value, and the commonest necessaries of life rose to exorbitant prices. A quire of paper was worth ten golden dollars, a bottle of wine fetched sixty. And the inherent Spanish vice of gambling was carried to a prodigious extent. Many of the conquerors thus lost the whole of their booty. One man had received in his share of spoil a golden image of the sun. “This rich prize the spendthrift lost in a single night; whence it came to be a proverb in Spain, _Juega el Sol antes que amanezca_, ‘Play away the sun before sunrise.’” With the capture of Cuzco, or very soon afterwards, the unity of Spanish conquest in Peru may be said to have ceased. Previously to that event, all were subordinate to Pizarro; none claimed independence of him; he kept his men together, and with his whole force--excepting the small garrison at St Miguel--pushed forward into the heart of the land. It was by far the most romantic and adventurous period of Spanish operations in the empire of the Incas. But now other cavaliers of fortune, good soldiers, and men of experience in American warfare, turned their attention to Peru, eager to share its treasures and territory. Amongst these, the governor of Guatimala, Pedro de Alvarado, one of Cortés’ officers, was conspicuous. Early in 1534, he landed in the Bay of Caraques, at the head of five hundred men, “the best equipped and most formidable array that had yet appeared in the southern seas.” They marched towards the rich province of Quito, which they believed to be still unexplored; but suffered frightfully on the road; and on emerging, with greatly diminished numbers, from the Puertos Nevados, a terrible mountain passage where many of the troopers were frozen in their saddles, they had the mortification to discover the hoof prints of Spanish chargers, proving that they had been forestalled. Benalcazar, governor of San Miguel, had entered the province with one hundred and forty men and some native auxiliaries. He had been met by the Indian general Ruminavi; but the son of the Moor was more than a match for the Peruvian, and after some well-contested fights, the standard of Castile waved over Quito’s capital. Almagro, who had heard of Alvarado’s landing, soon joined Benalcazar, and together they marched to oppose their intruding countrymen. At one time a battle seemed imminent, but matters were finally compromised, Alvarado receiving one hundred thousand _pesos de oro_, and re-embarking his men.