Of totally different and vastly inferior fiber was the conqueror of Peru. Pizarro was without either education or address--a rough, ambitious, and avaricious soldier. He, too, was favored by internal dissensions, of which he could not possibly have known anything when he set forth on his errand. After a long period of peaceful and undisputed sway, the Inca dynasty was split by a feud between two brothers, one of whom, Atahualpa, had just asserted his superiority by force of arms, when the European conquerors appeared on the scene. A word from him, and not a man of them would have escaped alive. But at the critical moment an unaccountable paralysis overtook him, whether or not arising from a curiosity to see and interview the strangers it is impossible to say. He realized his danger too late, for Pizarro, imitating Cortes, seized the person of the Inca, and the rest was rendered comparatively easy. Accustomed, like Montezuma, to exact unqualified obedience, he employed his subjects in collecting his ransom instead of fighting for his deliverance; and when the debt was almost paid, he found himself doomed to death instead of released from captivity. The forces of the empire were then scattered, and without a leader who could assume full authority. Still, many a desperate bid was subsequently made for freedom, but each time with less prospect of success, as the conquerors secured a firmer grip upon the country, until the execution of Tapac Amara, the last direct descendant of the Incas, in 1571, left that solitude which Cæsar called peace.