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Story of the Nations

A Series of Historical Studies intended to present in graphic narratives the stories of the different nations that have attained prominence in history.

In the story form the current of each national life is distinctly indicated, and its picturesque and noteworthy periods and episodes are presented for the reader in their philosophical relations to each other as well as to universal history.

FOR FULL LIST SEE END OF THIS VOLUME.

CHURCH OF SAN FRANCISCO IN LIMA.

THE STORY OF THE NATIONS

THE SOUTH AMERICAN
REPUBLICS

BY

THOMAS C. DAWSON

American Minister to Santo Domingo

IN TWO PARTS
PART II
PERU, CHILE, BOLIVIA, ECUADOR, VENEZUELA,
COLOMBIA, PANAMA

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1904

Copyright, 1904
BY
THOMAS C. DAWSON
Published, September, 1904

The Knickerbocker Press, New York

PREFACE

This history begins when Pizarro and Almagro, Valdivia and Benalcazar, led their desperadoes across the Isthmus to the conquest, massacre, and enslavement of the prosperous and civilised millions who inhabited the Pacific coast of South America. It ends with the United States opening a way through that same Isthmus for the ships, the trade, the capital of all the world; with American engineers laying railroad iron on the imperial highway of the Incas; with British bondholders forgiving stricken Peru's national debt; with their debtor bravely facing the fact of bankruptcy, and turning over to them all its railways.

The American people, alert, practical, keen, possessing in their press and congress admirable organisations for the collection and dissemination of exact knowledge, already fully appreciate the advantages that will accrue to the United States itself from the building of the Panama canal. Hardly less thoroughly do they understand the probable effect upon eastern Asia and the great commercial nations of western Europe. Few, however, have yet reflected upon the canal's vital importance to the peoples of the Pacific coast of South America—to four at least of the six countries whose stories I have tried to tell in this volume.

Cut off from all practicable communication with the rest of the continent by those yawning ravines which lead down the inner declivities of the Andes, gullied by gigantic torrents, and choked by impenetrable forests, the narrow strip of territory stretching along the mountain tops and shore plain from Quito to Central Chile, connects with the outside world solely through ports on the Pacific Ocean. Throughout colonial times the stream of greedy Spanish office-holders flowed down the coast from the Isthmus, and a scanty trickle of trade followed the same channel. For three centuries Panama was the entrepôt and Lima the metropolis of all Spanish South America except Venezuela and eastern New Granada. Magellan's famous discovery did not divert these currents because the stormy straits that bear his name are practically useless for sailing ships, and even Schouten's rounding of the Horn only blazed a path which proved too perilous for the vessels of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But with the nineteenth century improvements in navigation and especially with the use of steam and the freighter built of iron, all was changed. Valparaiso became nearer to London or New York than Guayaquil, and during the last seventy-five years the ports of Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Pacific Colombia have been little more than remote and unimportant stations on a trade route that stretches its interminable length from the commercial emporiums in the North Atlantic through Pernambuco, Rio, Buenos Aires, and around the southern end of the continent. For centuries Spanish tyranny denied the world access to those countries, and hardly had they shaken off the political system that strangled their development, when geographical considerations and the invention of iron steamships placed them at a disadvantage compared with their competitors. Their commercial, and therefore their industrial and political progress, has been ten-fold slower than it should have been.

The moment the first vessel floats through from the Caribbean to the Pacific the course of commerce will reverse its direction. Buenaventura, Esmeraldas, Guayaquil, Callao, Mollendo, Iquique, and even Valparaiso and Talcahuano will send their ships by the short route of Panama instead of around the continent and through the Straits of Magellan. Western Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile herself will be tied by rapidly strengthening bonds of mutual interest and intercourse to each other and to the great commercial nations; and a transformation will begin whose extent no man can foresee. Every patriotic American must hope that his own countrymen will devote the money, energy, and attention essential to secure that share of influence and trade justly due the United States' geographical proximity and political sympathy; that French literature, language, and ideas, British capital, and German commerce now so dominant in all South America, will be supplemented by American schools, money, and commercial enterprise; and that such influences will spread from Panama through Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia down the coast to prosperous Chile and across into the fertile plains of Argentina and southern Brazil.

The author wishes to acknowledge his especial indebtedness to Sir Clement Markham's scholarly History of Peru, one of the very few complete and intelligent histories of a South American country available in the English language. The reader who commands Spanish will be interested in Torrente's Revolucion Sud Americana, Mackenna's Historiade la Independencia, Paz Soldan's Narracion Historica, Mitre's San Martin, and Bulnes's Expedicion Libertadora.

For Chile excellent books in both Spanish and English abound, among which are worth special mention, Barros Arana's Historia General, Mitre's San Martin, Bañados's Balmaceda, Hancock's History of Chile, and Hervey's Dark Days in Chile.

Few authorities exist for Bolivia. Valdes's Estudio Historico is admirable for the period which it attempts to cover. Sanjines's Historia, Mitre's San Martin and Belgrano, Torrente's Revolucion, and D'Ursel's Séjours et Voyages, as well as Fernandez's recent Campaña del Acre have been found valuable.

Wolf's Geografia del Ecuador is more than a geography, and no one interested in that country can afford not to study this work carefully. Suarez's Historia General, and Cevallos's Compendio give a good account of military and political affairs but do not bring them down to recent years.

For Venezuela Tejera's Manual de Historia has been of much use, as also Scruggs's Colombian and Venezuelan Republics, Jenny Tallenay's Souvenirs, and in the war of independence Mitre's great work on the life of San Martin.

Perez's wonderfully condensed book, Geografia Politica, has been the main reliance for Colombia, but Mitre's San Martin, Torrente's Revolucion, Holton's New Granada, and Scruggs's Republics, have supplied much information on points not covered by Senor Perez's work.

Intelligible details about comparatively recent times are proverbially the hardest to obtain, and the author feels that whatever of accuracy these pages may boast is due principally to his friends among present South American diplomats—men who understand South American history because they have been a part of it. Salvador de Mendonça, Joaquin Godoy, Oliviera Lima, Claudio Pinilla, Estanislao Zeballos, Manoel Gorostiaga, and Carlos Tobar have kindly tried to help him thread his way through the tangled mazes of Latin-American politics, and his principal reluctance at giving these pages to the public now is that he has not had the good fortune as yet to know and converse with men of like ability from Colombia and Venezuela.

T. C. D.

Petropolis, Brazil, March 29, 1904.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

PERU

CHAPTER I

THE INCA EMPIRE

For many centuries before the Spanish conquest and before the rise of the Incas a succession of great empires existed in Peru. Ruined edifices of unknown date prove that at some remote period advanced civilisations and powerful nations were developed in the coast valleys and on the Andean plateau. In tombs which vastly antedate even these megalithic palaces and fortresses, cotton twine, woven cloth, and cobs of maize have been found. The domestication and breeding to perfection of the llama as a beast of burden, and the alpaca as a fleece-bearer, the development of potatoes, maize, and the quinoa grain, must have consumed untold cycles of time. There is no doubt of the remote antiquity of the civilisation of the Indians who inhabit the Andean plateau south of the equator, nor that their culture was wholly self-developed, owing nothing to outside influences.

About the year 1000 the Incas were merely one of several tribes living on the high, beautiful, and fertile plateau of Cuzco, which lies on the eastern edge of the gigantic uplift of the Andes. Down the precipitous gorges into the steaming and impenetrable forests of the Amazon plain the civilised Indians never cared to go. The maize, quinoa, and potatoes upon which they depended for food could not flourish in the intense heat and heavy rainfall of those regions. Neither themselves nor their llamas and alpacas could thrive in the montaña or forested plain. Their natural habitat was the rough plateau, broken by numerous valleys, which lies between the Eastern and the Central Cordilleras, and extends from the Vilcañota "nudo," shutting it off from the Titicaca basin, to the transverse range of the "Cerro de Pasco," in the North. The ocean lies two hundred and fifty miles south-west, beyond the Central and Maritime Cordilleras and the bleak plateau which lies between them.

This great central section, on whose eastern edge near its southern border we first find the Incas, is the heart of Peru. Although the climate of a few of its gorges is almost tropical, the valleys have the temperature of Italy or Spain; higher up the crops of northern Europe flourish; then are pasture lands, and above all bleak wilds and peaks covered with perpetual snow. At the dawn of authentic Peruvian history this favored region was thickly inhabited by many independent tribes; probably all speaking dialects of the same language, and certainly very similar in their industrial life and social customs.

Tradition recounts that the Incas had migrated to Cuzco from unknown ancestral seats—by some conjectured to have been the shores of the prehistoric fresh-water sea of the Amazon plain—under the leadership of Manco Capac, the first of an unbroken line of sovereigns who claimed descent from the Sun-god and ruled the Incas until the Spanish conquest. The Incas developed a religion whose elaborate and rigid ritual, which regulated every act of their lives, finds its best parallel among the Hebrews. Each family had its household god; each sept worshipped an imaginary ancestor; the whole nation adored the sun as the progenitor of the reigning family, and the monarch's person was revered as divine. So profound was the religious feeling of this people that they finally rose to the conception of a supreme deity—a creator of the universe. His temple filled one side of the great square at Cuzco.

Even more remarkable than their religious system was the social and industrial organisation of the Incas. Private property in land did not exist. It belonged to the septs and was from time to time allotted to the heads of families. Every person was obliged to work, all males being divided into classes according to age and strength, and suitable labour assigned to each. The produce, whether crops or livestock, was divided between the government, the priesthood, and the communes. Scarcity in one section was made up from the plenty in others; public officers annually revised the allotments, and turns at the irrigation works were taken in accordance with fixed rules. Not a spot of cultivable land was left unused. Habitations were built on rocky hills; deserts or the sides of barren cliffs were used for cemeteries; whole mountain sides were terraced up thousands of feet, and land was literally created by years of patient labour employed in bringing earth in baskets and laying it on the bare rocks. By no people has irrigation been more extensively and successfully applied, and in spite of their ignorance of iron and steam, of labour-saving appliances and instruments of precision, the Incas constructed a system which in real effectiveness has never been surpassed. Many of their canals, reservoirs, and terraces were allowed to crumble by the Spanish conquerors, but modern Peru still lives upon the half-ruined fragments of the mighty works of the Incas.

Secured from want by this intelligent socialism, their lives and rights safe under laws administered with inflexible severity, bound closely by family and governmental ties, trained from childhood in industry and obedience, the Incas seemed destined to dominate and absorb the more loosely organised tribes with whom they came in contact, provided that they did not become inert, stationary, and unwarlike, and cease to produce individuals possessing initiative. The dynamic elements indispensable to expansion were furnished by the ruling clan and by fanaticism. The offspring of Manco Capac partook of his divinity and each emperor left numerous sons, whose descendants constituted a privileged class. In the process of time there gathered around the emperor thousands of men of his own kindred, devoted from their birth to warfare and statecraft.

ANCIENT PERUVIAN MONUMENT.

Under the fourth emperor the Incas were successful in a life and death struggle against a tribe with whom they had hitherto shared the valley that surrounds Cuzco. Under the two succeeding emperors they extended their dominions south to the transverse range of mountains which separates the Peruvian from the Titicacan plateau. Yahuar Huaccac, the seventh sovereign, conquered the tribes on the eastern slopes, and by the beginning of the fourteenth century the Inca domain included the southern third of the great valley of Peru—an area of fifteen thousand square miles, containing probably two millions of people. Uira Cocha, the eighth emperor, began that wonderful series of conquests which within a century and a half extended over half of South America. On the other side of the Vilcañota "nudo" lay the vast basin which takes its name from Lake Titicaca. Too high and too cold for cereals, the plateau was inhabited by tribes of shepherds, who made no prolonged resistance when attacked by the armies of the Inca. Their rapid and complete incorporation into the Inca system followed. Colonies swarmed from the over-populated provinces of old Peru into the newly acquired territories. The Titicacan copper mines furnished the material for weapons and tools, and a great commerce in exchanging the wool, potatoes, and livestock of the higher regions for the maize and cotton of the lower added to the prosperity of the whole empire. This conquest doubled the extent of the Inca domain and opened up a vast field for colonising expansion within their own territory. Once achieved, the nation turned its attention to the conquest of the North. Beyond the gorge of the Apurimac—the Inca boundary in that direction—lay the rival nation of the Chancas, a vigorous and expanding people who were at the head of a great confederation of tribes which covered the northern two-thirds of the central plateau of Peru, and probably also included the Quichua-speaking tribes of the coast.

The Chancas defeated Urco, Uira Cocha's oldest son and successor, and their army advanced toward Cuzco, subjugating the northern allies of the Incas. The victors came within sight of the capital, where meanwhile the energetic Yupanqui, Urco's younger brother, had gathered the whole force of the empire. The battle which decided the fate of Peru was fought on the heights above Cuzco; the Chancas were defeated, and fell back only to be pursued and overwhelmed by Yupanqui. He returned in triumph and was installed as emperor in place of his incompetent brother, assuming the title of Pachacutec, or "Reformer of the World." The Incas pressed their advantage relentlessly; all the tribes of the Chanca confederacy were subjugated; and Pachacutec's generals even extended their conquests north of Cerro de Pasco. The Incas had now conquered a practicable route to the Pacific, and the coast tribes about Lima soon also fell under their control. Pachacutec built a great military road from Cuzco north along the fertile plateau, through the smiling valley of Jauja, and down the short descent to the neighbourhood of Lima. Colonies were established at strategic points, and the new territory became so rapidly welded to the Inca system that, when the Spaniards arrived a hundred and fifty years later, they found the whole of central and southern Peru occupied by a homogeneous people, perfectly loyal to the Inca dynasty.

Pachacutec's successor, Tupac Yupanqui, proved even more successful than his father. The five hundred miles of rainless coast from Lima to the Ecuador border was inhabited by a mysterious race, in civilisation and origin entirely distinct from the Quichua-speaking mountain tribes to which the Incas belonged. Short rivers, rushing down from the Andes, each irrigated a portion of the desert, which only requires water to become extremely fertile. The irrigation works of this people were on a gigantic scale, one of their reservoirs having its lower end guarded by a dam eighty feet thick at the base. The valleys were cultivated to the highest degree of perfection, and filled with a swarming and industrious population housed in cities whose ruins still survive to attest the skill of their builders. Enervated by centuries of peace, the inhabitants had long confined their warlike operations to building defensive fortresses. Nevertheless, when Tupac advanced up the coast he met a desperate and prolonged resistance, until one after another the fortresses fell. The capital of the confederacy was laid in ruins and great numbers of the people were transported to distant provinces. Garrisons and Inca colonies were established and a military road was constructed along the coast. However, the country was really held only by force, and even in Spanish times Quichua had not displaced the Mochica tongue in half the northern coast valleys.

Tupac next turned his attention to enlarging the southern limits of his empire. From Titicaca his armies advanced over hundreds of miles of bleak plateaux and barren deserts and down the steep Andean slopes into the fertile valleys of central Chile. His conquests extended as far south as the river Maule,—three hundred miles beyond Santiago,—but the tribes retained their autonomy and became rather allies than subjects. On the eastern side of the Andes he obtained the allegiance of the peoples living in the mountain valleys of north-western Argentine, and he completed the incorporation of the vast and fertile plateau which extends from the Titicacan basin to the present Argentine border.

Returning to the northern frontier, he reduced the peoples who lived in the confused tangle of mountains and gorges which lies between the two Cordilleras north of Cerro de Pasco, thus extending his boundaries nearly to the present Ecuador line. The rest of northern Peru and all of southern Ecuador belonged to tribes who were loosely attached members of the confederacy headed by the Caras of Quito. They opposed only a short resistance to the arms and diplomacy of Tupac, and he made their territory the base for the great war which he proposed to undertake against the ancient kingdom of Quito. About the year 1455 he advanced with a great army, largely recruited from the tribes recently wrested from the Quito monarch, and defeated the Caras in a great battle. The whole plateau as far north as Riobamba submitted, reducing the Shiri's domain to the neighbourhood of Quito itself and a small region north of that city. However, all of Tupac's efforts to force the last barrier which interposed between him and the Cara capital failed, and he was compelled to content himself with extending his conquests on the coast as far as the Gulf of Guayaquil. In 1460 he returned to Cuzco, where three years later he was enraged to hear that the Shiri was making a desperate and partly successful effort to recover the lost provinces. Tupac's preparations for a final campaign to wipe the Quito kingdom out of existence were interrupted by his own death.

Huaina Capac succeeded to the throne and continued his father's preparations. Bad news, however, from the far southern provinces compelled him first to undertake a campaign into Chile, in which he was victorious. He then proceeded north and devoted the rest of his life to conquering and incorporating the Cara empire. He first constructed a military road from the northern Peruvian coast to the plateau in southern Ecuador; then he exterminated or reduced to obedience the tribes on the Gulf of Guayaquil, and the coast beyond, nearly as far as the equator. Returning south, he defeated the wild savages of the regions where the Amazon leaves the mountains. Having thus secured himself against an interruption of his line of communications, he advanced against Quito in overwhelming force. The Caras and their allies among the brave tribes of northern Ecuador made a desperate resistance, but were overthrown in battle after battle, and Huaina Capac entered Quito in triumph. All the tribes of the confederacy submitted except the Caranquis, a warlike people who lived north of Quito. These achieved some minor successes, but were finally overwhelmed and exterminated.

The Inca empire, now at its greatest extent, included all the inhabitable portions of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, three-fourths of Chile, and a large part of the Argentine, stretching two thousand two hundred miles north and south, and from the Pacific to the eastern foot of the Andes. Except for the plateaux of Colombia practically the whole Andean region had been united under one government. The rest of South America was occupied by savage peoples, divided into small bands, who picked up a precarious existence along the streams; and the Inca empire was safe from any serious attack on its continental boundaries. But the later conquests of Tupac and Huaina Capac had incorporated peoples in civilisation and warlikeness hardly inferior to the Incas themselves. Indeed, in the light of subsequent events, it is clear that the later campaigns weakened the real military power and homogeneity of the empire. While the older parts, southern Peru and Bolivia—the heart of the Inca domain—formed a homogeneous and thoroughly loyal centre whose inhabitants all spoke the same language and where socialism and the worship of the sun according to the Inca rites prevailed, from the latitude of Lima north the country had been too recently subdued to be counted upon. The northern coast still required to be kept down by permanent garrisons; the mountain tribes of northern Peru retained a certain measure of autonomy; and the vast territories where the Shiri of Quito had held sway for so many centuries were very loosely attached. Tupac, the first conqueror, found it advisable to remain there almost continuously during the last half of his reign, and Huaina Capac, his heir, was born in Ecuador, and devoted his whole life to that region. He married the daughter and heiress of the defeated Shiri, and was regarded rather as the legitimate successor of the ancient dynasty than as an alien conqueror.

