DISCOVERY OF THE SOLOMONS 131 



which followed the conquests and the crimes of the 

 Pizarros. At last these things came to an end, and the 

 Peruvian viceroys were able to consider proposals for 

 further enterprise towards the unknown West. 



We remember that at this time a very influential school 

 of cosmographers was persuading the world that this 

 unknown West was mainly occupied by great promon- 

 tories of the " Austral " or " Magellanican " continent, 

 which stretched Northward till it touched, or all but touched, 

 New Guinea. It was natural to suppose that large parts The belief in 

 of this continent would be full of all manner of riches ; f^ the west 

 as indeed Marco Polo had declared was the case. There 

 was one sort of riches in particular which. the successors 

 of Cortes and Pizarro expected to find everywhere. " It 

 was an age of gold," writes Lord Amherst, " and, to the 

 Spaniard, the whole unknown world was yellow." 1 

 They believed in an " Eldorado " in the East, in the 

 valleys of the Orinoco and the Amazon, whither Peruvian 

 Incas had escaped with much gold. And they believed 

 also in an Eldorado in the West, to which the Incas had 

 voyaged and whence they had got much gold. And this 

 Eldorado of the West must obviously be situated some- 

 where in the Magellanican continent which Mercator 

 had drawn on his map. 



This was the fervent belief especially of a famous Spanish The plea of 

 knight, Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, who had gone to 

 Peru in 1557. He was a representative Spanish "Con- 

 queror," " instrument of perhaps the foulest judicial 

 murder in the whole of the Spanish annals," and as brave 

 as he was cruel. He was also a man of independence 

 of character and of mind ; for he got into trouble with 

 the Inquisition, and was accused of knowing a magic 

 ink which no woman could resist, and of using magical 

 rings in navigating ; for which crimes he was sentenced 

 to hear Mass in the Cathedral, stripped to the bare skin. 

 He was, moreover, a reader of books, and had studied 

 ancient Peruvian history. From this he gathered that 

 a certain Inca had once made a voyage to the West, had 

 1 The Voyage of Mendana to the Solomon Islands, p. iv. 



