Hunger and thirst and fatigue, the deadly
effluvia of the morass with its swarms of venomous insects, the
cold of mountain snows, and the scorching sun of the tropics,
these were the lot of every cavalier who came to seek his
fortunes in the New World. It was the reality of romance. The
life of the Spanish adventurer was one chapter more - and not the
least remarkable - in the chronicles of knight-errantry.
The character of the warrior took somewhat of the exaggerated
coloring shed over his exploits. Proud and vainglorious, swelled
with lofty anticipations of his destiny, and an invincible
confidence in his own resources, no danger could appall and no
toil could tire him. The greater the danger, indeed, the higher
the charm; for his soul revelled in excitement, and the
enterprise without peril wanted that spur of romance which was
necessary to rouse his energies into action. Yet in the motives
of action meaner influences were strangely mingled with the
loftier, the temporal with the spiritual. Gold was the incentive
and the recompense, and in the pursuit of it his inflexible
nature rarely hesitated as to the means. His courage was sullied
with cruelty, the cruelty that flowed equally - strange as it may
seem - from his avarice and his religion; religion as it was
understood in that age, - the religion of the Crusader. It was
the convenient cloak for a multitude of sins, which covered them
even from himself. The Castilian, too proud for hypocrisy,
committed more cruelties in the name of religion than were ever
practised by the pagan idolater or the fanatical Moslem.
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