In 1525 Huaina Capac died at Quito, leaving a will by which he bequeathed the northern kingdom to Atahuallpa, a son born to him by the Shiri's daughter. Peru, with the southern provinces, fell to Huascar, his son by a princess of Inca blood. As the eldest and the legitimate heir according to the rules of succession which governed in the Inca dynasty, the latter was to be paramount, thus retaining a semblance of unity. Huascar and the Inca nobles who surrounded him at the old Peruvian capital were unwilling to acquiesce in this virtual division of the empire. The chief of the Cañaris, a tribe always hostile to Quito, sent a messenger to Cuzco offering to swear allegiance to Huascar. As soon as Atahuallpa heard of this derogation of his authority he ordered an army to march and unseat the recalcitrant prince, and despatched an ambassador to his brother with a conciliatory message, at the same time unequivocally asserting his claim to the lordship of all the ancient domain of the Shiris. Huascar insisted that southern Ecuador, a region which had been wrested from the Caras by their grandfather, and whose tribes had only been allies of Quito, should not be included. His bitter feeling against his brother was increased by reports that Atahuallpa had assumed Incarial insignia which only a legitimate emperor was entitled to use. He returned a harsh answer, demanding immediate and unconditional obedience. Seeing nothing was to be hoped for from Huascar, Atahuallpa began gathering the forces of the Quito kingdom.

CHURCH OF THE JESUITS IN CUZCO, ON THE SITE OF THE PALACE OF HUAYNA CAPAC.

Huascar was delayed by insurrections which broke out among the tribes of northern Peru, and at first could only send a few troops to the assistance of the Cañaris. The latter managed to hold Atahuallpa's generals in check until Huascar's main army advanced. Atahuallpa retired slowly up the plateau to within fifty miles of his capital, pursued by the Inca army. It seemed certain that he would quickly be defeated, and either slain or brought to his brother's feet to receive a rebel's sentence. But against this invasion, inspired by the ruling oligarchy of Cuzco, the warlike people of northern Ecuador stood nobly by the grandson of the last of their ancient line of monarchs. Though the southerners were victorious in the first encounter, Atahuallpa in person rallied his army and drew it up in an advantageous position at Naxichi. The Incas attacked confidently, but this time they were hopelessly routed and the chief generals slain with thousands of the common soldiery. The remnant fled in disorder to the territory of the Cañaris. Atahuallpa could not immediately follow up his advantage, and by the time he had organised his forces for an offensive campaign, Huascar had sent another great army to the rescue under the command of his younger brother, Huanca Auqui. When Atahuallpa crossed the transverse barrier of Azuay and descended into the fertile plateau north of Cuenca, a terrific battle ensued which lasted two days. Both sides suffered severely, but the final advantage lay with the Northerners, and Huanca Auqui sullenly retreated, abandoning Ecuador to Atahuallpa. A fearful vengeance was taken on the Cañaris, while the other tribes joined the victor.

Next year Atahuallpa sent a great force under the command of Quizquiz, the ablest Indian general of the time, into northern Peru. Huanca Auqui was again defeated, and abandoned the disputed territory, while Atahuallpa's troops poured into the northern coast provinces. Having met with no serious resistance there, they ascended the Cordillera to the neighbourhood of Cajamarca, where they met the reinforced Inca army. Again they were victorious and Huascar's forces retreated south of the Cerro de Pasco, followed by Quizquiz, whose army grew like a rolling snowball by enlistments among the warlike and half-independent tribes of northern Peru.

Huascar's resources were, however, by no means exhausted by the crushing defeats he had suffered during the last four years. The great plateaux of Peru and Bolivia, the most populous and richest portion of the empire, remained faithful; the ruling classes regarded Atahuallpa's revolt not only as an impious rebellion against the legitimate emperor, but as a menace to their own continued supremacy in the state. Tens of thousands poured up from the southern provinces to reinforce the army which lay in the valleys south of the Cerro de Pasco in daily expectation of attack. But Tupac's and Huaina Capac's conquests had created a Frankenstein monster. When the ruder nations of the North were first attacked by the Inca armies they did not know how to organise and were easily reduced in detail. Three-quarters of a century of Inca rule had taught them what they lacked without destroying the spirit of individual initiative nourished by local autonomy. The older parts of the empire had been frozen by rigid socialism and ritual, and the people's energies sapped by long centuries of tutelage. The northern tribes who followed Atahuallpa's banner were superior in military prowess to the Incas who fought for Huascar, uniformly beating the latter with numbers constantly inferior. The balance of power had passed from Cuzco and the centre to Quito and the north.

Quizquiz's forces finally crossed the Cerro de Pasco and poured down into the beautiful and populous valley of Jauja. Again they were victorious, and the Incas fled along the road leading toward Cuzco. Huascar and his partisans determined to make their last stand at the capital itself. Reinforcements were hurried up not only from Bolivia, but from Chile, and the Argentine, and an army which is said to have numbered seventy thousand, the largest ever seen in South America, assembled at Cuzco. Meanwhile Quizquiz was relentlessly advancing along the plateau, and his main body reached the neighbourhood of the city intact. After some manœuvres for position in which the able and experienced northern generals obtained a decisive advantage, Huascar's camp was surprised at early dawn. His soldiers could not form and a frightful carnage ensued, in the midst of which he himself was made prisoner. As soon as the capture became known his followers fled in all directions. Quizquiz advanced his camp to the heights overlooking the capital; all idea of further resistance was abandoned; the city submitted, and the principal partisans of Huascar perished in a cruel massacre.

CHAPTER II

THE SPANISH CONQUEST

During the long campaigns by which his general, Quizquiz, had conquered Peru, Atahuallpa had never left the North. He received the news of the crowning victory and the capture of Huascar, in his palace at Tumibamba on the Cuencan plain, and started at once for Cajamarca, the first great town on the plateau south of the Ecuador border, accompanied by only a small army. While waiting near Cajamarca, Atahuallpa heard the wonderful news that two hundred strangers had landed on the coast at Tumbez—a port on the southern side of the Gulf of Guayaquil. They were white and their faces were covered with hair; they had garments and arms different from any his informants had seen; and most extraordinary of all they were accompanied by outlandish gigantic beasts who carried them over the ground with a terrifying speed.

The effect of this intelligence upon Atahuallpa and his advisers can only be conjectured. It was remembered that four years before a ship carrying a score or more of these same foreigners had sailed along the coast of Ecuador and northern Peru, landing at various places to beg provisions and ask questions. Two had been left behind, and were taken to the interior, where their fate is unknown. It is, however, probable that these unfortunate Spaniards had given to Atahuallpa's officers much information about the resources and intentions of their countrymen. The Inca emperor seems to have realised that the importance and power of the foreigners was out of all proportion to their numbers. The newcomers protested that their purposes were amicable, and sent friendly messages to Atahuallpa, who resolved to act cautiously and avoid offending them unnecessarily. He despatched his own brother as an ambassador with assurances of good-will and a polite inquiry as to their wishes and intentions. But unfortunately for himself and his country the Inca was dealing with a man whose profound and deceitful diplomacy was as much superior to his as a musket is to a cross-bow. The Spanish leader returned word that he appreciated the kind expressions of the emperor and would at once proceed to Cajamarca to pay his respects in person.

This was Francisco Pizarro, one of the greatest practical geniuses whom modern Europe has produced. Born out of wedlock at Trujillo, a town in Estremadura, the province which during centuries was the great fighting ground of Castilian and Moor, he passed his youth as a swine-herd in the most abject poverty and illiteracy. Enlisting as a private soldier, he spent his young manhood in fighting under Gonzalo de Cordoba, in those campaigns which carried the renown of the Spanish infantry to the farthest confines of Europe. An admirable soldier, conscious that he possessed powers of the highest order, hopelessly handicapped in old Europe by his base birth and illiteracy, the discovery of the New World opened up a field for his talents. He eagerly embraced the opportunity, embarking in 1509 with Alonso de Ojeda for the Darien gold mines. Four years later he accompanied Balboa in that memorable journey across the Isthmus which resulted in the discovery of the Pacific Ocean. To the city of Panama, looking out over the mysterious sea, adventurers flocked like a pack of wolves eager for a share in the spoils of its unknown shores, and Pizarro was among them. The news of Cortes's conquest of Mexico brought to America a horde of soldiers of fortune. Recklessly brave, experienced in the most scientific warfare of the time, arrogantly proud of their nationality, utterly careless of odds, ready to risk their lives on the chance of sudden fortune, a set of men better qualified for the work which fate threw in their way could not be conceived.

Panama had hardly been founded when rumours of the existence of a wealthy and civilised empire lying far to the south reached the ears of the Spaniards. In 1522, Pascual de Andagoya, a gentleman of distinguished family who occupied a high office at Panama, made an expedition for a short distance along the coast and obtained valuable confirmation of the vague reports. Obliged to abandon the enterprise by his own illness, he turned it over to a partnership formed for the purpose by Pizarro, Almagro, and a priest named Luque. The first enjoyed a great reputation for good judgment and fertility of resource, gained in expeditions along the Caribbean coast, and by mere force of his talents had come to be regarded as one of the ablest and luckiest captains on the Isthmus. The active command was to be his, while Almagro, a soldier of more advanced age and hardly inferior reputation, backed him up and sent supplies and reinforcements. Luque was the moneyed man of the concern. They bought a small vessel at Panama which Balboa himself had built eight years before, and in 1524 Pizarro started down the coast. But his supply of provisions was inadequate, it was impossible to obtain more from the savage natives of the forested shores of Colombia, and the first effort ended in failure.

Nothing discouraged, Pizarro and his partners persevered. They had great difficulty in raising money to fit out properly the next expedition, but happily they succeeded in interesting the mayor of Panama. Eighteen months later Pizarro sailed once more with a better equipment and one hundred and sixty men. For five hundred miles he found nothing except the hot and swampy seashore of Colombia, inhabited by miserable naked tribes, and his companions had begun to believe that the empire they were seeking was a myth, when the pilot who had been sent on ahead came back with word that he had penetrated south of the equator, and there had met a sort of large sea-going raft coming from the south manned by a clothed and civilised crew and laden with cloth, silver work, metal mirrors, vases, and various other goods.

These Indians said they came from Tumbez, a city in a fertile valley on a dry and penetrable coast which lay not more than two hundred miles farther south. They were traders bringing up a stock to sell to the shore peoples of Ecuador—tribes who had long been compelled to acknowledge the suzerainty of the Incas, but who still lived in virtual independence under their own chiefs. The men on the raft told the Spaniards that the whole interior and the southern coast were inhabited by civilised peoples, subjects of an emperor whose capital was a great city in the mountains hundreds of leagues to the south. Having received this confirmation of their most extravagant hopes, Pizarro and his men pushed on until they nearly reached the northern boundary of Ecuador, not far from the limits of the Inca empire. It was clear, however, that their small force would never be able to cope with the armies of such a power. Almagro went back to Panama for reinforcements, while the indomitable Pizarro landed his already disheartened adventurers on a swampy island where their clothes rotted in the steaming, tropical heat and never-ceasing rain; fevers decimated them, mosquitoes tortured them, and eatable provisions were impossible to obtain. When Almagro reached Panama, the governor flew into a rage on hearing that Pizarro was holding his men against their will, and sent a ship to bring back all who wished. Nine-tenths of the band deserted Pizarro, but he was indomitable and thirteen heroes stood by him in his determination to reach Peru or perish. For weary months he waited for provisions, but the moment they arrived he set off for the south. Within twenty days he and his little band of adventurers reached the Gulf of Guayaquil, four hundred miles farther on, and immediately landed at Tumbez. With their own eyes they saw full confirmation of what the Indians of the raft had told them. Irrigated fields, green with beautiful crops, lined the river bank; eighty thousand people, all comfortably housed, lived in the valley; commerce was flourishing; large temples profusely ornamented with gold and silver testified to wealth and culture; the government was well-ordered and stable; and the people received the visitors with open-handed hospitality.

After refreshing his followers, Pizarro continued his explorations down the coast for a couple of hundred miles, finding a succession of fertile valleys interrupting the monotonous desert, each filled with villages and farms and a thriving, civilised, and prosperous population. In the fall of 1527 he returned to Panama, full of the idea of leading an expedition to conquer the great empire about which he had obtained such minute and exact information. He wisely resolved himself to go to Spain and secure the direct patronage and countenance of the government at Madrid. Taking with him natives brought from Tumbez and specimens of products, he set off, and on his arrival was granted an audience by Charles V. The Emperor was greatly impressed by the story which the adventurer told. Naturally of a noble and commanding presence, the conscious dignity of Pizarro's manners corresponded to the high ambitions which filled his mind. In the doing of great things he had dropped all evidences of his base origin, and contact with men and the habit of command had given him an ease of address and clearness of thought which made his hearers forget the deficiencies of his early education. The concession he prayed for was granted. He himself was legitimatised and ennobled and received the title of "adelantado," while the gallant followers who had refused to abandon him on the Colombian island were made gentlemen of coat-armour. Pizarro and his partners were formally authorised to conquer and settle Peru in the name of the Castilian sovereign and received a grant of money for the purchase of arms, agreeing to remit to the royal treasury one-fifth of all the gold that they should find.

Pizarro knew just the kind of men needed to assist in this hazardous enterprise, and he took every precaution to select only those of whose valour and capacity he was well assured. His mother had bred up a family of lions in the little old Estremadura town, and his four brothers were hardly his inferiors in valour and audacity. Hernando, the oldest and only legitimate son of Francisco's father, agreed to go. So did Juan and Gonzalo, two illegitimate brothers who were younger, and also Francisco Alcantara, a half-brother on the mother's side. Hernando Cortes, the noble conqueror of Mexico, exerted himself to help Pizarro fill up his ranks with soldiers of the most approved courage, and the latter finally sailed for the Isthmus with a small body picked from the very flower of the fighting men of the Peninsula.

Pizarro believed that a few hundreds of good men, well provided with artillery and horses, would be as effective as thousands in striking terror to masses of Indians armed only with spears and swords. Arrived at Panama, it was arranged that he should proceed to Peru at once, while Almagro would follow later with reinforcements recruited among the unemployed adventurers in Nicaragua. All sorts of good fortune favoured the daring enterprise. For once the fitful winds which usually baffle sailing ships in the Gulf of Panama were kind, and Pizarro's clumsy, little caravels traversed in thirteen days the seven hundred miles of inhospitable coast which lay between the Isthmus and the first Inca provinces. Landing among the half-civilised tribes of Ecuador, he had the good luck to find a store of gold and emeralds. This he sent back, as an encouragement to Almagro, and marching down the Ecuador coast, he reached the Gulf of Guayaquil, on whose southern shore began the populous and civilised portions of the empire. He crossed to the island of Puna, overcame its fierce inhabitants with great slaughter, and there was joined by a large and welcome reinforcement of men and horses under the command of Hernando de Soto, afterwards so famous as the discoverer of the Mississippi, who had come on his own motion to get his share in the spoils.

So far, Pizarro's operations had been among outlying provinces owning only nominal allegiance to the Incas, but he now felt strong enough to cross over to Tumbez and establish a footing in their real domain. From Tumbez he marched south to Paita, where he determined to establish his base. The quick eye of the master general appreciated the strategical advantages of this valley. At this point the great military road coming down from the plateau of Ecuador debouched on the coast plain. Communication to the south was easy by a road which connected all the coast valleys with branches climbing to the plateaux. An anchorage at the valley's mouth afforded a sure means of keeping open that communication with Panama which was so essential to success; reinforcements could reach him in whatever part of Peru he might venture, and a garrison left at Paita would command the main route connecting Quito and Cuzco, cutting the Peruvian empire in two.

On receiving Pizarro's answer to his friendly message, Atahuallpa resolved to await the promised visit, apparently suspecting no evil. The audacious Spaniard had, however, conceived the design of capturing the victorious claimant of the throne of the Incas, well knowing that in its actual distracted condition the country would be left without a centre about which it could rally. Open war, no matter how overwhelming his first victory might be, could hardly be ultimately successful. Atahuallpa once safe at Cuzco or Quito and surrounded by the disciplined soldiers who had overthrown Huascar, a defensive campaign might be undertaken in which Pizarro would find every step toward either capital bitterly disputed. Hundreds of thousands of Peruvians pouring up from the numberless provinces of the empire would be thrown in a never-ceasing succession of armies against his little band of Spaniards, and the latter would infallibly be driven back to the coast by starvation and fatigue if not by defeat in the field.

Apparently foolhardy, in fact Pizarro's plan offered the only chance of success. Never dreaming that such a step was in contemplation, Atahuallpa took no precautions. Leaving fifty-five men at the little post of San Miguel in the Paita valley to secure his retreat, Pizarro marched south with one hundred and two foot soldiers, sixty-two horses, and two small cannon two hundred miles along the coast plain to a point opposite Cajamarca, and ascended along an Inca military road, meeting a friendly reception from the wondering natives, and being supplied with provisions by Atahuallpa's orders.

On the 15th of November, 1532, Pizarro entered Cajamarca. He found an open square in the middle of the town surrounded by walls and solid stone buildings, which he received permission to occupy as quarters. From his camp outside, Atahuallpa sent word that the following day he would enter the town in state and receive the Spaniards. Marvellous good fortune favoured Pizarro's treacherous designs. The Indians had furnished a trap already made, and now Atahuallpa deliberately walked into it. On the morning of the 16th the Indian army broke camp and marched to Cajamarca, followed by the Emperor, who was borne in a litter and surrounded by his personal attendants, the great chiefs, and the nobles belonging to his own lineage. At sunset he entered the square, accompanied only by these unarmed attendants, and found Pizarro and a few Spaniards awaiting him. The rest were hidden in the houses around the square with their horses saddled, their breast-plates on, and musketry and cannon ready charged.

From among the group which surrounded Pizarro stepped forward Friar Valverde and approached the Inca monarch, who, reclining in a litter raised high above the crowd on the shoulders of his attendants, waited with dignity to hear what those strangers had to say. The priest advanced with a cross in one hand and a Bible in the other and began a harangue which, clumsily translated by an Indian boy, the Inca hardly understood. But in a few moments he realised that this uncouth jargon was meant to convey an arrogant demand that he acknowledge himself a vassal of Charles V. and submit to baptism. With haughty surprise he threw down the book which Valverde tried to force into his hand—the priest shouted, "Fall on, Castilians—I absolve you," and into the helpless crowd burst a murderous fire from the doors of the houses all around. Aghast and bewildered by this display of powers which to them seemed necromantic, the survivors nevertheless manfully stood to the attack of the mail-clad horsemen who rode into the huddled mass ferociously slashing and slaughtering. The Indians strove desperately to drag the Spaniards from the horses with their naked hands, and interposed a living wall of human flesh between the murderers and their beloved sovereign. At length Pizarro's own hands snatched Atahuallpa from the litter. The Indian soldiers outside, hearing the firearms and the noise of the struggle, tried to force their way into the square, but the Spanish musketry and cannon mowed them down by hundreds, and they fled before the charges of the cavalry, dispersing in the twilight.

Pizarro took every precaution to prevent the escape or rescue of his prisoner, and for the first few weeks treated him kindly. The Spaniard was playing a profound diplomatic game. He well knew that Atahuallpa's generals would fear to endanger the latter's life by undertaking any aggressive measures, and that Huascar's partisans would take advantage of this providential opportunity to reorganise their forces. He conversed much with the captive emperor and at length began to hint to him the advisability of arbitration with Huascar. But the Inca took alarm and secretly sent off orders for his brother's execution. Seeing that the Indian was not to be cajoled, the Spaniard adopted a sterner attitude, pretended the greatest indignation at the fratricide, and soon had Atahuallpa willing to offer anything for his release. Shrewdly guessing that for gold the Spaniards would run any risk, the Inca negotiated for his ransom, saying: "I will fill this room with gold as high as I can reach if only you will liberate me." Pizarro agreed, insisting, however, that the ransom be delivered in advance at Cajamarca. A formal contract was drawn up and executed before a notary, and the deluded emperor ordered all preparations for war on the Spaniards to be interrupted and that the temples be stripped of their gold ornaments to supply the enormous amount he had promised. Under protection of this truce Pizarro sent out expeditions to explore the country and to expedite the process of gathering the treasure, and while this was going on Almagro arrived with reinforcements which doubled the Spanish forces. Finally the agreed sum was all in Cajamarca. It amounted to four million five hundred sterling in modern money. One-fifth was sent to the royal treasury and the remainder divided, making even the private soldiers rich for life.

