Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO AND PERU. Cortez?His Character?Montezuma?The Characteristics of th Mexicans?Scenes in the Conquest?The overthrow of the Mexican and commencement of the Spanish rule?Peru?Its conquest by Pizarro?The results?Influence of the Jesuits. The last chapter marks a new era in the history of Catholicism in America. The Indian race that peopled the islands had disappeared before the onward march of cruelty and bloodshed. Las Casas, to preserve the remnant of this race, prevailed upon his sovereign to plant slavery upon the islands. A continent, stretching from the northern polar circle to a high southern latitude, above fifteen hundred miles beyond the furthest extremity of the Old World, presented at once a range for thought, a field for conjecture, and an object for speculation, that startled Europe from a lethargic slumber, and bade her sons go forth in quest of the marvelous and the real. Theories vanished before facts, dreams were eclipsed by realities, and hopes were oft-times more than realized. Explorers by sea and land rivaled each other in discoveries. They saw nature carrying on her operations upon a larger scale, and with a bolder hand. A peculiar magnificence enveloped everything with its charms. America was found to be not only remarkable for its magnitude, position, and mineral wealth, but for the sublimity and grandeur of its sceneandy. Loftiermountains cast their shadows upon more fertile plains, and Europe was outdone in lakes and rivers, in climate and productions. The plain of Quito, which is but the base of sky-piercing peaks, is higher above the sea than the top of the Pyrenees; while the stupendous ridge of the Andes, whose bold, bare fronts, though exposed to the rays of a tropical sun, are frosted with eternal snow, b…