Behold, then, a sterile coastline, beaten by never-ending surf, broken by rocky promontories, bird-covered perhaps, and seal-haunted, whence the distant roar of breaking rollers at times comes seaward, and, inland, a rising, undulating zone of desert and cañon, brown or tawny or purple in its shadows, stretching away mysteriously for perhaps a hundred miles to where it meets the solemn Cordillera, which, grey, faint and serrated, with no form save that of outline--the true test of distance--forms our horizon on the east. Above is a deep blue sky, but inclining to greens and opals, for, in the west, with banners of gold and crimson vapours--the colours of Spain, whose mariners first beheld it here, the sun is setting, its disc already upon the bosom of the Pacific. The sun-god of the Incas goes down, and rose-tinted rays shoot across the stark and rugged littoral and touch the edges of the green, refreshing seas, rising between the steamer and the distant surf. It is the coast of Peru, and in this romantic hour of sunset yonder deserts might be peopled with the spectral forms of mail-clad Spaniards, the gaunt Pizarro at their head, heedless of all save empire and El Dorado. But not a sail or hull disputes possession of the fast-darkening sea, with the quivering steamer upon whose deck we stand, cleaving its way a thousand miles from Panama; and if ghosts there be, why not one of a caravel of Drake, hot on the Plate ships' track from Callao? Nor on the seaboard does a single habitation denote the presence of man, for we are passing one of those stretches of desert of which this coast is largely composed. But let us look more closely, and imagine we behold for a moment the forms of the intrepid white men who first broke in upon this desolation. It is the early part of the sixteenth century. Upon the seashore there is a band of mail-clad Spaniards, at their head a tall bearded man, spare of frame, but full of spirit, that spirit which dares the unknown and dares again, in spite of famine and privation. It is Pizarro, the famous _conquistador_, and in his hand is a drawn sword. There has been disaffection in the band, wrought of sufferings and disappointment in that desolate region. "Where is the gold we have been promised?" the malcontents exclaim. "What profit is there in fighting famine and miserable savages? Let us go back to Panama before we all perish!" For reply Pizarro drew the point of his sword across the sand. "Comrades," he said, "on the south of this line lie perhaps hardship and death; on the north salvation and ease. Yet perhaps on the south is Peru and untold wealth; on the north Panama and poverty. Choose you which you will. I go south. Who follows?" And thus speaking, he stepped across the line. Twelve faithful spirits followed this action, and, later, the thirteen received special reward from the Spanish Sovereign.