BATTLE BETWEEN PIZARRO AND ALMAGRO. In our last number we gave a brief biography of Pizarro.-Diego Almagro, was the man selected by Pizarro to accompany him in his expedition to South America. During their voyage, the two commanders did not act with perfect harmony. After many quarrels, which were reconciled from motives of policy, Almagro set out on an expedition to Cuzco, in which city he was desirous of presiding. As soon as Almagro appeared before the walls of Cuzco, he sent a summons to Ferdinand Pizarro, the Spanish governour to deliver up the city; to which he answered, that he held it by commission from his brother the marquis, and, as he knew it to be within the limits of his government, would not deliver it up without his orders; and he immediately began to put the place in a posture of defence but part of the garrison being friends to Almagro, introduced his troops into the city at midnight, by which means Ferdinand and Gonzalo Pizarro were made prisoners; and Almagro summoning the magistrates, compelled them to acknowledge him governour, and at the same time appointed de Rojas his deputy. gro's departure, they seized de Rojas, put him in irons, and made their escape to Lima, accompanied by about sixty men, whom they had won over to their interest. Upon the news of this escape, Organez, lieutenantgeneral to Almagro, and others of the officers, urged him to revenge it by the death of his prisoner Ferdinand Pizarro; a piece of cruelty that he absolutely refused, and soon after met the marquis at Mala, with twelve men on each side, to terminate their differences. However, the conference was suddenly broken off, by one of Almagro's people rushing abruptly into his presence, and crying out that he was betrayed: on which he immediately took horse, and rode off, leaving matters entirely unsettled. This alarm was occasioned by the approach of Gonzalo Pizarro with seven hundred men; which induced Organez also to advance with his troops, to repel by force the treachery he suspected to be in agitation. Each party now seemed ready for war, but the marquis again found means to persuade Almagro to listen to terms; and a treaty was agreed upon, and sworn to on each side, by which among other advantages, the possession of Cuzco was ceded to Almagro, till the decision of the emperour should be known; and in consequence of this treaty, Ferdi nand Pizarro was set at liberty, on his taking an oath not to act against Almagro. The marquis Pizarro, who was still at Lima, hearing no news from his brother at Cuzco, and imagining that the parties he had sent thither to reinforce them, had been cut off by the Peruvians, sent thither five hundred Spanish horse and foot, commanded by Don Alonzo de Alverado, and under him appointed No sooner had the marquis Pizarro obtained the Pedro de Lerma captain of a troop of horse; who point he aimed at, his brother's liberty, than he being an older officer, was so offended at the prefer- broke through the treaty, sending a notary with witence given to Alverado, that thenceforward he med-nesses, to summon Almagro to surrender Cuzco, and itated the ruin of the enterprise. all the places he had subdued, on pain of being treat The news of de Lerma's discontent being convey-ed as a rebel; and this dishonourable proceeding ed to Almagro, they made, by means of their emissaries, a private agreement, in consequence of which de Lerma, with a considerable body of men, took the first opportunity of deserting Alverado, after which the latter was vigorously attacked by Almagro's forces, his whole party routed, and himself taken pris oner. The troops which had deserted to Almagro were amply rewarded, and marshalled into a body, the command of which was given to Pedro de Lerma : and several of the officers now strongly urged Almagro to provide for his future safety, by putting the Pizarros to death; a measure which he absolutely refused, declaring that it was beneath a gentleman and a soldier to destroy his prisoners in cold blood. The news of this defeat made a deep impression upon the marquis Pizarro, who finding himself too weak to oppose Almagro, his whole force scarcely exceeding four hundred men, determined to try what could be done by policy; and therefore sent deputies to Cuzco, to propose an accommodation. Almagro, notwithstanding the representation of his friends, that Pizarro would never adhere to any treaty, received these deputies with great civility, and promised to have an interview with the marquis, in which commissioners should be chosen to settle the respective boundaries. Accordingly, leaving a sufficient garrison in Cuzco, he marched out of that city at the head of about five hundred Spaniards, taking the road to Lima, and carrying Ferdinand Pizarro prisoner in his train; while Gonzalo Pizarro and Alverado, were left in the