One would imagine, on reading the above extract, Bernal Diaz had never killed an Indian in his life, and that he had sacrificed his prospects in coming to Mexico solely to introduce ‘a Christian polity and justice’ amongst the inhabitants. Yet he was no hypocrite, but a stout sagacious soldier, even kindly, according to his lights, and with a love of animals uncommon in a Spaniard, for he has preserved the names and qualities of all the horses and mares which came over in the fleet from the Havana with Cortes.[15] The phrase, _despues de Dios_ (after God) occurs repeatedly in the writings of almost all the _conquistadores_ of America. Having, after God, conquered America, the first action of the conquerors was to set about making their fortunes. In those countries which produced gold and silver, as Mexico and Peru, they worked the mines by the labour of the Indians, the cruelties and hardships being so great that, in a letter of Philip II. to the Come de Chinchon, the Viceroy of Peru, dated Madrid, April 30, 1639, written fifty years after the discovery, he says: ‘These Indians flee, become ill, and die, and have begun to diminish greatly in number, and they will be finished soon unless an efficient remedy is provided shortly.’ In Paraguay there were no mines, but there were other methods of extracting money from the Indians. At the first conquest Paraguay was not the little country bounded on the west by the Paraguay, on the south by the Paraná, on the north by the Aquidaban, and on the east by Sierra of Mbaracavu, as it is at present. On the contrary, it embraced almost all that immense territory known to-day as the Argentine Confederation, some of the Republic of Uruguay, and a great portion of Brazil, embracing much of the provinces of Misiones, Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná, and Matto Grosso, as well as Paraguay itself. How the little country, twelve hundred miles from the sea, came to give its name to such an enormous territory, and to have the seat of government at Asuncion, demands some explanation. Peru and Chile were discovered and occupied some time before the eastern side of South America. Their riches naturally drew great attention to them; but the voyage, first to Cartagena de Indias, and then across the isthmus, and the re-embarkation again on the Pacific, were both costly and arduous. It had been the ambition of all explorers to discover some river which would lead from the Atlantic to the mines of Peru and what is now Bolivia, then known as Alta Peru. Of course, this might have been achieved by ascending the Amazon, especially after the adventurous descent of it by Orellana, of which Fray Gaspar de Carbajal has left so curious a description; but, whether on account of the distance or for some other reason, it never seems to have been attempted.