Nevertheless, Atahuallpa was not released. Large bodies of his troops were known to be on their way from Cuzco, and Pizarro realised that, once at the head of his forces, the Inca would wage an unrelenting warfare to expel the last Spaniard from Peru. If kept a prisoner his partisans would no longer hesitate to fight to release him, appreciating now the uselessness of relying on Spanish promises. He must be got rid of, and so after a mock trial in which he was charged with Huascar's murder and with conspiring against the Spaniards, the Inca emperor was strangled to death in the public square at Cajamarca. Pizarro knew better than to allow the Indians time to settle the disputed succession. With masterful sagacity he resolved to strike at Cuzco during the confusion. He suddenly evacuated Cajamarca and rapidly marched along the northern plateau, and over the Cerro de Pasco into the fertile valley of Jauja. From this point a short road led down the Cordillera to the sea, making it an admirable base for a campaign against Cuzco.

OBSEQUIES OF ATAHUALLPA.
[From a painting by the Peruvian artist, Monteros.]

Leaving a garrison to protect his retreat to the ocean, Pizarro advanced by forced marches along the great central plateau toward Cuzco. Quizquiz and the army, which had defeated and captured Huascar two years before, tried to oppose his progress, but all the calculations of the Indian general were overthrown by the incredible speed of the Spanish cavalry. The horsemen reached the neighbourhood of Cuzco without encountering any considerable force of the enemy. Here the advance guard was surprised, lost a fourth of its number, and was on the point of being overwhelmed, when the opportune arrival of the main body dispersed the Indians. Though only a small part of Quizquiz's army had taken part, this defeat badly demoralised his soldiers; it seemed impossible to make any headway against these strangers clothed in steel, mounted on great beasts, and armed with weapons which slew their opponents before the latter could got in a blow. Moreover, Quizquiz was in a hostile country, where sympathies were all with the Huascar party and where the executioners of Atahuallpa were regarded as deliverers.

Manco Capac, Huascar's brother and legitimate successor, went in person to the Spanish camp to propose a formal alliance and a joint war of extermination against the Atahuallpa faction, Pizarro received him with every mark of honour and respect and renewed his assurances that the sole object of his march from Cajamarca was to crush the enemies of the rightful emperor. Quizquiz tried hard to get his forces into shape for resistance, but his position near Cuzco was untenable, and after a slight skirmish he was obliged to leave the way open to the capital. Just a year from the day he had reached Cajamarca, Pizarro entered Cuzco by the side of the legitimate emperor amid the acclamations of the people. Manco's inauguration was splendidly celebrated with all the ancient rites, but among the procession of rejoicing Incas rode an ominous cavalcade—the Spanish soldiers, who now numbered nearly five hundred.

The new emperor gathered an army, and, assisted by some Spaniards, set off in pursuit of Quizquiz, whom he defeated a short distance north of Cuzco. The old northern general, still indefatigable, made a rapid march on Jauja to surprise the Spanish garrison, but was repulsed in this well-considered effort to cut Pizarro's communications with the coast, and had to make his way, the best he could, back towards Quito. The central portion of the empire would now have been content to settle back into quiet allegiance to Manco. But the latter soon found that his allies regarded the country as their own. Under the pressure of necessity for help against Quizquiz he had acknowledged, as a matter of form, the titular supremacy of the Spanish king, and he was now required to carry out his obligation to the letter. A municipal council, framed on the Spanish model, was installed as the governing body of the ancient capital; the great temples were turned into churches and monasteries; other public edifices were seized to be used as residences or barracks for the Spaniards; tombs, temples, and private residences were searched for gold; and the authorities were required to furnish troops and carriers for the expeditions which their oppressors planned against the remoter parts of the empire. With the resignation characteristic of the race, the Indians submitted to these exactions, and Manco hesitated long before deciding to put himself at the head of a revolt.

The transcendant military and diplomatic qualities Pizarro had displayed were equalled by the energy and foresight which he now showed as an administrator. Realising that his capital should be on the coast in order to secure direct communication with Panama, he made a careful examination of routes and possible sites and selected the valley of the Rimac, just below Jauja, where he founded Lima. From this point the military road by which the Incas had kept up communication from Cuzco with the coast and the northern provinces ascended to the plateau. Lima and Jauja were the strategical keys to central and southern Peru; San Miguel gave easy access to Quito, and Pizarro insured the region extending from Cerro de Pasco to the Ecuador border by establishing the city of Trujillo half-way up the coast.

Their original agreement provided that Pizarro should have the northern half of the countries they might conquer, and Almagro the southern. Accordingly, about two years after Cuzco was occupied, Almagro started for Bolivia and Chile, accompanied by five hundred Spaniards and two brothers of the Inca emperor, leading a large native army. In Bolivia, where the Inca power had been established for centuries, he encountered no opposition, and crossed the bleak plateaux of the Puna, descended the Andes, and finally reached the fertile valleys of northern Chile. But so little gold was found that Almagro determined to return and set up a claim to Cuzco.

STONE BRIDGE OVER THE RIMAC RIVER, LIMA, PERU.

In the meantime the Incas of central Peru had awakened from the dream of a continuance of the ancient dynasty under Spanish protection. Pizarro himself seems to have been guilty of few acts of wanton cruelty, but he neither wished nor tried to restrain his followers from reducing the Indians to vassalage. The natives were fast crowded to the wall, and the Spaniards divided the fairest parts of the country into estates, treating the Indians as tenants from whom tribute was due. The sovereignty of the emperor soon became a mere fiction. In 1536 Manco escaped from Cuzco and raised the standard of rebellion. The moment appeared favourable. The Spanish forces were scattered; Pizarro was at Lima, and Almagro in the wilds of Chile, but as a matter of fact the Incas laboured under almost hopeless disadvantages. Their cities, fortresses, and roads were all in the hands of the Spaniards, and the kingdom of Quito, the most warlike part of the empire, had meanwhile been reduced by a Spanish expedition from San Miguel.

The rebellion was confined at first to the tribes who lived in the neighbourhood of Cuzco. These rose en masse and besieged the two hundred Spaniards, who, under the command of Hernando Pizarro and his two younger brothers, Juan and Gonzalo, occupied the capital. The Indians captured the citadel overlooking the town, and poured an incessant rain of stones and burning darts on their enemies. The Spaniards soon ran out of provisions, and were forced to try to recapture the citadel or perish miserably by fire and starvation. Juan Pizarro led a desperate assault, ably assisted by Hernando and Gonzalo, and all three proved themselves worthy of the name they bore. Juan fell mortally wounded in the moment of victory, but the Incas fled in confusion, giving the surviving Spaniards an opportunity to procure supplies of maize from the neighbouring farms. This defeat disheartened the Indians. Numbers and bravery seemed useless against the horses and firearms of these strangers, whose reckless courage was only equalled by their cruelty. The Incas kept up the siege for several months, but without artillery their swords and spears could make little headway against men provided with firearms and protected behind solid stone walls. While the Spaniards in Cuzco were thus fighting for their lives, the Incas near Jauja rose and descended on Lima, but Francisco Pizarro with his dreaded cavalry waited for them in ambush, and the Indians were surprised and cut to pieces.

In spite of this success the governor's position remained most grave. He sent for help to Panama, Guatemala, and Mexico, but meanwhile had no means of relieving Cuzco. Its fall meant not only the death of his beloved brothers, but would almost certainly be followed by a general insurrection and the loss of all the advantages gained in three years of fighting and scheming. He hurried forward two hundred and fifty men,—all he could possibly spare,—but had little prospect of success until news came that Almagro and his five hundred followers had arrived at Arequipa on their way back from Chile. From Arequipa there is a pass to the north end of Lake Titicaca, and thence to Cuzco the way was easy. Manco would be caught between Pizarro's army coming up from Lima and Almagro's descending from the south. The Inca gave up hope and with a few devoted followers retired into the wild region of Vilcabamba, lying north of Cuzco near the Amazonian plain. In those rugged and forested defiles he was safe from Spanish pursuit, but his retirement ended all hope of organised and general resistance. The Inca empire had fallen never to rise again. With stoical resignation the Indians made the best of their sad situation, while the conquerors were left free to fight among themselves over the division of the magnificent spoils which had so miraculously fallen into their hands.

CHAPTER III

CIVIL WARS AMONG THE CONQUERORS

The edict of Charles V. conceded to Pizarro the territory for two hundred and seventy leagues south of the river on the Ecuador coast where the conquest had begun, and to Almagro the next two hundred leagues. In his heart Almagro was dissatisfied with this award, and, even if he accepted the division, there was wide room for misunderstandings and disputes. No one knew the exact latitude of the river whence the measurement was to be made, nor had any one surveyed the distances along the winding roads. Almagro contended that Cuzco and Arequipa lay within his province, but this Pizarro vigorously and, as it turned out, correctly denied.

Almagro's personal followers were disgusted with the rude poverty they had found in Chile, and saw little chance of valuable spoil unless their leader should secure the fertile plateaux of Titicaca, Cuzco, and Arequipa. They urged him to seize by force what he believed to belong to him. After the flight of Manco his army reached Cuzco before the force which Pizarro was sending up had penetrated nearer than a hundred miles. Hernando Pizarro had two hundred men at Cuzco, but they were exhausted with long months of fighting against the Indian besiegers and could offer no effective resistance to the night attack by which Almagro surprised them. Hernando and his brother Gonzalo were captured and imprisoned, and Almagro advanced against the army from Lima and defeated it. "This," exclaimed Pizarro, when he heard the news, "is Almagro's return to me, after losing a beloved and gallant brother, and spending all I possess in pacifying the country. I mourn for the danger of my brothers, but still more that two friends in their old age should plunge into a civil war to the injury alike of the King's service and of Peru." From this moment all the powers of his great mind and the resources of his profound cunning were devoted to securing his brothers' safety first, and afterwards revenge upon Almagro. Willing to agree to anything rather than leave them in the hands of enemies whom he knew to be as coldly cruel as himself and far more bloodthirsty, he sent ambassadors to treat for the liberation of Hernando and Gonzalo. But Almagro thought he held the whip hand, and marched his victorious army across the Cordillera opposite Cuzco and up the coast nearly to Lima, declaring his intention of founding a capital for his government in the valley of Chincha, and announcing that he would be satisfied with nothing less than the cession of all Peru from Lima south. To obtain Hernando's release the governor was forced to consent that Almagro should remain in possession of the disputed territory pending the decision of the King, but Hernando was no sooner safe at Lima than Pizarro repudiated his promise. He declared war; his army, under the leadership of Hernando and Valdivia—afterwards famous as the conqueror of Chile—advanced down the coast. Futilely raging at Pizarro's treachery, the old man retreated, making his way toward Cuzco over one of the southern passes. His pursuers by a rapid march over a difficult and little used pass reached the neighbourhood of the Inca capital without resistance. Almagro was compelled to accept battle, or to shut himself up in Cuzco and let his enemies bring up artillery and batter him out at their leisure. His men outnumbered Pizarro's, and were assisted by a large contingent of natives, though inferior in discipline and arms. He chose the speedier alternative, but the flank attacks of his native auxiliaries made no impression on Hernando's carefully disposed infantry and his Spaniards fell into confusion when the main bodies met in the shock of battle. With a flank cavalry charge the rout became general; Hernando Pizarro dashed in, conspicuous with white plume and orange-coloured doublet; the most desperate partisans were slaughtered, bravely fighting, and the old man fled. He was soon captured and brought back to the very prison where he had so long confined Hernando. After languishing for a few months, orders were given that he be strangled. Francisco made no sign to save the life of his old comrade, and the sentence was inflicted.

For the second time Pizarro entered Cuzco in triumph, wearing now an ermine robe presented to him by Hernando Cortes, and once more he devoted himself to organising his vast dominions and extending the Spanish power over the distant provinces. Gonzalo Pizarro went to Quito to make that expedition into the Amazon country in search of the Eldorado which so miserably failed in its immediate object, but resulted in Orellana's discovery of the great river. Hernando Pizarro proceeded to Bolivia to develop the mining industry—a labour soon to be rewarded by the finding of Potosí. Valdivia undertook the conquest of Chile, and Alvarado that of the mountains of northern Peru. The governor travelled himself over most of his dominions, founding cities at strategic points in the more populous and fertile valleys. He visited Charcas—now Sucré—the old Indian capital of southern Bolivia; he founded one city at Arequipa, commanding the greatest valley of the southern coast, and another at Guamanga in a fertile plateau half-way between Jauja and Cuzco. The better parts of the country were divided into great feudal estates and distributed among his favourites and faithful followers, while the partisans of Almagro made their way as best they could out of Peru or hung around in helpless poverty, gnashing their teeth as they saw their luckier comrades rapidly enriching themselves by Indian tribute and mining.

RUE MERCADERES, PROCESSION DAY, LIMA.

Almagro's friends quickly carried the news of his illegal execution to Spain, crying for justice against the Pizarros. The Spanish government was not unwilling to secure a selfish advantage from the disputes among the original conquerors, and sent out Vaca de Castro to investigate and report.

When the royal commissioner arrived at Panama early in 1541, the latest news from Peru was tranquillising. Pizarro was busily engaged in enlarging and beautifying Lima, in regulating the revenue and the administration, in distributing "encomiendas," and in restraining the rapacity of his Spaniards. However, Lima was full of the "men of Chile"—as Almagro's adherents were called—all bitter enemies of the governor. They passed him in the street without saluting, and their attitude was so menacing that Pizarro received repeated warnings and was urged to banish them. Absolutely incapable of personal fear, magnanimous when his passions had not been aroused, he only replied, "Poor fellows; they have had trouble enough. We will not molest them." He even sent for Juan de la Rada, the guide, counsellor, and guardian of the young half-breed who was Almagro's heir, and condescended to try to argue him into a better frame of mind, saying at parting, "Ask me frankly what you desire." But the iron had entered too deeply into Rada's soul; he had already organised a conspiracy to assassinate Pizarro.

At noon on Sunday, the 26th of June, 1541, Pizarro was sitting at dinner in his house with twenty gentlemen, among them his half-brother, Francisco Alcantara, and several of the most illustrious knights who had taken part in the conquest. The great door into the public square was lying wide open. The conspirators, to the number of a score, had assembled in a house opposite. All of a sudden they rushed into the square fully armed and carrying their swords naked in their hands. A young page standing in front of the governor's house saw them and ran back shouting: "To arms! all the men of Chile are coming to kill the Marquis, our lord." The guests rose in alarm from the table and all but half a dozen fled to the windows and dropped into the garden. Pizarro threw off his gown and snatched up a sword, while the valiant Francisco Chaves stepped forward through the ante-room to dispute the passage at the staircase. The ferocious crowd of murderers rushed up and laid him dead on the stairs. Alcantara checked them for a few moments with his single sword, but was soon forced back into the dining-room and fell pierced with many thrusts. The old lion shouted from the inside, "What shameful thing is this! why do you wish to kill me?" and with a cloak wrapped round one arm and his sword grasped in the other hand, he rushed forward to meet his assassins and strike a blow to avenge his brother before he himself should fall. Only two faithful young pages remained at his side. Though over seventy years of age, his practised sword laid two of the crowd dead before he was surrounded. The two boys were butchered and in the mêlée Pizarro received a mortal wound in the throat, and falling to the floor, made the sign of the cross on the boards and kissed it. One of the ruffians had snatched up an earthen water jar and with this pounded out the old man's brains as he lay prostrate, disdaining to ask for mercy and murmuring "Jesus" just as the fatal blow fell.

Thus perished by the sword this great man of blood. The measure he had meted out to Atahuallpa and Almagro was measured to him again. He who had shamelessly broken his oath times without number to gain his own high ends was slain by treacherous, cowardly assault. But his great vices should not blind us to his greater virtues. Courageous, indomitable, far-sighted, patriotic, large-minded, public-spirited, possessing a God-given instinct for seeing straight to the centre of a problem and the energy to strike at the psychological moment, he was equally great as an explorer, a soldier, a general, a diplomatist, and an administrator. Even his shocking moral delinquencies lose something of their turpitude when we consider the greatness of his aims and the baseness of his origin. A bastard, a common soldier, a penniless adventurer, a man who had to fight his way up by his own wits, courage and parts, in the worst of schools, it was not to be expected that he would be scrupulous. But that his real nature was magnanimous, generous, and truthful is proven by the many instances in which he forgave his enemies and kept his word to his serious loss, and that his ambition was not sordid is shown by his self-sacrificing devotion to the public good during the later years of his life. Formed in nature's grandest mould, circumstances and environment had much deformed his character, but the original lineaments are plain.

The news of the murder threw Peru into confusion. In Lima the governor's friends hid themselves or fled; a hundred sympathisers joined the assassins; the rudders and sails of the ships in port were taken away so that no word could be sent to Panama; and all the treasure in the city was plundered. Young Almagro assumed the title of governor of Peru, but he and Rada soon realised that the vast majority at Lima regarded them with execration, while threatening messages came from the commanders in other towns. Rada and the boy usurper started up the road for Jauja and Cuzco. At the former place Rada died, but his protégé, though only twenty-two years old, now showed unexpected ability and resource. Suppressing with bloody severity a quarrel among his captains, he took the road to Cuzco, where his father's party was strongest.

In the meantime the royal commissioner, now become legal governor of Peru, had sailed from Panama. Shipwrecked off the coast of southern Colombia, he resolved to proceed by land, and disembarking at Buenaventura, made his way with infinite difficulty through the tangled forests and steep defiles of the Maritime Cordillera to the valley of the Cauca River. Thence to Quito over the highlands of Popayán and Pasto was easier. As soon as the news of Pizarro's murder reached him he hastened south, receiving many offers of help from the friends of the dead governor. At Jauja he found a considerable army ready to his orders, so he proceeded promptly to Guamanga, to which point Almagro was advancing from Cuzco. The soldiers of the young half-breed knew that they were fighting with halters round their necks, and the battle was the bloodiest since the Spaniards had landed in Peru. Of the twelve hundred white men who went into the fight only five hundred escaped unwounded. The rebels were practically annihilated. Two days after the battle Pizarro's murderers were executed in the great square at Guamanga. Young Almagro managed to escape to Cuzco, but he was quickly captured and relentlessly put to death.

Upon the death of Francisco Pizarro the right to nominate a governor reverted to the Spanish Crown. Though some disappointment was felt that Gonzalo Pizarro had not been appointed, Vaca de Castro succeeded without opposition. Gonzalo's selection would not have suited the new policy of the Spanish government. Las Casas had written his famous book exposing the unspeakable iniquities of the earlier conquerors toward the West Indian natives. It produced a tremendous effect on public opinion, and the authorities at Madrid decided to root up Indian slavery, and gradually abolish the existing "encomiendas." Manifestly, such a step would excite bitter dissatisfaction among the adventurers in Peru, and it seemed best to name a viceroy, who would be ipso facto vested with absolute power, and not subject to the influence of the "conquistadores."

