[Footnote 4: It is the language of a Spaniard; "i como no le
parecio bien la tierra por no ser quajada de oro." Conq. i Pob.
del Piru, Ms.]
[Footnote 5: According to Oviedo, a hundred and fifty leagues,
and very near, as they told him, to the end of the world; cerca
del fin del mundo. (Hist. de las Indias, Ms., Parte 3, lib. 9,
cap. 5.) One must not expect to meet with very accurate notions
of geography in the rude soldiers of America]
Almagro now yielded, with little reluctance, to the renewed
importunities of the soldiers, and turned his face towards the
North. It is unnecessary to follow his march in detail.
Disheartened by the difficulty of the mountain passage, he took
the road along the coast, which led him across the great desert
of Atacama. In crossing this dreary waste, which stretches for
nearly a hundred leagues to the northern borders of Chili, with
hardly a green spot in its expanse to relieve the fainting
traveller, Almagro and his men experienced as great sufferings,
though not of the same kind, as those which they had encountered
in the passes of the Cordilleras. Indeed, the captain would not
easily be found at this day, who would venture to lead his army
across this dreary region. But the Spaniard of the sixteenth
century had a strength of limb and a buoyancy of spirit which
raised him to a contempt of obstacles, almost justifying the
boast of the historian, that "he contended indifferently, at the
same time, with man, with the elements, and with famine!" *6
[Footnote 6: "Peleando en un tiempo con los Enemigos, con los
Elementos, i con la Hambre.
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