More Books of the Week (Continued from page 973.) The
courageous Spaniards who conquered the New World were not a very amiable company. They quarrelled inces- santly, and on occasion could be as cruel to their fellow- countrymen as they were to the wretched native. Mr. Arthur Strawn's Golden Adventures of Balboa (John Lane, 12s. 6d.) is a typical story of the conquest. Balboa, a bankrupt colonist of Hispaniola, shipped as a stowaway in 1509 with Enciso, who was to found a colony on the mainland. Darien was no sooner established than Balboa fermented a mutiny, sent Enciso home and placed his superior, Nicuesa, on a leaky vessel which foundered at sea. Then he found his way across the isthmus and, silent upon a peak in Darien, was the first European to behold the Pacific, in 1513: The Spanish Court sent out a new governor, Don Pedrarias Davila, who, believing or affecting to believe that. Balboa was plotting against him, had him executed in 1519. It was reserved for Balboa's follower Pizarro to enter the South Sea and conquer Peru. The grim story is well told by Mr. Strawn, and the book is fully illustrated.
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