This dangerous post was entrusted to Blasco Nuñez de Vela, an old bureaucrat of the Escurial, whose integrity, piety, and rigid obedience to orders had pushed him into high positions. Arriving in Peru early in 1544, he was received with outward courtesy and respect, thinly veiling real alarm and distrust. The "New Laws" abolished personal service by Indians; the grandees of estates must hereafter be content with a moderate tribute from their tenants; encomiendas might not be sold nor even descend by inheritance; and—worst of all—public officials and all Spaniards who had taken part in the wars between Almagro and Pizarro were to be deprived. The provisions were drastic and rumour exaggerated them. In his journey down the coast the viceroy had sternly ordered that no Indian be forced to carry a burden against his will. To the Spaniards this seemed an outrageous violation of the natural order of things. The whole fabric of their fortunes rested upon forced Indian labour. Without it they could not work their mines, farm their estates, or transport their goods, and these "New Laws" enforced by a conscientious and stubborn old bureaucrat, would virtually rob them of all that their swords had won.

Dismayed "encomienderos" wrote to Gonzalo Pizarro, urging him to espouse their cause; his own vast estates would infallibly be wrenched away by the viceroy, and he was told that his head was to be cut off as soon as Nuñez Vela could lay hands on him. With the Pizarro instinct of running to meet a danger, he hastened from southern Bolivia to Cuzco, where he was proclaimed "procurator general" of Peru; soldiers flocked to his camp; he seized the artillery and stores at Cuzco, and soon was at the head of four hundred desperate men, well armed and provided. Many, however, shrank from open rebellion against the representative of the Castilian king, and the Pizarros had enemies. The result was still doubtful, when the viceroy himself turned the scale by his own violent measures. He imprisoned Vaca de Castro on suspicion of favouring the revolt; quarrelled with the judges of the royal court; and finally in an altercation with the popular factor of Lima, stabbed his opponent with his own hand, and then attempted to conceal the murder. Frightened at the burst of public indignation, he fled to Trujillo, while the royal judges took the direction of affairs into their own hands. They ordered the arrest and deportation of the viceroy, and sent a conciliatory message to Gonzalo. But he knew better than to rely upon the unauthorised promises of the judges. His answer was to send a detachment to Lima, which seized three deserters and hanged them on trees outside the town. The judges having no troops upon whom they could rely, were forced to recognise Pizarro as governor. A few days later he made his triumphal entry, riding at the head of twelve hundred men. There was no mistaking the sincerity of the acclamations with which the Spaniards welcomed the devoted champion of their privileges. Nevertheless in the minds of most there lurked an uneasy consciousness that all this was in fact flat treason against the lawful sovereign, and that no government could in the long run prevail without recognition from Madrid.

The sea-captains to whose custody the blundering old viceroy had been entrusted did not know what to do with their embarrassing prisoner, and set him ashore at Tumbez, whence he proceeded to Quito to get help from the anti-Pizarro faction. The governor of southern Colombia joined him and he soon had five hundred men under his orders. Gonzalo flew to the point of danger; the viceroy retreated to Popayán, but being joined by more recruits, rashly returned to the neighbourhood of Quito to offer battle. He was defeated and killed; Pizarro went back to Lima, while his lieutenant, Carbajal, hunted down and put to death every loyalist who remained under arms in southern Peru.

Gonzalo's administration lasted three years' and they were golden ones for the Spanish adventurers. The marvellous silver mines of Potosí and the gold washings of southern Ecuador were discovered. Encomiendas were lavishly granted; the Indians went back to their fields; the mining industry began that marvellous development which soon made Peru the treasure box of the world and Potosí a synonym for limitless wealth. But the dazzling sunlight of prosperity was dimmed by the shadow of Pizarro's scaffold slowly creeping across the Atlantic and down the coast. His chief lieutenants, knowing they had sinned past forgiveness, urged him to declare himself king of Peru, but he was at once too proud and too patriotic to fling away his right to die a loyal Spaniard.

Philip, the leaden-eyed, close-mouthed despot, was regent of Spain. Bitterly chagrined that the stream of Peruvian gold had ceased to flow into the royal treasury, his vindictive heart held no mercy for the gallant soldier whose sword had helped win the riches now temporarily diverted. He selected a man after his own heart—Pedro de la Gasca, an ugly, deformed little priest, hypocritically humble, though astute and untiring, whose success as an inquisitor was a guarantee that he would be as pitilessly cruel as even Philip could wish. Gasca landed at Panama in the character of a modest ecclesiastic, a humble man of peace who had been commissioned to investigate the sad situation of Peru and re-establish peace. He said he would recommend the repeal of the obnoxious New Laws, and had authority to suspend them. Gonzalo refused to put his head into the noose and demanded substantial assurances. But many Peruvians were more easily beguiled, and welcomed the excuse to renew their allegiance to lawful authority. While Gasca remained at Panama, gathering troops from the neighbouring provinces, Pizarro's fleet deserted, leaving the coast open to attack. An advance guard came sailing down the coast, sending letters ashore at every port promising amnesty and rewards. Desertions were so numerous that Gonzalo was forced to give up the hope of defending Lima and retreated toward Arequipa. Gasca ascended to Jauja, while Pizarro's old enemies in the Titicacan region rose, gathered a thousand men, and sent word to Gasca that they could overwhelm without help the five hundred soldiers who remained faithful. But a Pizarro never waited to be attacked. By forced marches he crossed the dizzy pass where the Mollendo and Puno Railway now runs, and fell upon his enemies near the southern end of Lake Titicaca. Though outnumbered two to one, the superior discipline of his men, his admirable dispositions, Carbajal's skilful handling of the artillery, and his own cool and intrepid leadership of the cavalry charges, gave him a decisive though dearly bought victory.

LITTLE "INFERNILLO" BRIDGE ON THE OROYA RAILWAY.
ALTITUDE 10,924 FEET.

Meanwhile Gasca was coming up the road from Jauja to Cuzco, his army increasing by accessions from every direction until it numbered over two thousand. The wisest of Gonzalo's counsellors advised him to retire to southern Bolivia and make a defensive campaign in that remote region, but he preferred bold methods. For once, however, he could not inspire his men with his own confidence. They followed with heavy hearts his eager march against Gasca's overwhelming army. He drew them up for the attack and the battle was about to begin when, to his despair, he saw several captains desert to the enemy and his soldiers surrendering without a blow. Knowing that all was over, he turned to Juan Acosta, who rode at his side, saying, "What shall we do, brother Juan?" "Sir, let us charge them and die like Romans." "Better to die like Christians," replied Pizarro, and he rode across the plain and gave himself up. The exulting priest grossly insulted the fallen warrior, and called a court-martial to condemn him and his captains to immediate execution. Though only forty-one years old when he went to the scaffold, Gonzalo had for sixteen years taken a leading part in nearly every one of the battles and expeditions of Peru, and is justly regarded as the best fighting man among the "conquistadores."

The property of Pizarro's friends was confiscated; the prisons filled with wretched victims; many were put to death; many more mutilated or flogged; even the staunchest loyalists were not safe. Gasca evaded and delayed as long as possible the distribution of land-grants among those who had earned and been promised such rewards, and when he had to announce the list he sneaked to Lima by an unfrequented route in cowardly fear of his miserable life. He never dared to try to put the New Laws into effect, and when a peremptory order came from Spain that enforced Indian labour must cease, he kept it secret until he could resign the government to the royal judges, leaving instructions that it should be published immediately he was at sea.

Peru was left in confusion. The prohibition of Indian slavery added to the dissatisfaction felt over Gasca's awards. The ad interim governments could make little progress in securing its enforcement. Rebellion after rebellion broke out, and civil war continued to desolate Peru, with a few intervals of quiescence during which the government allowed the proprietors to do as they pleased, until the arrival of the Marquis of Cañete, the "good viceroy," on the 29th of June, 1556.

CHAPTER IV

THE COLONIAL PERIOD

The Spanish occupation of Peru was a conquest, not a colonisation. The narrow plateau from Colombia to Chile and the adjacent dry valleys on the Pacific and in north-western Argentina had been found fully populated by civilised races. The work of subjugating them was practically accomplished within eight or ten years after Pizarro landed in Ecuador, and this marvellous result was achieved by private adventurers who, though they held commissions from Madrid, really acted on their own responsibility. A very few appreciated the advisability of well treating the Indians and thereby preserving the effective industrial organisation, but the vast majority concerned themselves only with immediate profit. For eighteen years the original conquerors and the adventurers who followed in their track fought over the spoils. When the Marquis of Cañete was appointed viceroy he found eight thousand Spaniards in Peru alone, four hundred and eighty-nine of whom had grants of lands and Indians.

We can never know the sufferings of the Indians during these civil wars. The chronicles tell us minutely the stories of the battles, marches, sieges, surprises, assassinations, and deeds of military prowess, but little of the destruction and abandonment of the irrigating canals and terraces, the ruin of the magnificent roads, the breaking up of the ancient socialistic system, the impressment of natives into the rebel bands, the death by exhaustion of thousands dragging artillery over the steep mountain paths, the starvation of whole villages robbed of their crops. But the sturdy physique of the Andean Indians and their perfect adaptation to the climatic conditions saved them from extermination. In the midst of the devil's dance of Spanish carnage, the Inca officers reported minutely the crops stolen or destroyed, and the deficiencies were made up as far as possible from the villages which had escaped for the time being.

Naturally the Spanish government was anxious to put an end to such a state of affairs. Considerations of self-interest reinforced the eloquent indignation of Las Casas, but the New Laws could not be put into effect, notwithstanding the sentiment of fidelity to the Castilian king and the growth of considerable cities in which Spanish law and custom were dominant. The only real cities which the Incas had built were Cuzco in central Peru, Quito in Ecuador, and Charcas in Bolivia, and after the conquest they continued a village-dwelling people, but the Spaniards, true to the instinct inherited from Roman times, preferred to live in cities. Within a few years they had established municipalities not only at the three Inca capitals, but at Piura, Lima, Trujillo, Loja, La Paz, Guamanga, Jauja, and numerous other places.

The enlightened advisers of Charles V. came to the conclusion that Peru could never become a loyal and profitable appanage of the Crown until freedom of action was granted to its government. Don Andres Hurtado de Mendoza, Marquis of Cañete, accepted the difficult post of viceroy. He was a scion of the noblest House of Spain, distinguished alike in arms and letters, capable and resolute, of mature years and wide experience. His salary was fixed at the then fabulous sum of forty thousand ducats in order to enable him to maintain regal state, and, accompanied by his vice-queen and an imposing retinue, he assumed power with ceremonial splendour. He prohibited further immigration from Spain and ordered that no Spaniard in Peru should leave his district without permission. Though the encomienderos were left in possession of their estates, they were made to understand that they must cease the more outrageous forms of oppressing the natives. He sent for the most notorious disturbers, and they came joyfully expecting to receive grants, but were summarily disarmed and banished. He employed the more adventurous in expeditions to the interior and in completing the conquest of Chile. All the artillery in the country was gathered under his eye, and the corregidors were required to dismiss most of their soldiery. Finally, the viceroy continued Pizarro's policy of founding cities into which were gathered the Spaniards who remained scattered over the country.

He did much to alleviate the lot of the natives, though he dared not venture on giving them all the rights guaranteed by Spanish law. No efforts were spared to Hispaniolise the Inca nobles, and native chiefs who could prove their right by descent were formally allowed to exercise jurisdiction as magistrates. Even the rightful emperor, Sayri Tupac, who had maintained his independence in the wilds of Vilcabamba, was induced to swear allegiance and accept a pension and estates in the valley of Yucay. When the Inca had attested the documents by which he renounced his sovereignty, he lifted up the gilded fringe of the table-cloth, saying: "All this cloth and its fringe were mine, and now they give me a thread of it for my sustenance and that of all my house." Retiring to Yucay, he sank into a deep melancholy and died within two years.

In the meantime Charles V. had been succeeded by Philip II. The Marquis of Cañete's liberal and enlightened policy did not wring money from the unhappy country fast enough to suit the greedy despot. He listened to the slanders against the "good viceroy" brought home by disappointed Spaniards, and Cañete's reward for five years of brilliant service was a recall. Only his death saved him from hearing with his own ears the reproaches of his ungrateful sovereign.

Several years elapsed before Philip found a man who possessed the courage, capacity, mercilessness, and obstinacy to devise and apply a system which would make Peru a mere machine to produce gold and silver for the Spanish Crown. Such a one was Don Francisco de Toledo, a member of the same ancient house to which the Duke of Alva belonged. To him belongs the distinction of founding the infamous colonial system—the origin of the misery and disorder from which Spanish South America has suffered ever since, and a potent if not the principal cause of the decline of Spain herself and the loss of her magnificent colonial empire. Toledo reached Lima 1569, leaving Spain just after the news had been received that William the Silent and his Hollanders had risen in revolt against the cruelties of Alva and gained the victory of Gröningen.

PROMENADE OF THE ALAMEDA, LIMA.

The new viceroy first devoted himself to the destruction of the native dynasty. Sayri Tupac's younger brothers, Titu Yupanqui and Tupac Amaru, still roamed free in the forests of Vilcabamba. The Spaniards had hitherto not interfered with the Indians' celebrating their national festivals with the ancient solemnities, and Toledo came to Cuzco to be present at one which he had determined should be the last. As soon as it was over he sent for Titu to come in and take the oath of allegiance. Titu died of an illness, but the chiefs swore fealty to the boy Tupac Amaru, and refused to put him in the power of the Spaniards. The exasperated viceroy sent a force which captured the young emperor. Brought to Cuzco, Toledo ordered him to be decapitated, and the head was stuck upon a pike and set up beside the scaffold. One moonlight night a Spaniard went to the window of his bed-chamber, which overlooked the great square, and saw the whole vast space packed with a crowd of kneeling, silent people, their faces all turned to the Inca's grisly head; it was the Indians devoutly worshipping the last relic of their beloved and unfortunate sovereign. But there was no spirit left in them for rebellion—and no centre for them to rally around. Toledo's executions exterminated the leading Incas and half-castes; the celebration of Indian rites was forbidden, and everything which might remind the people of the fallen régime destroyed or removed.

Toledo's "Libro de Tasas," or code of regulations, is the basis of the system under which the Spanish colonies were governed for more than two centuries. The Spaniards were practically recognised as belonging to a privileged and governing caste. The country was divided into about fifty districts, called "corregimentos," each under the rule of a corregidor. This official was substantially absolute so far as the Indians were concerned, although an effort was made to keep up parts of the ancient Inca organisation, and in practice the hereditary village chiefs administered justice and exercised considerable power.

Every male Indian between the ages of eighteen and fifty was compelled to pay a certain tribute or poll-tax, for whose collection their chiefs were responsible. About one-sixth of the Indians belonged to estates already granted, and these paid their tribute to the proprietors, the Crown deducting one-fifth. The other five-sixths paid directly to the representatives of the government. In consideration of this tribute, general and indiscriminate personal service was declared to be abolished, but the commutation was not in full. One-seventh of the Indians were required to work for their masters, and the wretched victims of this "mitta" were sent by their caciques to the nearest Spanish town, where they could be engaged by any one who required their services. But these were not all the burdens. The natives of the provinces near the mines were compelled to furnish the labour necessary to work them, and the poor creatures to whose lot it fell to go might never hope to return. Oppressive as was the letter of these laws, their practical application was made infinitely worse by evasions practised with the connivance of the corregidors. Hundreds of Indians were hunted down and carried away to work on farms and in factories under the pretext that the "mitta" returns had not been honestly made, and though the population decreased, the survivors were required to furnish the same number of victims every year.

In spite of the slaughter during the civil wars, the Peruvian Indians numbered eight millions in 1575. Including the outlying provinces, the population of the Inca empire must have reached twenty millions in the heyday of its prosperity. Horrible as had been the decrease of the first forty years of Spanish domination, it was a trifle to that which followed the establishment of Toledo's system. In 1573 the impressment for the Potosí mines produced eleven thousand labourers; one hundred years later only sixteen hundred could be found. In the non-mining provinces the destruction was not so stupendous, but some encomiendas, originally containing a thousand adults, were reduced to a hundred within a century, and the miserable survivors were compelled to pay the same sum as had been assessed to their ancestors. The total population of Peru proper had fallen to less than a million and a half within two centuries and that of the whole empire to not more than four millions. So great had been the mortality among the feebler inhabitants of the warm coast valleys that they had practically died out, and their places were taken by negro slaves whose importation began shortly after the conquest.

The Indians were the worst but not the only sufferers. The Creole descendants of the early Spanish settlers, though they nominally enjoyed the same rights as the later arrivals, in reality had small chance to participate in the offices and fat concessions. Each new viceroy brought a new swarm of needy noblemen, who regarded the Creoles with lofty disdain. Commerce except with Spain was forbidden, and even that was burdened with almost intolerable burdens. As time went on new taxes were devised until it seemed the deliberate purpose of the Spanish government to transfer all the gold and silver in Peru's mountains to the royal treasury. Not only were both imports and exports taxed, but also every pound of provisions sold in the markets and shops. One-fifth of the products of the mines and one-tenth of the crops went directly to the Crown. All kinds of businesses had to pay licences; quicksilver and tobacco were monopolies; and offices were regularly sold to the highest bidder.

Nevertheless the Spanish occupation brought many incontestable benefits to South America. To say nothing of the civilised system of jurisprudence, the letters and the religion which have made the peoples of the continent members of the great western European family, the introduction of new and valuable animals, grains, and fruits raised the level of average well-being among the surviving inhabitants. Horses, asses, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, pigeons, wheat, barley, oats, rice, olives, grapes, oranges, sugar-cane, apples, peaches and related fruits, and even the banana and the cocoa palm were introduced by the Spaniards. In return Europe owes to Peru maize, potatoes, chocolate, tobacco, cassava, ipecacuanha, and quinine.

Toledo had put his colonial system in full operation by 1580, and from that time to near the close of the Spanish epoch the story of Peru offers little of interest. Expansion ceased; the colonists made no effort to spread over the Amazon plain, or to prevent the Portuguese on the Atlantic coast from occupying the interior of the continent almost to the foot of the Andes. On the seacoast of Venezuela and the plains of the lower Plate the Spanish race still showed a scanty fraction of that vigour and enterprise which had enabled the early conquerors to spread over half the continent in a few short years, but in Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia the country slowly decayed. Though the viceroys who followed each other in rapid succession were selected from among the greatest grandees of Spain, they were held to an increasingly rigid account, and the smallest concession to commerce or a failure to send home the utmost farthing which could be wrung from the people was severely and peremptorily punished. Their jurisdiction extended over all Spanish South America; the captains-general of New Granada, Venezuela, and Chile, the royal audience of Bolivia, the president of Ecuador, and the governors of Tucuman, Paraguay, and Buenos Aires being all nominally subject to their orders. But in practice these widely separated divisions of the continent were largely independent. Lima was, however, the political, commercial, and social centre of South America. To its port came from Panama the goods destined for Peru, Chile, Bolivia, and even Paraguay and Buenos Aires. Many of the viceroys were lovers of letters, and the university produced scholars and authors not unworthy comparison with those of the Old World. The continual influx of Spaniards of distinguished Castilian ancestry and gentle training made the language of even the common people singularly pure, and the sonorous elegance of the Spanish tongue as spoken during the classical period has been best preserved in the comparative isolation of Peru. The influence of the bishops and priests, the Jesuits and the Franciscans, was hardly inferior to that of the officials. The clergy controlled education; every village had its parish priest who compelled the Indians to go to mass and made them pay heavily for the privilege; the Inquisition was early introduced and performed its dreadful functions without let or hindrance.

