SPOILS OF WAR.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1744, 24 July 1884, Page 2

SPOILS OF WAR.

The .most extraordinary trophy o conquest since the world begun was the gold; distributed by Pizarro among his soldiers from the spoils.of tho Peruvian temples. The gold melted down by the Indian goldsmiths, who toiled day and night for a month, would be worth according to Pressqbtt's .calculation .three, millions and a half of pounds Sterling. " History," the author says, " affords no parallel of such a booty, and that too, in the most convertible form, in ready money, as it were—having fallen to the lot of a little band of military adventurers like the Conquerors of rem." The great throne or chair'of the Inca, of solid gold was .a portion and a small portion, of the share alloted by Pizarro to himself. Other magnificent works in gold were melted down in ingots; and- anion" them, the great temple of the Sun—a human face of gold looking forth from innumerable rays, -which burst forth from it in all directions a massive plate of gold of enormous size, thickly powdered with emeralds and precious stones. The very cornices and friezes of this temple ,wero of pure gold. The vdne of the beautiful articles sent to Spain in charge of Hernando Pizarro,'was one hundred thousand ■ducats. Columbus had no such trophies to display before Ferdinand and Isabella at Barcelona in 1493, but he showed several native islanders, adorned with gold ornaments, quantities of gold dust, and among other specimens was a lump of gold of sufficient magnitude to be fashioned into a vessel for containing the host: "thus," says Salazar de Mendoza, " converting the first, fruits ot the new dominion to pious uses." The wars by which our Empire in tho West Indies was acquired, were often carried on in scenes of great wealth; but their trophies cannot be compared with those of the' fifteenth and sixteenth century discoveries in South America and in father Asia; and k Africa our conquests have not produced any spoil of greater importance than the homely relic, which seems to be the chief trophy of the Soudanese canpign, the frying pan,