loli SOLDIERS AND SAILORS FRANCISCO PIZARRO* BY J. T. TROWBRIDGE (1471-1541) THE old Spanish province of Estrema- dura, though distant from the sea, shut in by mountain-chains, furnished numerous adventurers for the expeditions of discov- ery, conquest, and plunder that followed Co- lumbus to the New World ; two of whom achieved astonishing renown. One was the conqueror of Mexico ; the other, the con- queror of Peru. Of the early life of Francisco Pizarro not much is known with certainty. He was born about 'the year 1471 ; but even that date is a matter of conjecture, so little care was had of the coming into the world of the actor who was to play so stirring a part in it. The family from which he inherited his name must have been one of .some note in its day. His kinsman and great rival in fame, Cortes, was a Pizarro on his mother's side. Francisco was the second of four brothers, all of whom were men of ability and valor, and all of whom fought in the Peruvian wars. Their father was Col- onel Gonzalo Pizarro, concerning whom little is known, save that he was a soldier of Spain, and that he served creditably in Italy and Navarre. The mother of Francisco was Francisca Gonzales, a woman of low condition, from whom he seems to have received hardly more parental care than from his father, by whom he was utterly neglected. The story told by Gomara, and quoted by Prescott, that, abandoned as a foundling, he was nursed by a sow, though as mythical as that of Romulus and the wolf, which probably suggested it, indicates nevertheless the degradation of his childhood. He grew up in igno- rance and vagabondage. Of what the world calls education he had not the first rudiments ; to the day of his death he could neither read nor write. The only oc- cupation in which we hear of his being engaged in his boyhood, was that of a swineherd. At what age he escaped from this mean employment is not known. The claim set up for him by his descendants, that he served with his father in Italy, hardly deserves consideration. He was about twenty-one years old when all Spain began to ring with the discoveries of Columbus and his companions beyond the western 'Copyright, 1894. by Selmar Hess.