GENERAL VIEW OF LIMA, SHOWING THE CATHEDRAL.

The regulations which attempted to confine the oppression of the Indians within bearable limits were persistently violated, not only by private individuals, but by the corregidors themselves. Kidnapping was reduced to a system, and often all the male adults of a village were dragged off to work in the mines, leaving only the women and children to till the fields. The corregidors went into partnership with merchants, and the poor Indians were compelled to purchase articles for which they had no use, and thrown into slavery to work out the debt if they failed to pay. The wiser viceroys did not waste their energies in vain efforts to mitigate the profitable abuses. They devoted their attention rather to the exaction of the last penny of taxes, to be spent in maintaining the horde of office-holders, or to be remitted to Spain. So rigidly was taxation enforced and so successful were the Spaniards in finding rich mines of silver, gold, and mercury, that early in the seventeenth century the revenue had reached the sum—enormous in those days of low prices—of nearly five hundred thousand pounds, of which about half was regularly sent to Madrid. Foreign nations could not effectively interfere with Spain's commercial and fiscal monopoly. The Isthmus was in her hands, and the voyage through Magellan's Straits or around Cape Horn was too stormy and uncertain for the slow, clumsy ships of that age, and only a few English and Dutch expeditions, half-trading, half-piratical, ravaged the coast towns in the seventeenth century.

The most memorable event of Peru's history during the seventeenth century was the revelation of the sovereign virtues of quinine. The Lima physicians were unable to cure the Countess of Chinchon, the viceroy's wife, of a stubborn attack of malarial fever, but the rector of the Jesuit college had received some fragments of an unknown bark from a Jesuit missionary to whom they had been given by an Indian in the mountain wilds of southern Ecuador. Doses of this quickly restored the vice-queen, and when Linnæus named the world's plants in scientific order, he called the genus to which the tree belongs chinchona, from the viceroy, through whom its virtues had come to notice.

The succession of the Bourbons to the Spanish Crown, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, brought about a considerable change of colonial policy. To England was conceded the privilege of exporting negroes to South America, and French vessels were permitted to come round the Horn and trade at Peruvian ports. The latter concession was soon revoked and the commerce of the Pacific coast again became a monopoly for the ring of merchants at Cadiz. The Atlantic, however, by this time swarmed with ships of all the European maritime Powers, and it was impossible to prevent smuggling at the Caribbean and Argentine ports. The Madrid government reluctantly came to the conclusion that it was impossible to administer effectually from Lima the provinces which were commercially tributary to the Caribbean Sea. In 1740 Bogotá, on the populous plateau of eastern New Granada, was made the capital of a new viceroyalty, under whose jurisdiction were placed the captaincy-general of Venezuela and the presidency of Quito. Buenos Aires was a resort for contraband traders under non-Spanish flags, and smuggling through that port so increased that goods coming from Spain by the Panama route were undersold in the markets of Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, Bolivia, and even Peru itself. In 1776 the southern Atlantic region was detached from Lima, and to the new viceroyalty of Buenos Aires were attached not only the Plate provinces—Buenos Aires and Paraguay—but also that part of Chile which lay east of the Andes, as well as Tucuman and the audiencia of Charcas as far north as Lake Titicaca. By these changes Peru was reduced to its present dimensions, except that Chile remained attached as a semi-independent captaincy-general.

Three times since its foundation had Lima been nearly destroyed by earthquakes, but none of them was to be compared with the convulsion which in 1746 reduced the whole city to a shapeless mass of ruins. More than a thousand people perished; a great wave engulfed Callao, drowning half the population and carrying great ships far inland.

The expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 was effected without difficulty. In the neighbourhood of Lima alone they owned five thousand negro slaves and property to the value of two million dollars, and every penny of their immense accumulations was confiscated by the government.

The great Indian rebellion which had so long been expected broke out in 1780 under the leadership of Tupac Amaru, the lineal descendant of the last of the reigning Inca emperors. In Peru proper it did not spread beyond the southern frontier provinces and the story of its suppression belongs to Bolivia. The authorities were so alarmed that the reforms, to procure which Tupac had risked and lost his life, were shortly after voluntarily adopted. The vitality and fighting qualities of the half-breeds now stood revealed, and the Creoles, jealous of imported officials and dissatisfied at their exclusion from places of honour and profit, realised that a weapon lay ready to their hand when they should determine upon revolution.

General Theodore de Croix, a Fleming, was entrusted with the reorganisation and reform made necessary by the Indian rebellion. The corregidors, petty tyrants over whom no effective control could be maintained, were abolished; the country was divided into a few great provinces, each ruled by an intendente to whom were responsible the subdelgados who had charge of local affairs, and measures were taken for the enforcement of the laws intended to protect the Indians.

By the year 1790 these valuable reforms had been put into effect, but they came too late. Ideas of liberty had begun to infiltrate into the educated classes, and among the Creoles the abstract right of Peru to autonomous government became the subject of secret though widespread discussion. A succession of able and liberal viceroys, however, averted the danger for the time, and the outbreak of the revolution in the rest of South America found Peru ruled by Abascal, whose energy, foresight, and determination not only prevented an insurrection at Lima, but nearly saved all South America to Spain.

CHAPTER V

THE WARS OF INDEPENDENCE

The storm soon to burst over South America was gathering when Viceroy Abascal assumed the reins of power in 1806. He made no pretensions to statesmanship, but it did not escape his shrewd soldier's eye and common sense that French revolutionary ideas would soon make trouble. Her very existence threatened in the titan conflict then devastating Europe, Spain could not be relied upon to spare any of her soldiers to guard her colonies. He must take care of himself. Wasting no time in seeking to propitiate the revolutionary elements, he quietly set to work to organise and arm an efficient army while vigilantly watching the course of events.

BAKER ON HORSEBACK, LIMA.

Although less infected than any other province, being the one where the Spanish bureaucracy was most numerous and powerful, even in Peru Creole society was honeycombed with revolutionary sentiment. The plots to secure autonomy came to Abascal's notice, and with the first overt act he pounced upon the plotters. Two republican visionaries, named Ubaldo and Aguilar, were the first martyrs for liberty. A few learned and respected professors in Lima dared to speculate on the future of America as affected by recent events in Europe, but the viceroy summoned them to his presence and his stern warnings silenced them. Two young lawyers held evening parties where politics were discussed by the rising youth of the capital. One of the ringleaders was condemned to ten years' imprisonment and the other sent to Spain, while several more were shipped off to southern Chile. Although the liberals continued to meet and conspire, and the priests were particularly active, for the present nothing definite came of all this.

Even the news of the deposition of the Spanish authorities at Quito, La Paz, and Charcas, in 1809, met with no response from the liberals at Lima. Abascal banished Riva Aguëro, their leader; his expeditions quickly suppressed the insurrections in Bolivia and Ecuador; and he redoubled his exertions to strengthen his army, recruiting among the Indians and half-breeds, and casting cannon. That his apprehensions were justified was proved by the events of the following year. In rapid succession Buenos Aires, northern New Granada, Caracas, and Santiago installed revolutionary juntas in place of the Spanish governors. The flames of revolution spread rapidly from these centres. Soon the Spanish officials were overthrown throughout Argentina, Chile, New Granada, and Venezuela; Bolivia and Ecuador were divided; and only Peru remained steady. But Abascal, resolute and unshaken, sent his armies against the triumphant revolutionists. The story of these campaigns is elsewhere told in connection with the countries where they were conducted. Though the patriots won some important victories, the loyal arms steadily advanced.

The redemption of Ecuador, Chile, and Bolivia had been mainly achieved with the resources which Abascal had picked up in South America. Until 1813 the people of the Peninsula were fighting desperately for national independence against the armies of the great Napoleon. No money or men could be spared for South America, and Abascal even managed to remit two million dollars to Spain in a single year—that of 1811. The armies with which his generals won their early victories were recruited almost entirely from the native population of Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. In this struggle between Spaniard and Creole, the sturdy Indian of the plateau, who was dragged reluctant from his home, took no great interest, but any sympathy he felt was anti-Spanish. Nevertheless, so ingrained was the habit of obedience that when drilled and commanded by Spanish officers the half-breeds and Indians made excellent soldiers. During these six years, only one insurrection touched the territory of Peru proper. In 1814 the Indians of the Cuzco region rose under the leadership of one of their own caciques. The whole population of this, the most southern province of Peru, seems to have sympathised with the insurrection, and the same feeling extended over the Bolivian border. When Pumacagua, the Indian leader, advanced into Bolivia the people about La Paz joined him. But his army was an undisciplined, unarmed mob, only eight hundred of the twenty thousand who followed him possessing muskets. The Spanish general, Ramirez, hastened up from southern Bolivia; the Indians retreated over the Cordillera to Arequipa, where they were followed by the Spaniards. When Ramirez approached they again retired to the Bolivian plateau and the game of hide-and-seek ended with the horrible slaughter of Umachiri near Lake Titicaca.

In 1816 Abascal thought that his work was virtually completed and that he had earned the right to retire. Resistance was confined to Buenos Aires, to the thinly populated provinces of Tucuman and Cuyo, and to the banks of the Orinoco. The Argentine revolutionists were fighting among themselves, and that they must succumb before an advance in force from the Bolivian plateau appeared certain. The last act of his administration was to send out a fleet that compelled four Argentine ships which Admiral William Brown had brought around the Horn to withdraw to the Atlantic. He was succeeded by General Pezuela, a strategist of no mean abilities, who had borne a brilliant part in the Bolivian campaigns. The new viceroy straightway set about final preparations for a decisive advance across the pampas to Buenos Aires, but like a thunderbolt from a clear sky came the news that San Martin had made a sudden descent on Chile and won the battle of Chacabuco, annihilating the Spanish forces in that country. Pezuela saw himself obliged to begin a war to reduce Chile to obedience—an undertaking sure to be long and arduous, and in which he must encounter a general whose technical mastery of the profession had enabled him to create an army equal in discipline and effectiveness to any the viceroy might hope to throw against him. Pezuela abandoned the idea of an immediate Argentine campaign, and contented himself with maintaining a defensive attitude on the Bolivian frontier. He managed to repulse the armies which the Buenos Aireans sent against Bolivia, but it was in vain that he poured into Chile all the troops he could possibly spare. They were overthrown and annihilated in the decisive battle of Maipo. The viceroy sent for help to Spain and New Granada, but Venezuela had risen in insurrection under Bolivar and Paez; and it was impossible to spare any considerable number of troops from the Caribbean.

So long, however, as Spanish ships commanded the Pacific, Peru itself was safe from attack and the viceroy could securely await the arrival of reinforcements, and then attack Chile where he chose. Happily for the cause of South American independence, the war-ship of the beginning of the nineteenth century was not the expensive, complicated, slow-built machine it has since become. San Martin subordinated everything to the creation of a fleet. He forced the Argentine and Chilean governments to furnish him money, and his agents hastened to Europe and North America to buy ships and engage British and American captains. The Spaniards had four frigates and thirteen smaller ships, mounting in all three hundred and thirty guns, while San Martin was able to improvise only three frigates and as many brigs, mounting about one hundred and eighty cannon. This disparity of force was more than made up by the superior skill and experience of the foreign seamen. His admiral was Lord Cochrane, a Scotchman of noble family, but radical principles and adventurous disposition. A daring and reckless fighter, inventive and fertile in resource, he excelled in leading cutting-out expeditions and surprises. His marvellous activity and the capture by Blanco Encalada of their largest frigate dismayed the Spanish captains. When Cochrane sailed up the coast he found the Spaniards huddled under the guns of Callao castle. Returning to Valparaiso, he reported to San Martin that he could guarantee the unmolested transport of an army to any point on the Peruvian coast, and again sailed away for Callao. Though his attempt to destroy the Spaniards with fire-ships and rockets was unsuccessful, he captured and sacked several towns and terrorised the Spanish authorities all along the coast. San Martin after many disappointments and interruptions succeeded in preparing an army of invasion. For ten years war had desolated every other part of Spanish South America, while Peru had remained untouched. At length the conflict was to be transferred to the very centre of Spanish power.

On September 7, 1820, Lord Cochrane's fleet dropped anchor in a bay near Pisco, one hundred and fifty miles south of Lima. San Martin's army, numbering four thousand five hundred Argentines and Chileans, disembarked without opposition and occupied the fertile, vine-covered valleys. To undertake a campaign for the conquest of Peru with such a force seemed absurd. The viceroy's troops were five times as numerous; at Lima alone he had nearly nine thousand men; as many more were quartered at Cuzco, Jauja, and Arequipa, besides the six thousand veterans who guarded the Bolivian frontier against an invasion from Buenos Aires. The contest was, however, really not so unequal as it appeared. The Spanish armies were made up of native Peruvians and Bolivians, with some Venezuelans; sympathisers with the patriot cause swarmed in their ranks; many were waiting an opportunity to desert; the viceroy had little control over his generals, and the arrival of the Argentine army stimulated the activity of the patriot societies in the Peruvian cities.

From Pisco San Martin detached a force of twelve hundred men under the command of General Arenales, which ascended the Cordillera, roused the population of the plateaux immediately back of Lima, and defeated a detachment under General O'Reilly near Cerro de Pasco. The Indians rose, but when the Spaniards came up in force Arenales retired to the coast, leaving his allies to be mercilessly slaughtered. Meanwhile San Martin with the main body had taken ship at Pisco and, sailing north, landed at Huacho, seventy miles beyond the capital. His three thousand men could not hope to succeed in a direct attack on the city, defended by thrice that number of disciplined troops. On the other hand, the Spanish army was shut off from the sea; its base was now far back in the interior; its line of communication might be cut at any moment by other expeditions like that of Arenales. Lima and the coast towns were decidedly disaffected. San Martin's plan was to wait patiently until a rising should compel the Spaniards to retire to the interior, and then to organise the country and gather an army for the final campaign on the plateau. He kept, therefore, at a safe distance from the Spaniards; sent out detachments which scoured the country up to the walls of Lima; and entered into communication with the conspirators in the city. Crowds of young enthusiasts hastened out to join him; Cochrane daringly cut out the frigate Esmeralda under the very guns of Callao castle; an expedition sent to Tacna, on the extreme southern coast, was enthusiastically received; and numerous desertions from the Spanish army culminated in a battalion of Venezuelans coming over in a body. The viceroy was sorely puzzled. He hesitated to send his army to attack San Martin, fearing an insurrection or surprise during his absence, and knowing that defeat meant irretrievable ruin. Really only two courses of action lay open to the Spaniards—they must either fight San Martin, and the sooner the better, for he was becoming stronger every day—or they must abandon Lima and concentrate on their base in the mountains. The viceroy could not make up his mind to abandon the ancient capital, and he was reluctant to expose his family to the hardships of a guerilla warfare in the mountains.

THE MOLE AND HARBOUR OF CALLAO.

San Martin drew closer and closer, the attitude of the Lima liberals became more and more threatening, and still Pezuela made no move. News came of the revolution in Spain and of the overthrow of absolutism, and all the principal commanders united in demanding his resignation. He had no alternative, and retired to Spain, while the generals selected one of their number, La Serna, to succeed him. The new viceroy entered into negotiations looking toward an amicable accommodation of the whole question at issue between Spain and her colonies. The Argentine was nothing loath, well knowing that every month strengthened the patriot feeling among the coast Peruvians and brought him nearer his goal. San Martin proposed that South America become a constitutional monarchy and accept a Bourbon prince as its king in return for a recognition of its independence—a concession which even the revolutionary Spanish government could not confirm. The suggestion reflects little credit upon the political acumen of the great Argentine general. San Martin, in fact, seems never to have appreciated the motives and instincts which had pushed the Creoles into rebellion. The revolutionary movement in South America was in its essence separatist and republican; no monarch, whether the scion of a European House, or a Bolivar trying to play the rôle of a Napoleon, could ever have kept the Spanish colonies together.

The first six months of 1821 were consumed in these fruitless negotiations, and by this time the position of the Spaniards at Lima had become untenable. It was necessary for them to retire to the plateau, where the sturdy natives furnished a supply of excellent recruits and the mines, fields, and pastures would maintain an army. On July 6, 1821, La Serna evacuated the capital and retired to Jauja, leaving a well-provisioned garrison at Callao against the hoped-for arrival of a fleet from Spain. Even then a dozen well-fought frigates might have undone all San Martin's work and changed the fate of South America. Three days later the Argentine general entered the city, and on the 28th of July, 1821, Peru was proclaimed an independent republic, with San Martin as temporary dictator under the title of Protector. During the rest of the year he was occupied with trying to secure the adhesion of the whole coast, and made no effort to undertake the redemption of the interior. When the Frenchman Canterac, the most enterprising of the Spanish commanders, made a descent on Lima, San Martin merely maintained the defence, being well assured that the enemy must soon retire on account of want of provisions. But he found himself hampered in consolidating coast Peru by the fact that he was a foreigner. The Peruvians were jealous and suspicious, and he feared that troops recruited among them might turn their arms against him, while his Argentine officers regarded the country as their own property, and monopolised the positions of honour and profit to which the Peruvians thought themselves more justly entitled.

Matters remained virtually at a standstill until the summer of 1822. San Martin had been unable to make his position stable enough to justify his devoting himself to military operations, nor had he succeeded in gathering and equipping an army with which he was willing to undertake a decisive campaign. Canterac even took the offensive, although he made no effort to re-occupy permanently the coast plain. Outside help was necessary, and San Martin, despairing of obtaining it from Chile or the Argentine, turned his eyes to the north. Bolivar's battles of Boyacá and Carabobo had redeemed northern Granada and Venezuela in 1819 and 1821, and he was now advancing toward Quito to complete the expulsion of the Spaniards from that viceroyalty. With a force of Colombians Sucré went to Guayaquil by sea and climbed to the Ecuador plateau. Defeated and driven back on his first attempt, he was reinforced by a division sent by San Martin, and renewed the effort with better success. Although Bolivar had in the meantime been checked in his southward march on Quito by the loyalists of southern Colombia, Sucré alone destroyed the Spanish army which had held Ecuador for so many years. The battle of Pichincha, fought in May, 1822, left Bolivar and Sucré free to employ their numerous and well-disciplined troops in completing the liberation of Peru and Bolivia.

CHURCH OF SAN FRANCISCO IN LIMA.

Bolivar joined his victorious lieutenant at Quito, incorporated Ecuador with his new republic of Colombia, and proceeded overland to Guayaquil, where San Martin lost no time in going to meet him for a conference. The Argentine expected to find as unselfish a patriot as himself, but the "liberator" was not single-minded. He had formed plans for his own glory and aggrandisement to the accomplishment of which San Martin might be an obstacle. When the latter broached the subject of a joint campaign against the Spaniards in Peru and Bolivia, Bolivar gave him no satisfaction, and evaded the Argentine's noble offer to serve in a subordinate capacity. The silent soldier made no protest and uttered no reproaches. Confiding not even in his closest friends, he calmly considered his plight on his way back to Lima. His situation in Peru, bad already, would be made ten times worse by Bolivar's intrigues. Seeing that he could be of no further service to the cause of South American independence, he formally resigned his authority to a national congress, deliberately sacrificing his own future for the cause he loved, but leaving behind him a name untarnished by any suspicion of self-seeking or personal ambition.

