in silence. This very man, this Luis de Fuentes, whether through the ordinary lot of conquerors, or because their achievements suffice for their reward, was engaged in so many disputes, relative to the distribution of the lands, by the inhabitants of the country which he himself had conquered, that he ended his days in the audience of Charcas, poor and overwhelmed with law-suits; as happened to the hero of New Spain, Hernan Cortes, in the court of Charles V. But we will draw a veil over this melancholy scene, and, banishing it from our reflections, continue the historical series of the vicissitudes which have attended the population and political system of this province.
Before, however, we resume the thread of our narration, may we be permitted to introduce a short episode? When the settlers who accompanied Fuentes in his glorious expedition, approached the valley, they found a wooden cross, hidden, as if purposely, in the most intricate part of the mountains. As there is not any thing more flattering to the vanity of a credulous man, than to be enabled to bring forward his testimony in the relation of a prodigy, the devotion of these good conquerors was kindled to such a degree, by the discovery of this sacred memorial, that they instantly hailed it as miraculous and divine. They accordingly carried it in procession to the town, and placed it in the church belonging to the convent of San Francisco, where it is still worshipped. It appears next to impossible that there should not, at that time, have been any individual among them sufficiently enlightened to combat such a persuasion; since, in reality, there was nothing miraculous in the finding of this cross, there having been other Christian settlers, before the arrival of
