some two hundred soldiers to divide it. It was the
ransom for the Inca. Pizarro took it, and then put the ransomed man to death. It is not easy to see how he conformed to what Mr. Graham says was his ideal,—honour first, and then gold; even Soto, though he disapproved of the murder, took the money. Soto remained in Spain for some four years ; and then, having purchased from Charles V. the right to conquer Florida, set sail again for the West. Then we have his adventures in this second expedition. The scene of this was in North America, in the region of the Mississippi. Here he met with fiercer enemies than Peru could bring against him ; and gold was deplorably absent. He died of fever at some unknown village in the forty-third year of his age. That he was better than his fellows we may readily concede ; but when Mr. Graham asks us to allow that "no taint of avarice clings to his name," he asks too much. "Each ounce of gold brought from the Indies must have turned red in all its particles," he says himself. However, much must be pardoned to one who had at least the conspicuous merit of not being an Englishman.
MEMOIRS OF ANNA M. W. PICKERING.
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