Bolivar waited in vain for the expected invitation to come with his veterans. The leaders in Peru did not propose to jeopard their own supremacy. They thought they were strong enough to whip the Spaniards by themselves, and made great efforts to drill and equip an efficient army. By the end of the year four thousand men under the command of Alvarado were sent to the southern coast to make an attempt to reach Lake Titicaca and thereby get between the Spanish armies. It failed before the astonishing energy of the Spanish general, Valdez, who by forced marches reached the pass which the Peruvians were trying to climb, and taking up a strong position, beat them back with great slaughter. Alvarado retreated, but was caught by Valdez and completely routed; hardly a third of the army escaped to the seashore. The news of this defeat brought about a change of government at Lima. A revolution, headed by the principal officers, made Riva Aguëro, the leader of the Peruvian liberals, president, while General Santa Cruz, a Bolivian, received chief command of the forces, in place of Arenales. Word was sent to Bolivar that his offer of help would be accepted; and another Peruvian army was recruited. Before the six thousand men promised by Bolivar had arrived, the Peruvians had regained confidence. With the aid of a London loan, the patriots got seven thousand soldiers ready for service, and in May, 1823, five thousand men under the command of Santa Cruz sailed from Callao for southern Peru. This time they advanced so promptly that the Spanish generals could not get to the passes in time to dispute the way. Santa Cruz entered La Paz and defeated the first army which came against him. But the two main Spanish bodies hastened up from Cuzco and Charcas, outmanœuvred Santa Cruz, united their forces, and routed his army in a panic, not a fourth ever reaching the seaboard.

Shortly after Santa Cruz's departure on this ill-fated expedition, Sucré arrived at Lima with the first instalment of the promised Colombian auxiliaries. The Spanish general, Canterac, had concentrated a large army at Jauja and descended on the capital; Lima was denuded of Peruvian troops; the government helpless against the Spaniards or Sucré. The Colombian was made commander-in-chief, and retiring to the fortifications of Callao before Canterac's overwhelming numbers, procured Riva Aguëro's deposition and the nomination of one of his own tools as nominal president, while he sent off an urgent message to Bolivar to come in person. Canterac, after holding Lima for a few weeks, went back to the mountains, and Bolivar himself landed at Callao on the 1st of September, almost at the very moment when Santa Cruz's army was getting involved in that snarl out of which it never extricated itself. The news of its destruction left Bolivar undisputed master of the situation, and in February the submissive rump of the Peruvian parliament conferred upon him an absolute dictatorship. He now devoted all the wonderful energy with which nature had endowed him to preparation for a campaign which he meant to be final; and united ten thousand men under his command, two-thirds of whom were Colombian veterans and the rest Peruvians, Argentines, and Chileans who fought for the sheer love of fighting. His officers were the pick of South America, men who had proven their bravery and skill on all the hundred battle-fields from Venezuela to Chile. With such a force he did not hesitate to attack the Spaniards, although the latter were nearly twice as numerous.

Suddenly, however, his plans were seriously disturbed by a revolt of the garrison in Callao castle—Argentines and Chileans who had not received their pay. The mutineers hoisted the Spanish flag and sent word to Canterac that he might come in and take possession. This event produced a great sensation at Lima. Many citizens who distrusted Bolivar or were fearful of the final result vacillated in their allegiance. Even men who had been prominent liberals went over to the royalists. Bolivar abandoned the capital and removed his base of operations to Trujillo, three hundred miles north. But discouragement gave place to confident enthusiasm when news came that the Spanish generals were fighting among themselves. Olañeta, the renegade Argentine, who commanded in Bolivia, had quarrelled with La Serna, whom he regarded as a pestilent liberal and an enemy of the absolute pretensions of the Spanish king. The viceroy sent Valdez against him, and some hard fighting had taken place, when this fratricidal war was interrupted by the news of Bolivar's preparations.

MILK-WOMAN OF LIMA ON HORSEBACK.

Though just recovering from a dangerous illness, Bolivar lost no time in taking advantage of Olañeta's revolt. His army numbered nine thousand men; it was well supplied with cavalry, and the troops received their liberal pay punctually. The patriots advanced rapidly and unopposed over the Maritime Cordillera, covered by a cloud of Peruvian guerillas, under whose protection Sucré marked out the daily route and brought in provisions. The city of Pasco, just south of that transverse range which forms the northern limit of the great Peruvian plateau, was reached and Bolivar's army hastened south along the western shore of the lake of Reyes to the marshy plain of Junin at its southern end, where he met Canterac hurrying up from Jauja with a slightly inferior force.

When Bolivar caught sight of the royalist army he held his infantry back in a defensible position, and sent his cavalry toward the enemy. Canterac rashly charged in person at the head of all his cavalry, but instead of the easy victory he expected, his squadrons were thrown into some disorder when they encountered the patriot lancers. The latter, however, were compelled to retreat, and fled into a defile, followed by the royalists. The royalists did not notice that a Peruvian squadron had been drawn aside, and scarcely were they in the defile than they were charged from the rear. The fugitive patriots in front rallied, and the disordered and huddled royalists, caught between two fires, could make no effective resistance. They were quickly cut to pieces and driven from the field. The whole affair had not lasted three-quarters of an hour; the numbers engaged did not much exceed two thousand; the royalist loss was only two hundred and fifty, yet this battle of Junin produced almost decisive results. As the fugitive cavalry rode up to the protection of the muskets of the infantry, the latter retreated. Though Canterac was not pursued, he did not stop in his precipitate flight until he had nearly reached Cuzco, five hundred miles away, losing two thousand men by desertion on the road.

Leaving Sucré in command of the army, which now threatened Cuzco itself, Bolivar returned to Lima to look after his political interests, collect money, and urge the sending of reinforcements from Colombia. La Serna called in all his outlying divisions, while Sucré confidently scattered his forces. He underestimated the strength of the royalists, for to his consternation La Serna suddenly broke out of Cuzco at the head of ten thousand men, and before Sucré could concentrate, his opponent was threatening his rear and manœuvring to cut him off from his base. Happily, the royalists were compelled to march in a semicircle, and Sucré, by desperate exertions, united his forces and cut along the radius, coming in sight of La Serna just as the latter had succeeded in getting between him and the road to Jauja. Sucré's position was desperate. The valleys to the north were rising in favour of the royalists; a patriot column advancing from that direction to reinforce him was driven back; his provisions and ammunition were beginning to fail. Sucré's army was La Serna's real objective. Even if he could shake off the pursuit, another march to Lima would be as barren of results as Canterac's last descent, and to leave the Colombian army at Guamanga would expose Cuzco and Bolivia to invasion. During three days the opposing armies marched and counter-marched among the ravines on the west bank of the Pampas River, and finally Sucré took the desperate resolution of crossing the deep gorge in which the river runs in order to reach the high grounds on the other side. He managed to get his main body over safely, but the Spaniards fell upon his rearguard, killing four hundred men and capturing one of his two cannon. The two armies were now opposite each other on the high, narrow, and broken plateau which lies between the Eastern and Central Cordilleras, separated only by the gorge of the Pampas. They marched in plain sight of each other, the royalists along the slopes of the Central Cordillera, while the patriots skirted the foothills of the Eastern. Sucré hoped to outrun the enemy and reach the main road to Jauja, but La Serna again outflanked him; he offered battle, but the viceroy had determined to engage under conditions where not a patriot could escape, and by skilful manœuvres the royal army succeeded in getting into the protection of the eastern range at a point north of Sucré. Irretrievably cut off from the Jauja road, convinced by his previous failures that he could not better his position by any further manœuvres, the Colombian general resolved again to offer battle, although this time upon a field chosen by La Serna. He ceased marching and allowed the enemy to dispose their forces at will.

On the 8th of September, 1824, La Serna's army, numbering eight thousand five hundred men—of whom only five hundred were Spaniards—encamped on the high grounds overlooking the little plain of Ayacucho, which sloped gently eastward to the little village of Quinua. To the left the level ground was bounded by a deep and precipitate ravine, and on the right by a valley which, though less difficult, was impracticable for fighting. Sucré's army lay at the eastern extremity of the plain, at the edge of the slope which rises from Quinua. Behind was no cover to re-form in if defeated. His forces were a little less than six thousand, and he had only one cannon against the enemy's eleven, but three-fourths of his men were the pick of the Colombian veterans and the rest Peruvians of the highest spirit. Tired of interminable marching through the mountains, isolated in a hostile region, starvation staring them in the face, confident of their superiority, man for man, to the royalists, and led by fiery young generals,—Sucré was only thirty-one and his chief lieutenant twenty-five,—they welcomed the opportunity to fight it out once for all, face to face and man to man.

The morning sun of the 9th rose radiant behind the mountains where the Spaniards lay encamped. Sucré deployed his army in the open plain, riding down the line exclaiming, "Soldiers, on your deeds this day depends the fate of South America," while the Spanish columns descended in perfect order from the heights. La Serna realised that his men would not fight with the same spirit as the patriots and that defeat might be followed by wholesale desertion, but he counted on his artillery and the reserve he had left on the high ground as a sure refuge in case of a reverse.

The story of the battle is soon told. The patriots advanced to meet the Spanish attack; musketry volleys on both sides did terrific execution, and the two armies met bayonet in hand. On the left the Spanish columns were unable to make any impression on the Colombian infantry, and while the conflict was still undecided the royalist cavalry rashly charged, hoping to strike a deciding blow. But they were met by a counter-charge of the patriot squadrons and rolled back in defeat. The whole left of the royalist army dispersed, and such was the confusion that the impetuously pursuing Colombians reached the Spanish camp and spiked the artillery, defeating on their way the enemy's centre. In the meantime the Spanish right under Valdez had outflanked the Peruvians who held that part of the line and driven them back, but before he could reach the patriot centre the battle had been decided. Attacked by the victorious cavalry, Valdez's men were cut to pieces, and by one o'clock in the after noon the Spanish army, except the reserve under Canterac, had ceased to exist as an organised body. Of the royalists fourteen hundred were dead and seven hundred wounded, while the patriots had lost six hundred wounded and three hundred dead. The viceroy was wounded and a prisoner, his men deserting and dispersing by hundreds. Canterac sued for terms, and that afternoon fourteen generals, five hundred and sixty-eight officers, and three thousand two hundred privates became prisoners of war. Never was a victory more complete and decisive than Ayacucho. The war for independence was over. Only under Olañeta in far southern Bolivia and at Callao castle did a Spaniard remain under arms. Sucré marched to Cuzco, where he rested and refitted and then went on to Puno and La Paz. Olañeta's troops deserted as the Colombian approached, and the last of the Spanish generals fell at the hands of his own men as he was bravely trying to suppress a mutiny. Callao castle held out for thirteen months, and with its surrender was hauled down the last Spanish ensign which floated on the South American mainland.

CHAPTER VI

FROM INDEPENDENCE TO THE CHILEAN WAR

If ever country began an independent existence without any basis for a strong, ordered, and stable government, that country was the Peru of 1826. The interior inhabited by Indians long held in abject subjection by the Spanish generals, the long strip of coast divided by local and factional jealousies, the nation had already miserably failed to unite in face of defeats suffered from the Spaniards, or of the military preponderance first of the Argentines and then of the Colombians.

In 1825 all thought of open resistance to Bolivar was manifest folly. Peru was his to do with as he pleased. He went through the farce of summoning a congress and offering to resign his dictatorship, but with thousands of Colombian troops encamped at Lima, it was natural that he should be begged to retain the direction of affairs on his own terms. The "liberator" devoted all his energies to laying the foundations for a great military confederation with himself as its life head. Venezuela, New Granada, and Ecuador were already united under the name of the United States of Colombia, of which he was president. He hoped to make his tenure permanent by imposing an aristocratic and centralising constitution providing for a life president. The submissive Peruvian congress agreed to adopt his system, and the dictator set out on a triumphal tour to put it in application in upper Peru. Travelling along the coast to Arequipa, he crossed the Cordillera to La Paz, and thence proceeded over the Titicacan plateau to Charcas and Potosí. There he created a new nation which, in his honour, was named Bolivia; wrote its Constitution with his own hand; and, having installed Sucré as life president, returned to Lima at the beginning of 1826.

Apparently Bolivar's system was dominant from the Caribbean to the Argentine pampas, and he regarded himself as certain soon to be virtual emperor of all South America. But the instinct of local pride was growing; the signs of Peru's wish to be rid of him could not be ignored, and the new congress he had summoned was abruptly dismissed. In September the news of disturbances in Venezuela, which foreshadowed the breaking up of Colombia, made it necessary for Bolivar to hasten north. He left General Lara at Lima, but that officer failed to keep the unruly mercenaries upon whom his power depended in good humour. A mutiny broke out; Lara was arrested and deported, and the mutineers entered into negotiations with the Peruvian leaders. The money demanded was soon raised and the Colombian soldiers shortly embarked, leaving the field free for the local chiefs to fight among themselves for supreme power. General Santa Cruz, though by birth a Bolivian, had great influence anions the few Peruvian troops, and tried to forestall his competitors by seizing the direction of affairs and summoning a congress, but General La Mar, himself born at Cuenca in Ecuador, was stronger. The latter secured the selection of his friends, and when congress met he had a two-thirds majority and became president. So long as Sucré remained in control of Bolivia there could, however, be no certainty that Colombian rule might not be re-established, but he was already in trouble on account of the mutinous disposition of his troops. When the Peruvians sent against him a hastily gathered force he was compelled to withdraw, the Bolivarian Constitution was abolished, and Santa Cruz made himself supreme in Bolivia.

VILLAGE OF CHICLAY ON THE OROYA RAILWAY, 12,200 FEET ABOVE THE SEA.

Encouraged by this success, La Mar determined to wrest Guayaquil and Cuenca from Colombia. Bolivar, already furious over the defection of Peru and Bolivia, made a formal declaration of war, although he was too much occupied with his own troubles in New Granada and Venezuela to go in person to the frontier. General Flores, whom he had put in charge of Ecuador, made preparations to resist La Mar, Sucré came to direct the operations, a Peruvian naval expedition captured Guayaquil, and La Mar's main army of four thousand men occupied the province of Loja and penetrated within forty miles of Cuenca, only to be defeated. The Peruvian president signed a treaty giving up his conquests, but he was no sooner safe in his own country than he repudiated it and refused to surrender Guayaquil. His defeat had, however, cost him his prestige at home, and one of his generals, Gamarra, revolted and declared himself dictator.

Gamarra had been chief of staff at Ayacucho; he was a good soldier, but, like most of his companions, had no conception of constitutional government, and thought the men whose bravery had redeemed Peru from the Spaniards' ipso facto entitled to govern. Force was the only method he knew to secure obedience, and under his administration taxes were arbitrarily increased, citizens exiled without trial, and the country virtually governed by martial law. Until the last year of his administration Gamarra held the country fairly quiet, but as the end of his legal term in 1833 approached, the question of the succession plunged Peru into an indescribable anarchy. Gamarra's enemies got control of the assembly called to frame a permanent Constitution and illegally named a president, while Gamarra proclaimed one of his own partisans. Every military chief who could command the support of a few soldiers acted on his own responsibility. Dictators and soi-disant presidents were put up and pulled down one after another in a bewildering succession. Orbegoso, La Fuente, Vista Florida, Nieto, San Roman, Vidal, Gamarra, and Salaverry were each proclaimed supreme within the next year. Combinations of the different chiefs formed, dissolved, and re-formed with perplexing rapidity. Two bands would fight a bloody battle one day and the next would fall into each other's arms and swear eternal friendship.

Salaverry, a chief only thirty years old and remarkable for his dash and energy, succeeded in establishing himself pretty firmly at Lima, while Gamarra held Cuzco. Orbegoso, who had received a majority of votes in congress, entered into negotiations with Santa Cruz, the strong dictator of Bolivia, agreeing to everything to get help against Salaverry and Gamarra. The wily Bolivian had planned to divide Peru and unite the fragments with Bolivia into a confederation. At the head of five thousand men he advanced on Cuzco and wiped out Gamarra. The fiery Salaverry did not wait to be trapped at Lima, but left the capital with his whole force and hastened south. Not daring to attack Santa Cruz's vastly superior army, he slipped around to Arequipa, laying that unhappy town under contribution and impressing its citizens into his army. The Bolivians followed; he evacuated Arequipa, and evaded them for a time, but they finally caught him as he was making a daring attempt to cut their line of communication. His army was dispersed and destroyed and he and his principal officers were taken prisoners and mercilessly shot.

It seemed as if Peru might now, under the strong rule of Santa Cruz, enjoy the peace and order with which he had blessed Bolivia. The country was partitioned, Orbegoso becoming sub-president of North Peru, which included Lima, and General Herrera of South Peru. Santa Cruz was proclaimed protector of the Peru-Bolivian confederation and the new government formally inaugurated in the fall of 1836. He was an able and laborious administrator, zealous for economy and purity in public affairs, a friend of orderly government, a ruler who knew how to organise an efficient army while maintaining it in due subordination. But from the beginning it was evident that he held supremacy by a very uncertain tenure. The Peruvian military classes, so long and so absolutely dominant, were unanimously against him and his methods. The mercantile, professional, and moneyed classes were bound by a hundred ties to the officers, and the agricultural peasantry, composed of Indians and negroes, took no part in public affairs. Sooner or later he must have come again into conflict with men of the Gamarra-Salaverry type, but the immediate peril was from Chile, whose power and energy—great even then, but so far unknown and underestimated—were thrown into the balance against him. The civil war of 1831 had resulted in the defeat of the Chilean liberals, and Freire, their leader, had fled to Peru and there received aid and comfort. The Chilean remonstrances remained unnoticed, and Santa Cruz's commercial policy was adverse. The defeated Peruvian generals swarmed into Chile and promised to aid an invasion.

The Chilean aristocracy could not resist this temptation to make their country the dominant power on the Pacific coast, and without any warning their ships sailed up from Valparaiso and captured the Peruvian fleet at Callao. This left the way clear to land troops on the Bolivian or Peruvian coasts. The first expedition went against the province of Arequipa. It landed without resistance and climbed to the city, while Santa Cruz's army maintained a defensive attitude. Lack of provisions soon compelled the Chilean general to promise that the war should not be renewed if he were allowed to depart. His government refused to ratify this agreement, and sent another expedition to the neighbourhood of Lima, which was accompanied by Gamarra and a large number of Peruvian exiles. Orbegoso declared his independence of Santa Cruz and gave battle to the Chileans on his own responsibility, but was defeated and fled to Guayaquil.

A year elapsed before Santa Cruz could march an adequate army to the neighbourhood of Lima. As he approached, Gamarra and the Chileans evacuated the capital, retiring up the coast, whither the Bolivians followed. Repulsed in an attack on the rearguard of the fleeing allies, and feeling that he could not rely upon the Peruvians in his army, he took the defensive and posted his forces near the town of Yungay, occupying a hill called the Sugar Loaf. The allies stormed this hill by a brilliant assault in which they suffered greatly, but their unexpected success completely demoralised Santa Cruz's army. His men scattered in all directions, and though he escaped with his life, his prestige was destroyed. Gamarra became president of Peru, Bolivia revolted, and Santa Cruz made his way to a European exile.

