the Andes were a number of tribes, all of which were, to a greater or lesser degree, still in a state of sheer savagery. Near the eastern frontier of the Inca Empire resided such peoples as the Chiriguanos, Chunchos, Abipones, Chiquitos, Mojos, Guarayos, Tacanas; while to the north were similar tribes, such as the Ipurines, Jamamaries, Huitotos, Omaguas. These appear to have absorbed some crude and vague forms of the Inca religion, and were addicted to the worship of the Sun, but more frequently of the Moon.

On the east of the Continent, ranging from the territory which is now known as Misiones in Argentina, and Southern Paraguay to the north-east of the Continent, were various branches of the great Guarani family, a nation that some consider should be more correctly known as Tupis, and whose northernmost section are known as Caribs. It is impossible to attempt to give an account of the very great number of the tribes which went to make up this powerful and great nation. Many of these remain to the present day, and sixteen are still accounted for in the comparatively insignificant district of the Guianas alone.

It is, indeed, only feasible to deal with the main characteristics of these various peoples—mostly forest-dwellers. Naturally enough, the tribesmen were hunters and fishers. The majority were given to paint their bodies and to pierce their ears, noses, and lower lips, in order to insert reeds, feathers, and similar savage ornaments. In the more tropical forest regions the blowpipe constituted one of the most formidable weapons. Bows and arrows were in general use, the points of these latter being of bone or hardened wood. The barbs of the spears were similarly contrived, many of these weapons being beautifully decorated in the more northern territories. The greater part of these tribes still remain in the forest districts of the Continent.

DIEGO DE ALMAGRO.
The fellow-conquistador and rival of Pizarro in the conquest of Peru, and pioneer explorer of Chile.

In Chile and in the River Plate Provinces an entirely different type of Indian prevailed; great warriors these, for the most part, who roamed the plains of the River Plate Provinces, or, like the Araucanians, lived a turbulent and fierce existence among the forests and mountains of the far south to the west of the Andes Chain.

It was these Southern Indians who disputed the soil with the Spaniards with the courage and ferocity that frequently spilled the Castillian blood in torrents on the mountains or plains. To the end, indeed, they remained unconquered, and death was almost invariably preferred to submission to the hated white invaders of their land.

Even here prevailed the socialism which so strongly characterized the races of the centre and north of the Continent. Despotism was unknown, and even the chieftain, in the proper sense of the word, had no existence. In times of war an elder was chosen, it is true, but with the laying down of the weapons he became again one of the people, and was lost in their ranks. Such crude organization as existed was left to the hands of a Council of Elders. There is no doubt that witch-doctors attained to a certain degree of power, but even this was utterly insignificant as compared with that which was wont to be enjoyed by the savage priests of Central Africa.

Taken as a whole, the Indians of Southern America represented some of the most simple children who ever lived in the lap of Nature. Unsophisticated, credulous, and strangely wanting in reasoning powers and organized self-defence, they fell ready victims to the onslaughts of the Spaniards, who burst with such dramatic unexpectedness on their north-eastern shores.

CHAPTER II

COLUMBUS

Columbus was admittedly a visionary. It was to the benefit of his fellow Europeans and to the detriment of the South American tribes that to his dreams he joined the practical side of his nature. Certainly the value of imagination in a human being has never been more strikingly proved than by the triumph of Columbus.

The enthusiasm of the great Genoese was of the kind which has tided men over obstacles and difficulties and troubles throughout the ages. He was undoubtedly of the nervous and highly-wrought temperament common to one of his genius. He loved the dramatic. There are few who have not heard the story of the egg with the crushed end which stood upright. But there are innumerable other instances of the demonstrative powers of Columbus. For instance, when asked to describe the Island of Madeira, he troubled not to utter a word in reply, but snatched up a piece of writing-paper and, crumpling it by a single motion of his hand, held it aloft as a triumphant exhibition of the island's peaks and valleys.

Fortunately for the adventurers of his period, his belief in his mission was unshakable. It was, of course, a mere matter of chance that Columbus should have found himself in the service of the Spaniards when he set out upon his voyage which was to culminate in the discovery of the New World. He himself had been far more concerned with the Portuguese than with their eastern neighbours. Indeed, until the discovery of America, the Spaniards, fully occupied with the expulsion of the Moors from within their frontiers in Europe, could give but little attention to the science of navigation.

The Portuguese, on the other hand, had for a considerable period been specializing in seamanship. From his castle at Faro, on the southernmost shores of Portugal, where Prince Henry the Navigator had founded his maritime school, that royal scientist had watched with pride the captains whom he had trained as they sailed their vessels over the gold and blue horizon of the Far South, and had exultantly drunk in on their return the tales of new shores and of oceans ploughed for the first time; of spices, riches men, and beasts, all new and strange, and, all appealing strongly to the imagination of the learned Prince, who only restrained himself with difficulty from plunging into the unknown.

It was with men such as these of Prince Henry's with whom the Genoese had been brought into contact on his first visit to Portugal. That he had been received by this set as one of themselves is sufficiently evidenced by the fact of his marriage with a daughter of Bartholomew Perestrello. It was naturally, therefore, to the Portuguese Government that Columbus first applied for the assistance in men and ships which were to bear him to the land which he so fiercely promised.

As has been said, there is no doubt that Columbus was a visionary who possessed a large amount of practical knowledge and experience, from which the indulgence in these visions sprang. That his theories were the result of something more than the merest speculation is certain. Maritime legend and lore were rife in Genoa and the Mediterranean, and certainly abounded in Portugal under the benevolent and strenuous encouragement of Prince Henry the Navigator. That some vague echoes of the feats performed by the Norsemen and others who had long before won their way to the Western Continent had penetrated to these parts of Europe there is no doubt. Columbus, moreover, had stayed for many months at one of those half-way houses between Europe and the western mainland, Porto Santo, and the neighbouring Island of Madeira.

His father-in-law was at the time Governor of the lesser island, that of Porto Santo. In such a spot as this the requirements of Columbus