Note 908 — Chapter VI

As a specimen of his manner, I add the following account of Almagro, one of the early adventurers in Peru, whom the Pizarros put to death in Cuzco, after they had obtained uncontrolled power there. “Therefore hear and read all the authors you may, and compare, one by one, whatever they relate, that all men, not kings, have freely given away, and you shall surely see how there is none that can equal Almagro in this matter, and how none can be compared to him; for kings, indeed, may give and know how to give whatever pleaseth them, both cities and lands, and lordships, and other great gifts; but that a man whom yesterday we saw so poor, that all he possessed was a very small matter, should have a spirit sufficient for what I have related,—I hold it to be so great a thing, that I know not the like of it in our own or any other time. For I myself saw, when his companion, Pizarro, came from Spain, and brought with him that body of three hundred men to Panamá, that, if Almagro had not received them and shown them so much free hospitality with so generous a spirit, few or none of them could have escaped alive; for the land was filled with disease, and the means of living were so dear, that a bushel of maize was worth two or three pesos, and an arroba of wine six or seven gold pieces. To all of them he was a father, and a brother, and a true friend; for inasmuch as it is pleasant and grateful to some men to make gain, and to heap up and to gather together moneys and estates, even so much and more pleasant was it to him to share with others and to give away; so that the day when he gave nothing, he accounted it for a day lost. And in his very face you might see the pleasure and true delight he felt when he found occasion to help him who had need. And since, after so long a fellowship and friendship as there was between these two great leaders, from the days when their companions were few and their means small, till they saw themselves full of wealth and strength, there hath at last come forth so much discord, scandal, and death, well must it appear matter of wonder even to those who shall but hear of it, and much more to us, who knew them in their low estate, and have no less borne witness to their greatness and prosperity.” (General y Natural Historia de las Indias, Lib. XLVII., MS.) Much of it is, like the preceding passage, in the true, old, rambling, moralizing, chronicling vein.