During two years Gamarra kept his turbulent rivals in check, but he then rashly undertook a campaign against Bolivia, giving as a pretext the refusal of its government to expel the old adherents of Santa Cruz. The Peruvian army advanced into Bolivian territory, only to be overthrown in the bloody battle of Yngavi. Gamarra was killed and his best officers taken prisoners. The Bolivians made a counter-invasion, but a treaty of peace was soon signed. The removal of the common danger was the starting signal for a race to power among the Peruvian generals. Each of them had raised troops on his own account and now proposed to use them for his own benefit. They ignored the claims of Gamarra's constitutional successor. La Fuente, Vivanco, and Vidal formed an alliance and proclaimed the latter dictator; Torico seized Lima and declared himself supreme chief; Vidal hastened down from Guamanga and defeated him; then Vivanco rebelled against Vidal and in his turn descended on the capital.

Twenty years of independence had brought Peru no nearer a stable government. Anarchy and civil war had been her lot, and the situation seemed to grow more desperate year by year. The country's only hope was a man in whom military talent would be combined with such strength of will and pertinacity of purpose that he would crush out lesser despots and restore and maintain order by the strong hand.

DON RAMON CASTILLA.

The Porfirio Diaz of Peru was at hand, a little, quiet, rough, and unpretentious soldier, who for twenty years had been modestly doing his duty, observing events and slowly maturing in character. All Peruvians knew him as one of the heroes of Ayacucho, but none appreciated his latent possibilities, and he had been passed by while his more showy companions of that historic day had pushed themselves to the front. Ramon Castilla had been a colonel on Gamarra's staff at Ayacucho, and was rewarded by being appointed prefect of his native province—Tarapaca, the most southern part of Peru. About 1830 he began to take part in the civil wars, but he never started a revolution on his own account, and always seems to have chosen the side that best promised stability and respect for the Constitution. To Orbegoso. Castilla was long faithful but abandoned him when he made alliance with the Bolivians. He went into exile when Santa Cruz was victorious, and returned with Gamarra and the Chileans. At the battle of Yungay he commanded the Peruvian contingent of the allied cavalry, and when Gamarra became president gave him his adhesion; but was taken prisoner at the fatal battle of Yngavi, where his chief was killed. Returning from captivity he found Peru torn to pieces by the armed rivalry of contending generals, and Menendez, the legal president, a fugitive. Unhesitatingly he threw himself into the conflict against those whose claims rested on their own pronunciamentos. Landing at Arica with only five men, his cool audacity saved his life in the first attack; his little band increased; Vivanco's partisans were confounded by the rapidity of his movements; their opponents hastened to join him. Castilla obtained control of Arequipa and Cuzco, and finally, in July, 1844, completely overthrew Vivanco's army, putting an end to the civil war. The first use he made of his victory was to declare a general amnesty; the second to restore Menendez to the position of acting president. The latter called a convention, and ten months later Castilla was elected president of Peru without opposition.

The country realised at once that it was in the hands of a master—a man strong enough to be generous, but with whom it was not safe to trifle. Almost instantaneously commerce felt the impulse which assured peace always gives. The turbulent military leaders found their occupation slipping away, while the orderly elements of the community grew in power. At heart the vast majority of the people were law-abiding, and the class which promoted revolutions was numerically an insignificant element of the population. But it was not alone Castilla's personal force of character, his shrewdness as a politician, his prestige as a general, his popularity so nobly won by generosity and moderation, which made his position secure. At the moment he assumed supreme power bountiful Providence placed in his hands riches untold. Holding the strings of a purse into which poured the millions from the guano and nitrate deposits, he could reward his friends, keep his troops contented by regular pay, relieve agriculture of taxation, place the disordered finances on a sound footing, and promote general prosperity by works of public utility. Europe suddenly realised the value of the bird manure found on the desert islands of the Peruvian coast, and soon hundreds of ships were coming annually to load the precious fertiliser.

Instead of squandering this fairy gift on the enrichment of his creatures, or on the creation of a vast, useless, and wasteful swarm of office-holders,—the hardest of all temptations for a South American politician to resist,—Castilla paid interest on the foreign debt which Peru had incurred during the war of independence, and refunded it, with the accrued interest, that already amounted to more than the principal. The internal debt was also consolidated, care being taken to admit no fictitious claims; telegraphs and railways were constructed; steam vessels added to the navy; and all legitimate branches of the administration adequately provided for. But the moment Castilla's strong hand was removed, extravagance and corruption grew to alarming proportions. Under General Echenique, his successor, public offices and pensions were multiplied; concessions were granted not to promote honestly new industries, but to favourites to be sold for what they would bring; and finally a measure was rushed through congress to extend the time fixed by Castilla for presenting claims to be funded in the internal debt. It was openly charged that the ministerial ring had arranged to put themselves on the roll of national creditors. Public opinion was scandalised, and the discontent and jealousy soon showed itself in open revolt. The first insurrection was suppressed, but in the beginning of 1854 Castilla decided to put himself at the head of the movement against Echenique. Though the government regulars were better armed and provided than the militia which rallied around Castilla, the latter advanced from one position to another and finally overthrew the president in the decisive battle of La Palma. Echenique fled the country and Castilla assumed the reins of power once more, not to lay them down until 1862, when he voluntarily retired to private life. His second administration was as orderly as his first except for a local insurrection at Arequipa. He was not, however, so successful in restraining the predatory disposition of the Peruvian politicians and was unable to restore the administration to its old economical basis. The eighteen years of almost uninterrupted peace which elapsed between the beginning of Castilla's first administration and his retirement changed the face of Peru. A generation had grown up to whom the early years of independence were only a tradition. War, age, banishment, discouragement had thinned the ranks of the Ayacucho veterans, and the days were gone when one of them had merely to issue a pronunciamento to be forthwith hailed as president, dictator, supreme chief, protector, regenerator, by a turbulent soldiery and a fickle, ambitious Creole aristocracy. Peru's subsequent troubles have been financial, not military.

In 1860 the Constitution which still governs the country was adopted. Framed under Castilla's influence it retains the centralised system of provincial government through prefects appointed from Lima, and gives the executive preponderant powers, although it is liberal and humane in its guaranties to the citizen. Slavery and Indian tribute, which continued to exist until 1855, are forbidden; forced recruiting, the scourge of old revolutionary days, is a crime; all Peruvians who can read and write, who own property or pay taxes, are entitled to vote.

Castilla was succeeded by his old friend and companion in arms, General San Roman, a straightforward soldier who resembled his chief in his unquestioning obedience to lawful authority, but whose unfortunate death six months after his inauguration prevented him from demonstrating whether he possessed the same statesmanlike qualities. Vice-President Pezet peacefully took his place. Castilla had encouraged foreign immigration into the coast valleys, so admirably adapted to cotton and sugar, but where labour was scarce. Chinese coolies had come in large numbers, and the flattering offers had also attracted some Europeans. Among the latter were seventy Basque families, who shortly claimed that they were badly treated. Making a protest against a breach of contract committed by the proprietor of the estate on which they were working, they were attacked and some of them killed. The criminals escaped punishment, and the Spanish government made an international question of the affair, finally demanding an apology and three millions of dollars as indemnity. This being refused Spain broke off diplomatic relations and sent a powerful fleet, which seized the Chincha guano islands. Too weak alone to bid defiance to the Spanish ships, Pezet temporised, meanwhile asking Chile for help, and hoping for the early arrival of war-ships ordered in Europe. But the Spaniards pressed him so hard that he thought himself forced to yield to their demands. He concluded an agreement derogatory to the national honour, and a terrific outburst of public indignation followed. Prado, prefect of Arequipa, made preparations to march on Lima and depose the pusillanimous president; the Chileans, who had meantime determined to join in resistance to Spanish aggression, supported the insurrection; the terrible old Castilla went himself to the presidential mansion and gave Pezet a sound rating. The latter gave in and offered his resignation. Prado became supreme chief, issued a declaration of war against Spain, and signed a treaty of alliance with Chile. During the absence of the Spanish fleet the batteries at Callao were heavily reinforced, and an immense force of volunteers flocked to man the guns. When the Spanish ships appeared and, gallantly running into range, opened fire on the 2d of May, 1866, they were met by a determined resistance. Though the Peruvians suffered most severely—two thousand being killed and wounded—their opponents were unable to effect a landing or obtain the slightest concession, and their ships were so badly damaged that they abandoned further hostilities.

Prado now found that the unconstitutional character of his position had only temporarily been ignored when he attempted to hold the power against General Canseco, second vice-president, who was Pezet's lawful successor. Castilla, now over seventy years old, landed in his native province, determined to unseat him. But the enfeebled frame of the aged warrior was unable to withstand fatigues and he died of exposure on the march. Canseco, however, roused Arequipa. Prado failed to take the place by assault, and gave up further opposition. Meanwhile Colonel Balta had headed a formidable insurrection in the north, and though Canseco was allowed to fill out his legal term, Balta's friends controlled the electoral college, and he was inaugurated president in August, 1868.

With his accession Peru entered definitely upon a new era. The race for fortune absorbed the energies of the ruling class; cane and cotton planting, nitrate mining, railroad building under foreign direction, opened up vistas of profit without labour; social and civil intrigue replaced fighting and pronunciamentos. Castilla's liberal refunding of the old debt, the scrupulous regularity with which international obligations had been met, and the immense and increasing revenue from nitrate and guano, gave Peru credit in the money markets of Europe. Balta and his advisers were full of schemes for the material progress of the country and their own enrichment. A great railway system was projected and more than two thousand miles constructed at a cost of near forty million pounds. Enormous sums were spent on port works; expensive moles and piers built in the wave-lashed roadsteads which are Peru's only harbours; for the first time serious efforts were made to explore and develop the forested plain east of the Andes; the city of Iquitos was built at the head of deep-water navigation on the Amazon; office-holders multiplied; and new parks and public buildings embellished the cities. English capitalists eagerly took the bonds which the Peruvian government recklessly issued, and the foreign debt increased from five millions sterling to forty-nine millions before the end of Balta's term—a sum upon which two-thirds of the gross revenue would hardly suffice to pay interest. Such a debt was truly stupendous for a country most of whose population of scant two millions and a half was poor, non-commercial, non-industrial, and without other resources than a rude agriculture. Leaving out the proceeds of the guano monopoly and the nitrate royalties, the total revenues could not pay the interest.

STATUE OF BOLIVAR—LIMA, PERU

Don Manuel Pardo, Peru's first civilian president, had already been constitutionally selected as Balta's successor, and the latter was within a few days of the end of his term, when a terrible catastrophe happened. Among the poor relations whom the luckless president had preferred to positions in the army were four brothers named Gutierrez—the sons of a muleteer near Arequipa. Suddenly one brother appeared at the head of his battalion and took possession of the great square in the centre of the capital, while another forced his way into the president's study, revolver in hand, arrested the chief of state, and locked him up. Warned in time the president-elect escaped on board a man-of-war, and the eldest Gutierrez was proclaimed supreme chief. The people of Lima soon recovered from their stupefaction and a scene of terrific street-fighting followed. One of the conspirators was shot by the mob as he went to the railway station on his way to Callao. His brothers retaliated by murdering the captive president, but they soon fell before the rifles of the populace. Their bodies were hung up in the cathedral by the infuriated people, while the president-elect returned and assumed his functions.

Pardo's four years were one continual struggle against impending bankruptcy. Though he brought some order into public accounts, it was only by all sorts of expedients that he managed to keep up interest payments. He easily suppressed an insurrection led by Pierola in 1874; his intellectual and moral force united about him the educated and property-holding classes in a party which survives to this day; and he left the reputation of having been the best president who ever ruled Peru. However, no efforts could avail more than merely to put off the evil day of reckoning. The rapid exhaustion of the guano deposits precipitated the disaster. Payment of interest was suspended in 1876 and the same year Pardo turned over the government to General Prado with the currency at fifty-per-cent. discount and Peruvian bonds selling in London at twelve.

CHAPTER VII

THE CHILEAN WAR AND LATTER-DAY PERU

The nitrate region extends along the narrow desert coast of the Pacific for three hundred and fifty miles. Peru owned the northern one hundred and fifty, and prior to 1866 Bolivia claimed the remainder. After the discovery of the precious mineral the industrious and energetic Chileans crowded up the coast, while the Bolivians were shut in behind their high Andes. Chile insisted that her true boundary lay as far north as the 23d degree, and took vigorous measures to safeguard the interests of the Chilean nitrate companies. In 1866 Bolivia reluctantly made a treaty by which the 24th degree was agreed upon as the formal boundary, although the Chilean miners were allowed to continue their operations in the productive regions north of that line and their taxes were not to be increased without their government's consent. This treaty gave rise to constant disputes, and as the nitrate, silver, and copper business of the neutral zone became more profitable, the Bolivian government pressed harder for a larger revenue. The Peruvian government had planned to secure a control of the output by the state purchase and operation of nitrate properties, and such a trust would prove ineffective unless the Bolivian government had a free hand with the Chilean companies. In 1872 Peru and Bolivia made a secret treaty of alliance. Its provisions soon became public, and Chile not unreasonably believed it to be aimed especially at her miners' operating on Bolivian soil. She promptly began purchasing iron-clads. It was a favourite saying of old Marshal Castilla that when Chile bought a battle-ship Peru should buy two, but the Lima government was too poor to follow the good advice, and the fatal year of 1879 found her naval force inferior to that of her rival.

At this juncture the Bolivian congress voted not to ratify a treaty negotiated with Chile four years before, and passed a law imposing heavy taxes on the nitrate business. The Chilean companies protested and resisted; their government backed them up, and sent a fleet to protect their interests. Enraged at the seizure of her ports, Bolivia declared war in March, 1879. Peru could not be expected to remain quiet. Not only was she bound by the solemn agreement of the treaty of alliance, but she had an imperative selfish interest in preventing the disputed nitrate territory from falling into Chile's hands. She began to gather an army on the southern frontier, but she was illy prepared for war and Chile knew it. Her offers of arbitration were promptly rejected; the Chilean government had determined to strike both allies at the same time, and presented an ultimatum, demanding that Peru abrogate the secret treaty, cease warlike preparations, and remain neutral in the war with Bolivia. Failing immediate and categorical compliance war was declared in April.

What had proven true in the time of Pizarro, San Martin, and Santa Cruz, was still true—the successful invasion or defence of Peru depended on the control of the Pacific. Whichever power should obtain a naval preponderance would surely get the nitrate territory—a rainless, cropless region where an army must be sustained by supplies brought by sea—and then could attack the other at its capital. Chile had two new iron-clads, the Cochrane and the Blanco, besides two good cruisers and several gunboats. The two Peruvian iron-clads, the Huascar and the Independencia, were older, though their speed was superior. The Chileans opened the war on the ocean by blockading the Peruvian ports in the extreme south, but Miguel Grau, the able seaman and intrepid fighter who commanded the Peruvian fleet, at once attacked the Chilean cruisers which were lying off Iquique. The Huascar rammed and sank the Esmeralda, but while his other iron-clad was pursuing the Covadonga, she ran upon the rocks and was lost. This was in reality a deathblow to Peru, but the gallant Grau devotedly determined to see what his single ship, rapidly manœuvred, could do to make unsafe the embarkation of a Chilean army. For four months he terrorised the coast from Antofagasta to Valparaiso. Chile could not take a step until she had disposed of Grau and his dreaded Huascar. The blockade of Iquique was abandoned as useless; the iron-clads ordered back to Valparaiso to be cleaned and repaired so that they might match the Huascar in speed; new officers were put in command; and on October the first the Chilean fleet set sail from Valparaiso on a systematic chase for the Peruvian iron-clad. On reaching Antofagasta it was divided into two squadrons, the Cochrane leading one and the Blanco the other, and they immediately began patrolling the coast.

The Huascar, accompanied by a consort, the Union, was cruising in the neighbourhood, and at daylight on the 8th of October the first Chilean division sighted her. Grau fled, and was gradually drawing away from his pursuers when, to his horror, three columns of smoke appeared on the horizon directly forward. He was caught between the two Chilean squadrons. The Union had speed enough to slip by the enemy, but the Huascar was too slow. Grau's only chance was to close with the Cochrane before the Blanco could come up astern, and he went straight for the former. At half past nine the Huascar fired the first shot, the distance being about three thousand yards. It fell short and only the fourth shot took effect. The Cochrane then replied, and though the practice on both sides was wild, the two ships soon came so close that the machine guns were brought into effective play. A shot disabled the Huascar's turret, and in desperation Grau tried repeatedly to ram, but was foiled by the quick turns which the Cochrane's twin screws enabled her to make. Just half an hour after the action began a shell struck his conning-tower, blowing the heroic Peruvian into atoms. A few minutes later the Blanco came up and added her missiles to the storm of shots which the Cochrane and the smaller consorts were pouring upon the doomed Huascar. Nevertheless no one thought of striking. Hardly had Grau been blown to pieces than the executive officer had his head taken clean off by a shell from the Blanco, and the officer next in seniority was severely wounded. A few moments later the lieutenant who succeeded to the command was killed, and his successor, in turn, was wounded before the end of the action. When the ship finally struck, an hour and a half after the first shot was fired, one of the juniors was in command, and sixty-four of the complement of one hundred and ninety-three officers and men lay killed or wounded on the deck.

The Chileans were now in absolute control of the sea, and could land an army when and where they pleased. The Bolivian sea-coast, inhabited almost exclusively by Chilean miners, and inaccessible overland from Bolivia proper, had fallen into Chile's hands at the opening of the war, but Grau's success in immobilising the Chilean navy had been taken advantage of by the Peruvians to ship nine thousand troops to their own nitrate province, where they could conveniently attack the Chileans who occupied the Bolivian territory to their south, or defend their own most valuable piece of property. But although this army was in Peruvian territory the naval victory of the Chileans isolated it almost completely. A hundred miles of rough, rainless desert, intercepted by deep ravines transverse to the coast, separated it from Tacna, where fertile valleys begin and communication with the rest of Peru becomes possible.

By the end of October the Chilean army embarked at Antofagasta ten thousand strong and well provided with cavalry and the most modern artillery. Of Iquique and Pisagua, the two principal ports of the Peruvian nitrate country, the latter, which lies forty miles north of the former, was chosen as the less likely to be defended in force. Only a thousand men were found, who, in spite of a gallant resistance from their two small batteries and their rifle pits, were unable to prevent the landing of the Chileans protected by a tremendous fire from the fleet. Driven from the town the Peruvians could not even hold the top of the precipitous bluff until the arrival of reinforcements from Iquique. The Chileans relentlessly pushed their advantage and soon were in possession of the railroad for fifty miles into the interior and had six thousand men entrenched on a hill called San Francisco. Abundantly supplied with provisions and water they could afford to wait, while the allies, cut off from communications, must either attack at once or abandon the province. The Peruvian general chose the former alternative, but his troops arrived in front of San Francisco exhausted and thirsty after a twenty-miles' march across the dry desert. Only a small part of the army took part in the assault, and it was easily repulsed. Disheartened the allies fell back to the foot of the giant range which inexorably barred their way to the east, and after a few days of suffering from hunger and thirst, took their way north among the barren foothills. The enemy sent a detachment to harass their march, but they turned on their pursuers and defeated them, and reached Tacna province hungry, ragged, half-armed, and generally demoralised.

