into the waters of the Pacific. A little later he arrested his chief and led him to a death of violence. He had taken part in an expedition in which the Spaniards, pursued by overwhelming forces, stabbed their prisoners as they retreated, and left them dying on the way, in order to hinder the pursuit. He was wholly without education, and was unable even to sign his own name. At this time he was living near Panama, on certain lands which he had obtained, along with the customary allotment of Indian laborers. Here he applied himself to cattle-farming; and his labors and his gains were shared with two partners-Almagro, the son of a laboring man, and De Luque, a school-master. The associates prospered in their industry, and it seemed probable that they would live in obscurity, and die wealthy country gentlemen. But Pizarro had never ceased to brood over the assurances, which he had heard ten years before, that there were in the south regions whose wealth surpassed all that the Spaniards had yet discovered. He wished to find a shorter path to greatness than cattle-farming supplied, and he was able to inspire his associates with the same ambition. The scope of the copartnery was strangely widened. The rearing of cattle was abandoned, and a formal contract was entered into for the discovery and conquest of Peru. Pizarro was to conduct the enterprise; Ålmagro was to bring to him re-enforcements and needful stores; De Luque was to procure funds. The profits resulting from their efforts were to be equally divided. They were ridiculed in Panama as madmen; but the courage and tenacity of Pizarro sufficed to crown with terrible success purposes which in their origin seemed wholly irrational.

The early history of the expedition was disastrous. Pizarro sailed from Panama on his career of conquest, attended by eighty men and four horses. He crept down the coast; landing occasionally to find only a rugged and barren country. Hunger fell on his followers, and many died. The Indians assailed them with poisoned arrows, and slew some. The forests were impenetrably dense; the climate was unwholesome. Almagro brought a small re-enforcement; but the employment became intolerable, and the men, losing heart, returned to Panama. Pizarro, with only fourteen followers, sought shelter on an uninhabited island, "which those who have seen it compare to the infernal regions." Here they spent three wretched months, living on shell-fish and what else the sharpened eye of hunger could discover. Strengthened by supplies which Almagro was able to send, they set forth once more and moved southward along the coast. And now they found the region of which they had dreamed so long. They landed in the northern part of Peru. Gold was everywhere. They found a temple whose walls were lined with plates of gold; a palace where every vessel, for use or for ornament, was formed of gold. The people were gentle, and received them hospitably. But Pizarro had no more than fourteen men with him -a force wholly inadequate for purposes of conquest. He returned to Panama, and thence to Spain, bearing to the King the thrilling story of his marvellous discovery. The King bestowed large rights of government upon the successful adventurer; and as the conversion of the natives was an end steadily prosecuted by the Spanish Government, a bishopric in the newly-found territory was assigned to his partner De Luque. But Pizarro had omitted to obtain honors or advantages for Almagro-an omission which drew in its train a long series of destructive strifes among the conquerors.

Once more Pizarro set forth to conquer the great kingdom of which he now claimed to be governor. His forces consisted of one hundred and eighty-three men and thirty-seven horses. He found it necessary to wait for additional strength; and he encamped in an unhealthy locality, where his men suffered severely. At length he was joined by a re-enforcement of fifty-six men, one-half of whom were mounted. He had incurred a delay of seven months; but the time was well spent. While he waited the Peruvians lightened his task by a civil war, in which multitudes perished. To secure retreat, in event of disaster, Pizarro resolved to found a city. He chose a convenient site, and erected several strong buildings, among which were a church, a court-house, and a fortress. He left fifty men to garrison his settlement, to which he gave the name of San

• See page 67.

