South American fights and fighters, and other tales of adventure

Front matter

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Preface

The first part of this new volume of the American Fights and Fighters Series needs no special introduction. Partly to make this the same size as the other books, but more particularly because I especially desired to give a permanent place to some of the most dramatic and interesting episodes in our history — especially as most of them related to the Pacific and the Far West — the series of papers in part second was included.

"The Yarn of the Essex, Whaler" is abridged from a quaint account written by the Mate and published in an old volume which is long since out of print and very scarce. The papers on the Tonquin, John Paul Jones, and "The Great American Duellists" speak for themselves. The account of the battle of the Pitt River has never been published in book form heretofore. The last paper "On Being a Boy Out West" I inserted because I enjoy it myself, and because I have found that others young and old who have read it generally like it also.

Thanks are due and are hereby extended to the following magazines for permission to republish vari-

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ous articles which originally appeared in their pages: Harper s, Munseys, The Cosmo polttan. Sunset and The Ne-iv Era.

I project another volume of the Series supplementing the two Indian volumes immediately preceding this one, but the information is hard to get, and the work amid many other demands upon my time, proceeds slowly.

Cyrus Townsend Brady.

Part I SOUTH AMERICAN FIGHTS AND FIGHTERS PAGE

PANAMA AND THE KNIGHTS-ERRANT OF COLONIZATION

I. The Spanish Main 3

II. The Don Quixote of Discoverers and His Rival . . 5

III. The Adventures of Ojeda 10

IV. Enter One Vasco Nunez de Balboa 17

V. The Desperate Straits of Nicuesa 20

PANAMA, BALBOA AND A FORGOTTEN ROMANCE

I. The Coming of the Devastator 31

II. The Greatest Exploit Since Columbus's Voyage ... 34

III. "Furor Domini" 42

IV. The End of Balboa 44

I. The Chief Scion of a Famous Family 53

II. The Terrible Persistence of Pizaxro 57

III. "A Communistic Despotism" 68

IV. The Treacherous and Bloody Massacre of Caxa-

marca 73

V. The Ransom and Murder of the Inca 85

VI. The Inca and the Peruvians Strike Vainly for Freedom 93

VII. "The Men of Chili" and the Civil Wars 102

VIII. The Mean End of the Great Conquistador .... 105

IX. The Last of the Brethren 108

I. The Chief of all the Soldiers of Fortune .... 1x5

II. The Expedition to Mexico 120

III. The Religion of the Aztecs 125

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IV. The March to Tenochtitlan 130

V. The Republic of Tlascala 138

VI. Cortes's Description of Mexico 147

VII. The Meeting with Montezuma . . .' 162

VIII. The Seizure of the Emperor 171

IX. The Revolt of the Capital 174

X. In God's Way 177

XI. The Melancholy Night 182

XII. The Siege and Destruction of Mexico 194

XIII. A Day of Desperate Fighting 198

XIV. The Last Mexican 215

XV. The End of Cortes 218