The bad fame of Pizarro was spreading far and wide. And though De Soto enjoined it strictly upon his men, not to be guilty of any act of injustice, still he was an invading Spaniard, and the Peruvians regarded them all as the shepherd regards the wolf. De Soto had passed but a few leagues from the seashore, ere he entered upon the hilly country. As he was ascending one of the gentle eminences, a band of two thousand Indians, who had met there to arrest his progress, rushed down upon him. His sixty horsemen instantly formed in column and impetuously charged into their crowded ranks. These Peruvians had never seen a horse before. Their arrows glanced harmless from the impenetrable armor, and they were mercilessly cut down and trampled beneath iron hoofs. The Spaniards galloped through and through their ranks, strewing the ground with the dead. The carnage was of short duration. The panic-stricken Peruvians fled wherever there was a possibility of escape. The trumpets of the conquerors pealed forth their triumphant strains. The silken banners waved proudly in the breeze, and the victors exultingly continued their march through one of the defiles of the mountains. Whatever excuses De Soto may make for himself, humanity will never forgive him for the carnage of that day. Having thus fairly embarked upon this enterprise, where he was surely gaining military renown, infamous as it was, and where there was the prospect before him of plunder of incalculable worth, De Soto seems to have assumed to act upon his own responsibility, and to have paid very little regard to the authority of Pizarro, whom he had left behind. He had already penetrated the country much farther than he had been authorized to do by the orders of his superior. One of the men, whom Pizarro had sent with him, very probably as a spy upon his movements, deserted, and returned to Tumbez with the report that De Soto was already practically in revolt, and had renounced all dependence on Pizarro. For this alleged insubordination, Pizarro did not venture to call his energetic lieutenant to account. In the mean time, Pizarro was exploring the country in the vicinity of Tumbez, for the site of the colony he wished to establish. He selected a position about ninety miles south of that city, in a rich and well-watered valley which opened upon the placid surface of the Pacific. His troops were transported to the spot by the two vessels. Here he laid the foundations of a town, which he called San Miguel. With timber from the mountains, and stone from the quarries, and the labor of a large number of natives, who were driven to daily toil, not as servants, by the stimulus of well-paid labor, but as slaves, goaded by the sabres of their task masters, quite a large and strongly-fortified town rapidly arose.