Not only was the great nitrate province, the treasury of Peru, irretrievably lost, but every point on the coast, including Lima itself, laid open to attack. President Prado left the army at Tacna, went to Lima, and thence sailed for Europe, announcing that he was going to buy iron-clads. Hardly was he on board ship when a revolution broke out in the capital, and the restless Pierola, who had headed the latest attempts at insurrection, declared himself supreme chief. The Bolivians also deposed their unsuccessful president. Peru's revolutionary government, rushed into power on a wave of wounded national pride, embodied the more than Spanish haughtiness of the Creole aristocracy, and refused all concessions. The allies still had a large army at Tacna, not too demoralised to make a creditable resistance, although it was cut off from easy communication with the rest of Peru and Bolivia, and stood badly in need of arms, clothing, and ammunition. The Chilean ships blockaded Arica, the Tacna port, but the fast Union again showed her heels to the enemy's whole fleet, ran the blockade, and landed stores which put the allied army on a fighting footing.

Late in February, 1880, the Chileans disembarked a fine army of fourteen thousand men at a seaport sixty miles north of the allies' main position, and lost no time in occupying the interior as far as Moquegua at the foot of the Andes. Their first object was to cut the allied armies off from any communication with their respective countries. A small Peruvian force made an attempt to hold Torata, a point strategically important because it commanded the entrance into the Andes from Bolivia and Peru, but was unsuccessful. The allied armies were now bottled up in a little valley where provisions would surely shortly fail. The Chileans advanced south across the desert upon Tacna, and the allies took a strong defensive position on a ridge, flanked by steep ravines, with a sloping glacis in front. Vastly superior in artillery, though only slightly outnumbering the allies, the Chileans thought themselves justified in assaulting the position. They opened the battle by a cannonade in which their magnificent Krupp guns did terrific execution, and under cover of the fire the infantry advanced in four columns of twenty-four hundred men each. Approaching the trenches they were met by a storm of rifle bullets through which they charged bayonet in hand.

Meanwhile the allies on the crest of the sand-hills suffered terribly from the plunging artillery fire. The Bolivians, holding the weakest part of the line, bore the brunt of the attack. Once the Chileans wavered, but a supporting cavalry charge quickly drove back the advancing enemy, and after two hours of desperate fighting the sturdy Bolivian Indians gave way, their position was carried, and the allied army fled all along the line. Though the Chileans had lost over two thousand, the losses of the allies were greater. No way of retreat lay open; they scattered in confusion; and their army virtually ceased to exist. A couple of thousand Peruvians held out in Arica for a month, deliberately devoting themselves to certain death, but the place was carried by an assault in which quarter was neither given nor asked.

Peru now lay helpless at the mercy of the Chilean armies and fleet. The ports were blockaded and bombarded, while expeditions ravaged the fertile coast valleys. Nevertheless the Peruvians would not yield. The United States offered her mediation, and plenipotentiaries met to see if terms of peace could be arranged. Chile demanded the formal cession of the nitrate territory and an indemnity. The Peruvians refused such hard terms, hoping against hope for foreign intervention. This passive obstinacy enraged the Chilean government, and after a delay of several months it was determined to capture the capital and dictate terms at Lima. Late in December, 1880, a splendidly equipped army of twenty-six thousand men landed a short distance south of Lima and marched on the city. Only a few fragments of the Peruvian regular army had survived the defeats in the south, but the population rallied en masse to resist the invaders. At Chorrillos, a few miles south of Lima, the militia waited behind a hastily constructed line of defence. The assault of the Chilean regulars was irresistible; four thousand Peruvians perished, and as many more were taken prisoners. The survivors fell back on a second line of defence, only six miles from Lima, and were there defeated in a second battle in which two thousand were killed and wounded. The Chilean losses in the two fights reached five thousand. On the following day the mayor of Lima formally surrendered the city, and on the 17th of January the Chilean army took possession. The helpless citizens were required to make up a contribution of a million dollars a month; the customs duties were confiscated, and the Chileans violated all the rules of civilised warfare by wantonly destroying the great and valuable public library—the best in South America.

Pierola escaped to Guamanga, but succeeded in rallying no forces. He gave it up and went to Europe. It became necessary to organise a government which could treat for peace. The citizens of Lima, with the consent of Chile, made Garcia Calderon provisional president, but when the discussion of terms began the Chileans repeated their demand for the unconditional cession of the nitrate territory, and Calderon did not dare assent. The enemy sent him prisoner to Santiago, while Iglesias in the northern departments, Caceres in the centre, and Carrillo in the south each kept up an independent resistance with a few militia. The Chileans made no serious attempt to conquer the interior, contenting themselves with pocketing the Peruvian customs revenues. This situation lasted two years and a half, until Iglesias came to the conclusion that peace could only be obtained by complete submission. Caceres was, however, resolved upon further resistance and quarrelling with Iglesias, advanced into the latter's territory. He was intercepted by a Chilean expedition and his forces destroyed. This left Iglesias a clear field; he declared himself president and entered into negotiations with the Chileans, arranging a treaty of peace which was signed on the 20th of October, 1883. Five days later the Peruvian flag was once more hoisted in the capital. Sporadic risings against Iglesias were easily suppressed by Chilean bayonets; four thousand men remained to see that the treaty was ratified, and a convention finally ratified it in March. Its provisions differed little from the demands made by Chile three years before. The money indemnity was waived and half the guano proceeds were left to Peru's creditors. On the other hand, the provinces of Tacna and Arica were to be held by Chile for ten years, and at the end of that time a popular vote would decide who should retain them, the losing country receiving ten million dollars from the other. Better far for the interests of permanent peace had the fate of the provinces been definitely determined. Chile and Peru have never been able to agree upon the terms under which the plebiscite should be conducted; the former still retains the provinces and the latter still agitates for their recovery.

No sooner had the Chilean army left than Caceres began a civil war to oust Iglesias. For eighteen months the fighting continued with varying fortunes, but in December, 1885, Caceres surprised Lima when undefended; Iglesias resigned; a general amnesty was proclaimed, and peace was restored to the distracted country. A junta assumed power and in the election which followed Caceres was chosen president, and in the middle of 1886 he entered upon the dreary task of re-organising Peru. The treasury was empty, the population had been decimated by a horribly destructive war during four years, the flourishing coast valleys with their cotton and sugar plantations had been laid under contribution, the mines had ceased to be worked, the guano and nitrate revenue was gone, the country was weighed down with a debt which could never be paid, and foreign creditors pressed for a settlement utterly beyond the abilities of the impoverished country. Rigid economies were enforced in all departments of the administration, but the most that could be hoped was to meet ordinary expenditure.

Peru had nothing to offer towards the immense foreign debt except her railways, and the British creditors finally agreed to the Grace contract, by which she was released from all responsibility for a sum amounting to over fifty millions sterling, in return for the cession of the state railways, the payment of eighty thousand pounds annually, and certain rights to the guano deposits, mines, and public lands. British pressure induced Chile to give up a large proportion of the guano proceeds, and in 1890 the contract was ratified and the "Peruvian Corporation" took over the vast properties conceded. Though disputes have arisen from time to time, the corporation has made some progress in extending lines to open up the mineral wealth on the plateau, and a successful beginning has been made toward the exploitation of the rubber forests of the Amazon plain. It cannot be doubted that the industrial development of Peru must be greatly aided by the existence of this gigantic private enterprise which will apply the energy and economy characteristic of individual enterprise to undertakings governmental in magnitude.

GENERAL DON ANDRES A. CACERES

Caceres made no change in the centralised system of government by prefects,—and the administrative fabric survived, substantially untouched, the horrors of the Chilean war and the fighting between rival chiefs. Liberal tendencies were shown in efforts to place the Indians on an equal political footing with the Peruvians of Spanish descent, although naturally the Creole aristocracy still dominates by reason of its intelligence. Considerable dissatisfaction was felt with Caceres' management of finances, but in 1890 he was succeeded by his friend, Colonel Bermudez, who continued his policy. Unfortunately for the peace of the country the latter died in 1893. His legal successor was Solar, first vice-president, but an intrigue in the cabinet prevented the latter's peaceable recognition. Caceres' influence was dominant in the administration, and a semblance of an election recalled him to power. General Pierola, who had led two unsuccessful insurrections—those of 1874 and 1878—and who had got power in 1880, only to lose it after the fall of Lima, saw his opportunity. Solar joined forces with him and revolt broke out against Caceres. The latter had completely lost the popularity won as the most determined champion of the national rights against Chilean aggression; his administration was bad; the public employees were unpaid; the meagre resources of the country were wasted on his favourites. Though his troops were at first successful against Pierola's and Solar's hasty levies, the revolution recovered from each defeat until finally the insurrectionists entered Lima itself. The enemies of Caceres within the town arose and for two days its streets were the scene of bloody barricade fighting. Rarely does a civilised city pass through such a frightful experience as Lima on the 18th of July, 1895. There had been no time to extinguish the street lamps, and all night long the bands of revolutionists advanced, fighting by the lights which brightly illumined the carnage except where extinguished by rifle balls. Though his forces were gradually driven back, Caceres stubbornly refused to resign, and at last only yielded to the urgent representations of the foreign ministers, leaving power in the hands of a junta.

With his withdrawal peace was restored, except for the resistance which his partisans kept up for a short time in Arequipa, and this peace has never since been disturbed. The junta served until an election could be held, in which Pierola was chosen president by an overwhelming and really popular majority. In 1899 he was succeeded by Romana, an engineer who had been a member of the outgoing ministry, and he, in his turn, had as successor, Señor Candamo, who took his seat in 1903. Historically the new president represents the old aristocratic party founded by Pardo—a party which had been pushed to one side in the financial confusion which preceded and the civil disorders which succeeded the terrible Chilean war by the more radical and democratic elements known as Pierolistas and constitutionalists. The return to a participation in affairs of elements which include so large a proportion of the intelligence, self-respect, and wealth of the nation is one of the most hopeful signs of the times. The Peruvian aristocracy has learned its lesson in the hard school of adversity, and vies with the commercial classes in sober, serious attention to industrial and governmental matters. Each division of the people seems to wish to bear its share in the financial, political, and moral regeneration of their country.

Peruvian politics are conducted en famille. Economic and social questions are discussed and settled amicably among the ruling coteries and do not as in Europe and North America form the basis for the organisation of political parties. Though the country is steadfastly Catholic, clericalism is not, as in Ecuador, Colombia, and Bolivia, regarded as a menace by those who hold liberal views, and the provinces have never made any insistent demand for a larger share of autonomy, as in Argentina and Colombia. As a rule the elections are free and translate the popular will. Peru has long since passed the stage of pronunciamentos and military government; since Castilla's time the successful revolutions have been few, and have always been undertaken for the maintenance of the regular constitutional order—not its overthrow—or have been inspired by national feeling when the fatherland was in danger.

PERU

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CHILE

CHAPTER I

THE SPANISH CONQUEST

About a century before Pizarro landed, Tupac Yupanqui, the greatest of the Inca conquerors, crossed the rough mountains, bleak plateaux, and waterless deserts which lie between the habitable part of Bolivia and the irrigable valleys of northern Chile, and rapidly overran the coast for six hundred miles. As one goes south the plain broadens, the short rivers flowing from the mountains grow larger, the rainfall and the area available for cultivation increase, and from Santiago a wide valley, the heart of Chile, stretches between the Andes and the coast range, sustaining a dense population. As far south as the river Maule, the limit of Tupac's conquests, irrigation is necessary for crops. In all these valleys dwelt various tribes whose system of agriculture and civilisation was similar to that of the Incas. Only the southern peoples inhabiting the rainy and forested regions beyond the Maule refused to submit. Huaina Capac, Tupac's son, was once obliged to undertake a campaign to consolidate the Inca power, but Chile north of the Maule became thoroughly attached to the Cuzco dynasty.

Little resistance was encountered when Almagro invaded this country just after Pizarro's entry into the Peruvian capital. He advanced as far as the Maule, finding everywhere a population probably as dense as that of the present day. Agriculture was highly developed; the people were clothed in substantial stuffs of their own manufacture; they mined copper, tin, and lead, and possessed excellent arms and tools. The tribes all spoke the same language, but each enjoyed a degree of autonomy under its own chiefs. Their habits were democratic; they loved freedom and independence; the Inca socialistic system did not prevail; and each farmer owned his own field and could transmit it to his children. The race was large and vigorous, the selected survivors from among immigrants who had been greatly improved by countless generations of struggle in the more rigorous climate. As one approached the cold and rainy mountains of southern Chile their characteristics became more pronounced and south of the Maule warlike, half-savage tribes proudly maintained their independence. Almagro's sole pre-occupation was gold, but he vainly searched the valleys as far as the southern boundary of the Inca empire. Here he encountered serious resistance from the independent tribes, and though victorious in his fights, concluded that it was not worth while remaining in such a cold and goldless country. He abandoned Chile and returned to Peru, there to meet his death at Pizarro's hands.

BRIDGE ON THE ROAD BETWEEN SANTIAGO AND MENDOZA.

Pizarro soon took measures to extend the Spanish conquests to all parts of the Inca empire, and for Chile he selected his quartermaster, Pedro de Valdivia, an active and experienced soldier. Late in 1540—the summer season in those latitudes—Valdivia, with two hundred Spaniards and a large number of Indian auxiliaries, crossed the Andes and arrived at Copiapo, the northernmost inhabited valley. Like Almagro he met no opposition as he pushed his way south for four hundred and fifty miles. Arriving at the great valley of Chile, in that favoured region he founded the city of Santiago, which has ever since remained the capital and most important place in the country. The people of the neighbourhood attacked the settlement and burned half the houses, but they were soon decisively defeated. Nevertheless, the invaders position was critical; many of them wished to return; a mutiny was on the point of breaking out; but at this juncture the fortunate discovery of valuable gold mines near Santiago hushed all talk of abandoning the country.

Firmly established at Santiago, Valdivia next turned his attention to the northern provinces, and founded a city at Coquimbo, about two hundred and fifty miles north of the capital, which became the centre of Spanish power in that region. In 1545 he advanced into the country south of Santiago, where the Promaucians welcomed him as an ally against their hereditary foes, the Araucanians, a fierce and powerful confederacy dwelling beyond the river Biobio, which flows into the Pacific in latitude 37°. By the following year Spanish influence was dominant north of that river. Valdivia, with many of his men, temporarily returned to Peru to aid in the suppression of Gonzalo's revolt, but as soon as civil war was over he came back to Chile with his title of governor confirmed by viceregal authority. He had found Lima swarming with hungry adventurers who eagerly followed him, hoping for grants of lands and Indian slaves, or to make their fortunes in mining. With their help the conquest and settlement of all Chile as far south as the Maule was effectually completed. The land was apportioned among the cavaliers, each becoming a sort of feudal baron, and in effect creating a landed aristocracy which has continued to rule the country to the present day.

The process of incorporation did not stop at the Maule, but included the Promaucians and most of the other tribes between that river and the Biobio. Beyond the latter stretched the Araucanian territory for two hundred miles, and Valdivia now undertook the conquest of the southern forests where the Inca arms had never been able to penetrate. His first step was to found Concepcion near the mouth of the Biobio. The neighbouring territory belonged to allies of the confederacy, and the Araucanians felt great alarm at such an aggression. The grand council was summoned, composed of the head-chiefs of the four nations, and the chiefs—called ulmens—of the provinces and tribes into which these nations were divided and subdivided. In accordance with immemorial custom, the deliberations lasted three days, and the humblest warrior was permitted to give his opinion before war was voted. Once the determination reached and a general, or "toqui," elected, each soldier put on his leather cuirass, picked up his heavy war club, and, four thousand strong, the tribesmen sallied forth to attack the Spaniards. Musketry volley and cavalry charge compelled the Araucanians to retreat, after a hotly contested combat which lasted several hours. These Indians, strong and sturdy dwellers in an invigorating climate, were more formidable foes than the Spaniards had yet encountered in South America. Though amazed at the deadly effect of the strange weapons which the invaders used, they were not demoralised. Like the Saracens they believed that death in battle was a passport to paradise, war was their principal business, and the youth were trained up to the trade of arms. At close quarters they were almost irresistible; their clubs and spears, wielded with reckless bravery, matched the swords of the Spaniards, and as soon as they learned how to take advantage of cover in approaching an enemy provided with firearms, the result of a battle between them and the Castilians became doubtful.

During the year 1551 Valdivia occupied himself in fortifying Concepcion and making preparations for an invasion of Araucania. Heavy reinforcements came and he advanced encountering at first no serious opposition. He founded the city of Imperial, one hundred and fifty miles south of Concepcion, and thence pushed a hundred miles farther on, where he established a seaport, calling it by his own name. Returning north in 1553, on his way he built several forts in the Araucanian territory, and at Santiago found a fresh body of troops, and, what was even more important, a supply of horses. Two hundred men were despatched across the Andes to begin the conquest of what is now known as the province of Mendoza in the Argentine Republic. Fancying that he had practically completed the subjection of Chile, Valdivia sent a messenger to Spain to sue for the title of Marquis and a perpetual governorship, and fitted out an exploring expedition to the Straits of Magellan in the vain hope of opening up direct sea communication with the mother country.

The Araucanians had, however, not relaxed their determination to rid themselves of the white invaders. News came that the confederacy had put an army of ten thousand men in the field, and that the outlying forts had been stormed. Valdivia at once advanced from Concepcion at the head of his forces, numbering two hundred Spaniards and five thousand Indian auxiliaries. A hundred miles south of the city he came in sight of the Araucanian army. For some time the Indian commander manœuvred cautiously, endeavouring to draw the Spaniards into a position where he could charge without suffering too much from the dreaded artillery. Finally battle was joined, and despite the destructive fire the Indians managed to come to close quarters. As soon as these fierce warriors reached the enemy's line all was up with the invaders. The Spanish army was literally annihilated. Valdivia himself fled, but was pursued and quickly captured. Brought before the Indian general he begged for his life, agreeing to quit Chile with all the Spaniards, but his protestations were cut short by the war club of an old chief standing near.

The Spanish settlers south of Concepcion fled for refuge to the ports of Imperial and Valdivia, abandoning the other towns and forts. A young chief named Lautaro, who had been captured and baptised years before by Valdivia, but who had escaped to his own people, led a considerable army to the Biobio, destroyed an expedition sent against him, and drove the enemy out of Concepcion. If the Indians had understood the art of besieging fortified places, Imperial and Valdivia and probably Santiago itself would now have fallen, and the Spaniards would have been expelled from the southern and better half of Chile. Lautaro led north two thousand Araucanians, ravaged the lands of the Promaucians beyond the Maule, and penetrated to the neighbourhood of the capital. Repeated expeditions sent against him were defeated; the dismayed Spaniards urgently called for help from Peru and recalled the adventurers from Argentina. Happily the civilised tribes of northern and central Chile remained faithful, and the bulk of the Araucanian forces was occupied besieging Valdivia and Imperial,—a fruitless undertaking so long as provisions could be thrown in by sea. Worst of all for the Indians smallpox broke out among them. At last the Spaniards surprised Lautaro's encampment near Santiago; the Araucanian leader fell dead, pierced by a dart; and his companions fought like wild beasts until every man was slain. This victory secured the safety of Santiago, and the Araucanians retired behind the Biobio.