Miguel, in recognition of services rendered to him by that saint in a recent battle. He divided the neighboring lands among his citizens, and assigned to each a certain number of Indians-an arrangement which, as he was assured, was not merely indispensable to the comfort of the settlers, but "would serve the cause of religion, and tend greatly to the spiritual welfare" of the savages thus provided for. And now his simple preparations were completed. He had learned that at the distance of twelve days' journey eastward beyond the great mountain barrier of the Cordilleras the Peruvian monarch was encamped with a powerful army, flushed with victory in the civil war which had just closed. It seemed a wild adventure to go forth with a hundred and eighty men against an enemy computed at fifty thousand. But Pizarro knew what Cortes had accomplished with means apparently as inadequate; he trusted in the well-proved courage of his men, the vast superiority of their arms, and the favor of the saints. He had placed himself where hesitation must draw in its train inevitable ruin. But there was no hesitation in the steady purpose of the resolute, tenacious Pizarro. He determined to encounter the victorious Inca. He marched forth from the gates of his little town, eastward toward the mountains and the unknown perils which lay beyond.

For several days the march of the Spaniards led them across the rich plains which lay between the mountains and the sea. Their progress was easy and pleasant, and they passed several well-built and apparently prosperous towns, whose inhabitants hospitably supplied their wants. At length the vast heights of the Andes cast their shadows on the little army, and the toilsome ascent was begun. The path was so steep that the cavalry dismounted and with difficulty led their horses upward; so narrow that there was barely room for a horse to walk; in many places it overhung abysses thousands of feet in depth, into which men and horses looked with fear. As they rose, the opulent vegetation of the tropics was left behind, and they passed through dreary forests of stunted pine-wood. The piercing cold was keenly felt by men and horses long accustomed to the sultry temperature of the plains. But the summit was reached in safety, and the descent of the eastern slope begun. As they followed the downward path, each step disclosed some new scene of grandeur or of beauty.

On the seventh day the hungry eyes of the adventurers looked down on a fertile valley. A broad stream flowed through its wellcultivated meadows; the white walls of a little city glittered in the evening sun; far as the eye could reach there stretched along the slopes of the surrounding hills the tents which sheltered the Peruvian army. The Spaniards had reached their destination. They had reached the city of Cassamarca, and they were almost in presence of the Inca Atahualpa, whom they had come to subdue and destroy. In the stoutest heart of that little party there was for the moment "confusion, and even fear." But no retreat was possible now. Pizarro formed his men in order of battle, and with unmoved countenance strode toward the city.

The Inca knew of the coming of his visitors, and had made some preparations for their reception. Quarters were assigned to them in a range of buildings which opened upon a vast square. It was evening when they arrived; but Pizarro lost no time in sending one of his brothers, with Fernando de Soto and a small troop of horsemen, to wait upon the Inca and ascertain his dispositions. The ambassadors were admitted to the royal presence and informed that next morning the monarch with his chieftains would visit Pizarro. Riding back to their quarters, the men thought gloomily of the overwhelming force into whose presence they had rashly thrust themselves. Their comrades shared the foreboding which the visit to the Peruvian camp had inspired. When night came on they looked out almost hopelessly upon the watch-fires of the Peruvians, which seemed to them "as numerous as the stars of heaven."

Happily for the desponding warriors, the courage of their chief was unshaken by the dangers which surrounded him. Pizarro did not conceal from himself the jeopardy in which he stood. He saw clearly that ruin was imminent. But he saw, too, how by a measure of desperate boldness he might not only save his army from destruction, but make himself master of the kingdom. He would seize the Inca in presence of his army. Once in possession of the sacred person he could make his own terms. He could wait for the re-enforcements which his success was sure to bring; at the worst, he could purchase a safe retreat to the coast. He informed the soldiers of his purpose, and roused their sinking courage by assurances of divine favor and protection.

At sunrise next morning Pizarro began to make his preparations. In the halls which formed the ground-floor of the buildings beside the grand square he disposed his horsemen and footmen. His two pieces of artillery were planted on the fortress which looked down on the square. The arms of the men were carefully examined, and the chief made himself sure that swords were sharp and arquebuses loaded. Then mass was said, and the men, who stood ready to commit one of the foulest crimes in history, joined devoutly in the chant, "Rise, O Lord, and judge thine own cause. About noon the sentinel on the fortress reported that the Inca had set out from his camp. He himself, seated on a throne of massive gold, was borne aloft on the shoulders of his principal nobles; before him moved a crowd of attendants whose duty it was to sweep every impurity from the path about to be honored by the advance of royalty; on either hand his soldiers gathered toward the road to guard their King. At a little