To stay where
they were, without food or raiment, without defence from the
fierce animals of the forest and the fiercer natives, was
impossible. One only course remained; it was to return to Quito.
But this brought with it the recollection of the past, of
sufferings which they could too well estimate, - hardly to be
endured even in imagination. They were now at least four hundred
leagues from Quito, and more than a year had elapsed since they
had set out on their painful pilgrimage. How could they
encounter these perils again! *14
[Footnote 14: Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 2, lib. 3, cap. 5. -
Herrera, Hist. General dec. 6, lib. 8, cap. 8. - Zarate, Conq.
del Peru, lib. 4, cap. 5. - Gomara, Hist. de las Ind., cap. 143.
One must not expect from these wanderers in the wilderness any
exact computation of time or distance, destitute, as they were,
of the means of making a correct observation of either.]
Yet there was no alternative. Gonzalo endeavoured to reassure
his followers by dwelling on the invincible constancy they had
hitherto displayed; adjuring them to show themselves still worthy
of the name of Castilians. He reminded them of the glory they
would for ever acquire by their heroic achievement, when they
should reach their own country. He would lead them back, he
said, by another route, and it could not be but that they should
meet somewhere with those abundant regions of which they had os
so often heard. It was something, at least, that every step
would take them nearer home; and as, at all events, it was
clearly the only course now left, they should prepare to meet it
like men.
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