town under the care of de Rojas; but after Alma | was still the more inexcusable, as, just before this time, he had received an express from court, enjoining each governour, on pain of the emperour's displeasure, to keep quiet possession of all such places as should at the time of that messenger's arrival, own their respective jurisdiction; and if they thought themselves injured, they were directed to make their appeal to the council of the Indies; but Pizarro saw fit to suppress these orders. Almagro, now repenting the confidence he had put in the marquis, gave orders for securing Cuzco, and marched with his troops to a place called the Salinas, from a fountain of brackish water which sprung up there; and the marquis's army under Gonzalo Pizarro, meeting him at this place, an engagement ensued, which lasting two hours, Almagro was entirely defeated. Organez behaved with great gallantry, but growing faint with his wounds, accepted quarter from a person named Fuentez, who cruelly murdered him in cold blood. In the heat of the engagement, Ferdinand Pizarro was unhorsed by Lerma, who at the same time upbraided him with his perjury, but his armour saved his life and Lerma being afterward borne down by some of Pizarro's people, was treacherously stabbed; but he had the misfortune to recover to be butchered in a more cruel manner. Almagro being ill, and too weak to sit on a horse, was carried into the field in a litter, and perceiving his army defeated, retired to the citadel of Cuzco, whither he was pursued by Alverado, to whom he was soon obliged to surrender. As soon as Almagro was in the power of his ene Alverado, incensed at this reply, determined to seek redress at the court of Spain, and therefore soon afterward embarked for Europe, with such evidences as were proper to support the cause of young Almagro. mies, Ferdinand determined to be revenged for his knew of no one who had a right to insist on sharing own and brother's long imprisonment; and effectu-it with him, since Almagro was dead. ally to prevent his making head against the Pizarros for the future, caused articles of high treason to be drawn up against him, the principal of which were, that he had seized the city of Cuzco, made a secret treaty with the inca, encroached upon the government granted by the emperour to the marquis Pizarro, and fought two battles against the forces of his sovereign, by which much Christian blood had been spilt, and the progress of the Spanish arms considerably retarded. It often appears that severe measures rather irritate than assuage civil dissensions; which was evidenced by the death of Almagro, which instead of extinguishing, increased his faction: upon which Ferdinand Pizarro, who from the behaviour of the Almagro being tried for these offences, was con- soldiers, suspected that some designs were carrying victed, and condemned to die, though he insisted on on against his life, thought it best to retire to Spain, appealing to the emperour. Alverado pleaded warm- with all the gold he could amass, with a view to ly that his appeal should be admitted, and in vain bribe the Spanish ministry: but Alverado having attempted to soften Ferdinand's inflexibility, by rep- prepared the way for his reception, he was arrested resenting the kindness with which Almagro had as soon as he arrived, and thrown into prison; and treated both him and his brother, when they were notwithstanding Alverado died soon after, not withhis prisoners: even Almagro himself addressed Fer-out suspicion of having been poisoned to put a stop dinand in the most moving manner, entreating him to the prosecution, yet Ferdinand continued in conto recollect the time when he had spared his life, finement twenty-three years. in opposition to numbers who would have devoted About this time the Peruvians had again recourse him to destruction and to remember how instru- to arms; and having in a great measure got rid of mental he had been in advancing the Pizarros to the terrour which the horses and firearms had occatheir present grandeur. He also begged him to con- sioned among them, they were now able to make a sider that, bowing under the weight of age and in- stand against the Spaniards, who being by this time firmities, a very little time must, in the common increased to above two thousand, found it more difcourse of nature, bring him to the grave; and be-ficult to keep their ground, than they had to conquer sought him that, after the innumerable hardships he had suffered, he might be permitted to die a natural death. But Ferdinand, deaf to all his entreaties, ordered him to be strangled, in the seventy-fifth or, according to some writers, the sixty-fifth year of his age; after which the dead body was beheaded in the great square of Cuzco, and lay exposed on the scaffold, almost naked, the greatest part