SPANISH CONQUEST 57 



even the northern province of Archangel, the land of the 

 stunted fir and the mossy tundra, has a population four times 

 as large. Weak governments, fearful of foreign intrusion, — 

 which woidd alone be able to carry the living spirit of progress 

 into the wilderness, — have hitherto, with all the power of inert- 

 ness, weighed upon the valley of the Amazon ; but in a century, 

 when the most exclusive nations of Asia have been made to 

 open their harbours to commerce, and when even Central Africa 

 rushes into the current of trade, jealous imbecility can hardly 

 close much longer a territory of such importance and promise 

 to the growing spirit of enterprise. 



Eight years after Columbus had revealed the existence of a new 

 world, Vincent Yafiez Pinson, the companion of his first voyage, 

 sailed with four ships from the port of Palos (13th January, 

 1500), steered boldly towards the south, crossed the line, and 

 discovered the mouth of the Amazon. Forty years later Gon- 

 zalo Pizarro, governor of Quito, left his capital with 340 

 Spaniards and 4000 Indian carriers to conquer the unknown 

 countries to the east of the Andes. The march over the Puna 

 and the high mountain ridges proved fatal to the greater part 

 of their wretched attendants; and even the Spaniards — ac- 

 customed to brave every climate and hardship wherever gold 

 held forth its glittering promise — had much to suffer from the 

 excess of cold and fatigue. But when they descended into the 

 low country their distress increased. During two months it 

 rained incessantly, without any interval of fair weather long 

 enough to enable them to dry their clothes. They could not 

 advance a step, unless they cut a road through woods, or made 

 it through marshes. The land, either altogether without in- 

 habitants, or occupied by the rudest and least industrious tribes 

 in the New World, yielded little food. Such incessant toil and 

 continual scarcity were enough to shake the most stedfast 

 hearts ; but the heroism and perseverance of the Spaniards of 

 the sixteenth century surmounted obstacles which to all others 

 would have seemed insuperable. Allured by false accounts of 

 rich countries before them, they struggled on, until they reached 

 the banks of the Napo, one of the rivers whose waters add to 

 the greatness of the Maranon. There, with infinite labour, they 

 built a bark, which they expected would prove of great use in 

 conveying them over rivers, in procuring provisions, and in 



