[Illustration: PERU AND SOUTH AMERICA. From the Map of the World of 1544, usually ascribed to Sebastian Cabot. At the top is shown the river Amazon, discovered by Orellana in 1541.] A year later these Children of the Sun entered the old town of Cuzco--the capital of this rich empire--where they found a city of treasure surpassing all expectation. Meanwhile Almagro, one of the most prominent among the Spanish explorers, had been granted a couple of hundred miles along the coast of Chili, which country he now penetrated; but the cold was so intense that men and horses were frozen to death, while the Chilians, clad in skins, were difficult to subdue. Almagro decided that Cuzco belonged to him, and miserable disputes followed between him and Pizarro, ending in the tragic end of the veteran explorer, Almagro. As the shiploads of gold reached the shores of Spain, more and more adventurers flocked over to the New World. They swarmed into "Golden Castile," about the city of Panama, and journeyed into the interior of the yet new and unknown world. There are terrible stories of their greed and cruelty to the native Indians. One story says that the Indians caught some of these Spaniards, tied their hands and feet together, threw them on the ground, and poured liquid gold into their mouths, crying, "Eat, eat gold, Christian!" Amongst other adventurers into South America at this time was Orellana, who crossed the continent from ocean to ocean. He had accompanied one of Pizarro's brothers into the land of the cinnamon forests, and with him had crossed the Andes in search of another golden kingdom beyond Quito. The expedition under Pizarro, consisting of some three hundred and fifty Spaniards, half of whom were horsemen, and four thousand Indians, set forward in the year 1540 to penetrate to the remote regions in the Hinterland, on the far side of the Andes. Their sufferings were intense. Violent thunderstorms and earthquakes terrified man and beast; the earth opened and swallowed up five hundred houses; rain fell in such torrents as to flood the land and cut off all communication between the explorers and cultivated regions; while crossing the lofty ridge of the Andes the cold was so intense that numbers of the party were literally frozen to death. At length they reached the land of the cinnamon trees, and, still pushing on, came to a river which must be crossed to reach the land of gold. They had finished their provisions, and had nothing to subsist on now save the wild fruit of the country. After following the course of the river for some way, Pizarro decided to build a little vessel to search for food along the river. All set to work, Pizarro and Orellana, one of his chief captains, working as hard as the men. They set up a forge for making nails, and burnt charcoal with endless trouble owing to the heavy rains which prevented the tinder from taking fire. They made nails from the shoes of the horses which had been killed to feed the sick.