Pizarro intended to sail straight to Tumbez, and there effect his landing; but storms beat back the weak ships, so that he was obliged to change his plan. After thirteen days he landed in the Bay of San Mateo (St. Matthew), and led his men by land, while the vessels coasted along southward. It was an enormously difficult tramp on that inhospitable shore, and the men could scarcely stagger on. But Pizarro acted as guide, and cheered them up by words and example. It was the old story with him. Everywhere he had fairly to carry his company. Their legs no doubt were as strong as his, though he must have had a very wonderful constitution; but there is a mental muscle which is harder and more enduring, and has held up many a tottering body,—the muscle of pluck. And that pluck of Pizarro was never surpassed on earth. You might almost say it had to carry his army pick-a-back.
Wild as the region was, it had some mineral wealth. Pizarro collected (so Pedro Pizarro[25] says) two hundred thousand castellanos (each weighing a dollar) of gold. This he sent back to Panama by his vessels to speak for him. It was the kind of argument the rude adventurers on the Isthmus could understand, and he trusted to its yellow logic to bring him recruits. But while the vessels had gone on this important errand, the little army, trudging down the coast, was suffering greatly. The deep sands, the tropic heat, the weight of their arms and armor were almost unendurable. A strange and horrible pestilence broke out, and many perished. The country grew more forbidding, and again the suffering soldiers lost hope. At Puerto Viejo they were joined by thirty men under Sebastian de Belalcazar, who afterward distinguished himself in a brave chase of that golden butterfly which so many pursued to their death, and none ever captured,—the myth of the Dorado.
Pushing on, Pizarro finally crossed to the island of Puná, to rest his gaunt men, and get them in trim for the conquest. The Indians of the island attempted treachery; and when their ringleaders were captured and punished, the whole swarm of savages fell desperately on the Spanish camp. It was a most unequal contest; but at last courage and discipline prevailed over mere brute force, and the Indians were routed. Many Spaniards were wounded, and among them Hernando Pizarro, who got an ugly javelin-wound in the leg. But the Indians gave them no rest, and were constantly harassing them, cutting off stragglers, and keeping the camp in endless alarm. Then fortunately came a reinforcement of one hundred men with a few horses, under command of Hernando de Soto, the heroic but unfortunate man who later explored the Mississippi.
Thus strengthened, Pizarro crossed back to the mainland on rafts. The Indians disputed his passage, killed three men on one raft, and cut off another raft, whose soldiers were overpowered. Hernando Pizarro had already landed; and though a dangerous mud-flat lay between, he spurred his floundering horse through belly-deep mire, with a few companions, and rescued the imperilled men.
Entering Tumbez, the Spaniards found the pretty town stripped and deserted. Alonso de Molina and his companion had disappeared, and their fate was never learned. Pizarro left a small force there, and in May, 1532, marched inland, sending De Soto with a small detachment to scout the base of the giant Andes. From his very first landing, Pizarro enforced the strictest discipline. His soldiers must treat the Indians well, under the severest penalties. They must not even enter an Indian dwelling; and if they dared disobey this command they were sternly punished. It was a liberal and gentle policy toward the Indians which Pizarro adopted at the very start, and maintained inflexibly.
CHURCH OF ST. FRANCIS, CAXAMARCA.
See page 268.
After three or four weeks spent in exploring, Pizarro picked out a site in the valley of Tangara, and founded there the town of San Miguel (St. Michael). He built a church, storehouse, hall of justice, fort and dwellings, and organized a government. The gold they had collected he sent back to Panama, and waited several weeks hoping for recruits. But none came, and it was evident that he must give up the conquest of Peru, or undertake it with the handful of men he already had. It did not take a Pizarro long to choose between such alternatives. Leaving fifty soldiers under Antonio Navarro to garrison San Miguel, and with strict laws for the protection of the Indians, Pizarro marched Sept. 24, 1532, toward the vast and unknown interior.