It only revealed more clearly the extent
of their wretchedness. Still struggling on through the winding Puertos
Nevados, or Snowy Passes, their track was dismally marked by
fragments of dress, broken harness, golden ornaments, and other
valuables plundered on their march,--by the dead bodies of men, or by
those less fortunate, who were left to die alone in the wilderness. As for
the horses, their carcasses were not suffered long to cumber the ground,
as they were quickly seized and devoured half raw by the starving
soldiers, who, like the famished condors, now hovering in troops above
their heads, greedily banqueted on the most offensive offal to satisfy the
gnawings of hunger.
Alvarado, anxious to secure the booty which had fallen into his hands at
an earlier part of his march, encouraged every man to take what gold he
wanted from the common heap, reserving only the royal fifth. But they
only answered, with a ghastly smile of derision, "that food was the only
gold for them." Yet in this extremity, which might seem to have
dissolved the very ties of nature, there are some affecting instances
recorded of self-devotion; of comrades who lost their lives in assisting
others, and of parents and husbands (for some of the cavaliers were
accompanied by their wives) who, instead of seeking their own safety,
chose to remain and perish in the snows with the objects of their love.
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