of the day; no one daring to bury it, lest they should provoke the resentment of his enemies, who were inhuman enough to take no care of the interment, till towards evening, a few poor Peruvians, who had been his servants, wrapped the body in a coarse sheet, and conveyed it to a church erected by the Spaniards, where it was buried by the clergy under their high altar. The enemies of Almagro have asserted that he was of mean parentage, which however, they could not possibly know, since he was found in the streets, and being never owned, was called by the name of the town in which he was found. His bravery was remarkable, and his presence of mind was such that no danger could disconcert him. He was kind to his soldiers, and slow in punishing their faults, yet maintained a strict discipline by the mere force of his own example. He kept a good table for his officers, but lived as hard himself as any private man in the army and when, through this conduct, he has been charged with affectation, he used to reply, that "his was the diet of a soldier." Having lived some time with a Peruvian woman, he had by her a son, named Diego, whom at his death he bequeathed to the care of Diego Alverado; who desiring Pizarro to evacuate so much of the country as he had always acknowledged to be under the government of Almagro, that he might take possession of it for the youth, was haughtily answered that his government was now unbounded, and he the country with four hundred; and it seems highly probable, that if some particular bodies of Indians had not been so infatuated as to adhere faithfully to the Spanish interest, Pizarro might have been compelled to abandon his acquisitions after so long a possession. The most valuable acquisition made after the death of Almagro, was the conquest of the province of Charcas, in which were the rich mines of Potosi, which the marquis divided among the conquerors, having first founded the city of La Plata, so called from its being situated among the mines. TIMES GO BY TURNS. BY SOUTHWELL, A Poet of the sixteenth century. THE lopped tree in time may grow again; The sea of fortune doth not ever flow, Not always fall of leaf, nor every spring, The saddest birds a season find to sing, A chance may win that by mischance lost, Who least, hath some, who most, hath never all. THE LAST OF THE MAMELUKES. THE above cut is a portrait of the only survivor of the band of Mamelukes, that powerful corps who once exercised so much influence over the destinies of Egypt. A late traveller to the scene of their horrid massacre, gives us the following account of his visit: "Early in the morning of the 21st, we found the grooms with our horses in the court below, and after breakfast mounted for a visit of ceremony to the Abdi Effendi, the governour of the city. Having traversed the whole length of the city, we began, near its southern outskirts, to ascend, and presently found ourselves before the frowning walls of the citadel of Cairo. Here, in this strong eyry, well guarded by both nature and art, the pacha of Egypt has built his palace and gathered his treasures, and formed his arsenal for arms. The citadel stands on a spur from the range of Kebel Mokattam, the mountains that, stretching along on the east, help to form the valley of the Filo. Here they make a bend, and stretch off far to the eastward; and at the angle, on an irregular platform thrown off from it, the citadel was built, or at least enlarged to its present dimensions, in the twelfth century, by the famous Saladin. It is a place of great strength, and may be considered as the key of all the upper parts of Egypt. On passing the heavy exteriour gateway, we found ourselves in the court, where twenty-five years ago, by order of Mohammed Ali, was perpetrated the bloody massacre of the Mamelukes. It is of irregular shape, with high walls on one side, and on the others steep ascents or precipices, surrounded by ramparts, above which again are heavy buildings, and among them the ruins of Saladin's palace. It was a place well chosen for such a butchery, and the whole plan of operations was strikingly characteristick of the man. It will, perhaps, be recollected by the reader that the Mamelukes, as a distinct body, owed their origin to Saladin, who distrusting his native troops, formed a body-guard of slaves, procured by purchase, or capture from the countries bordering on the Caspian. They rose gradually under successive sultans, and all the fortresses at length being trusted to them, they concluded to turn the power to their own use, and through their beys became the governours of Egypt. Various, after this, were their changes of | di has been in England and France, and speaks the fortune; the hardy soldiers, being generally success-language of the latter country fluently. He received ful in the field, but