Page:Don Coronado through Kansas.djvu/24

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MOTECUHZOMA NOT MONTEZUMA. 13 and yet the news took wings, so that even before the end of the last voyage of Colon there was many bucca- neers who took ships to wrest riches and land from the natives of the "New World." It was only twenty- six years from the year that the first party returned that' Cortes had conquered King ■ Motecuhzoma, (Montezuma was the spelling, but the above is according to the 14th Annual report of the United States Bureau of Ethnology; which is authoritative.) and the Mexican country, and thirty-nine years until the Pizzaro brothers made Peru a Spanish colony. Let us do a little figuring. Cortes took with him about 700 men when he subdued the Mexicans, and history states that he received from King Monte- cuhzoma who tried to buy him off, $7,000,000, so if this sum is divided by that number, it would allot to each individual $10,000. Again, the Pizzaros made the ruler of Peru fill a room with gold and silver, which is stated as having amounted to $17,000,000, and the invaders numbered 500 soldiers, so if this sum is divided by that number, it would allot to each individual $34,000. Ye gods, is there any wonder that nearly every young man in Spain became unbalanced ?