In this uncomfortable situation, the Spanish commander was
gladdened by the appearance of two vessels off the island. They
brought a reinforcement consisting of a hundred volunteers
besides horses for the cavalry. It was commanded by Hernando de
Soto, a captain afterwards famous as the discoverer of the
Mississippi, which still rolls its majestic current over the
place of his burial, - a fitting monument for his remains, as it
is of his renown. *27
[See Fernando de Soto: A Captain famous as the discoverer of
Mississippi.]
[Footnote 27: The transactions in Puna are given at more or less
length by Naharro, Relacion Sumaria, Ms. - Conq. i Pob. del Peru,
Ms. - Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms. - Montesinos, Annales,
Ms., ubi supra. - Relacion del Primer. Descub., Ms. - Xerez,
Conq. del Peru, ap. Barcia, tom. III. pp. 182, 183.]
This reinforcement was most welcome to Pizarro, who had been long
discontented with his position on an island, where he found
nothing to compensate the life of unintermitting hostility which
he was compelled to lead. With these recruits, he felt himself
in sufficient strength to cross over to the continent, and resume
military operations on the proper theatre for discovery and
conquest. From the Indians of Tumbez he learned that the country
had been for some time distracted by a civil war between two sons
of the late monarch, competitors for the throne. This
intelligence he regarded as of the utmost importance, for he
remembered the use which Cortes had made of similar dissensions
among the tribes of Anahuac.
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