circumvented by their cunning us with great politeness, and entertained us with the adversaries in the council-room. The French found usual Eastern hospitalities. His questions with rein them most obstinate and determined opposers; gard to our country were pertinent, and evinced a and when, at the close of this war, the British arms good knowledge of its laws and institutions. He were triumphant, Lord Hutchinson demanded of the spoke in terms of high admiration of his own sovSultan of Constantinople, to whom the country was ereign; and indeed Mohammed Ali seems to have yielded, restitution of the Mamelukes to their former the faculty of creating a strong attachment for himprivileges. He promised compliance, but had deter- self in all his officers. The governour said that if the mined on the extinction of this race of dangerous sub- pacha could live twenty years longer, he would make jects. The Turkish admiral, who was sent for this Egypt more civilized and more prosperous than it purpose, first enticed a great number of them to a has ever yet been; but added that he stood alone, pleasure excursion in boats off Aboukir, and his and greatly needed some one who could be a second ships opening fire upon them, the greater portion self to him. were destroyed. War with their race being thus declared, Mohammed Ali, then first rising into notice, was sent with a force against them, but was defeated and compelled to retreat. This was the origin of the inveteracy of Mohammed Ali toward the Mamelukes. From the audience-hall we were taken to visit a number of schools in the same building; they occupy a number of rooms, and contained altogether four hundred youths preparing for publick employments in the country. As far as I could judge, they seemed to be awkwardly conducted. At the extreme end On the invasion of Egypt by the English in 1807, of the building we came to the Hall of Justice, where, the beys united with the rising pacha; but it was on an ottoman and all alone, sat the judge, a man of only a momentary truce; and the defeat of the prodigious corporeal dimensions. He was at this English, giving him entire possession of Egypt, time unemployed, but our attention was drawn to a sealed at the same time the fate of his too trustful new mat with which the floor was covered. It had allies. He immediately formed a plan for the total just been put down in place of one that, a few days destruction of the Mamelukes. His son Tousson before, had been worn through by the writhings of a was about this time preparing to lead an army against poor wretch, who had been bastinadoed here; the the Wahabees, and as this was a religious war, it punishment having followed close on the heels, if was determined to invest him with the command un-not of justice, at least of the culprit. der circumstances of unusual splendour. The Mameluke beys were invited to the ceremony, which was to commence in the citadel. They came, led by their chief, Chahyn Bey; and a more splendid cavalcade never filed in through the portals of this fortress. They amounted to four hundred and seventy men, on horseback, together with about an equal number of attendants of the same race on foot. Their reception was flattering. The pacha addressed them individually, and with a blind aspect and smiles welcomed them to the festivities. At length, it was necessary to form a procession, and the Mamelukes were honoured by being put into a body near the head of it they filed down and entered this rocky court; but when their whole body had gained it, the gates were suddenly shut both in front and rear, and they found themselves cruelly entrapped. The heights above were in a moment covered with the pacha's soldiers, and a deadly fire was poured down on them. Rage and execration were in vain: they were coolly shot down till not an individual remained alive. One of the beys escaped by spurring his horse up the steep outer wall; in the descent the animal was killed, but the rider was unhurt. The adjoining side of the court into which this palace looks, is formed by a large palace of Mohammed Ali, to which, in the course of sight-seeing, we were next conducted. It is quite new, and in some parts not quite finished; and is more remarkable for the airy and spacious character of the rooms than for any beauties of architecture. Indeed, all the palaces which we visited in Egypt, though cool and spacious, are marked by great simplicity. A hall of great width passes across at the centre of the building, and is intersected by another of somewhat narrower dimensions, running lengthwise; and thus at each angle a chamber is formed. These chambers are carpeted, and have the most luxurious ottomans passing quite around. These, with sometimes a glass lustre suspended from the lofty ceiling, constitute the only furniture. In the palace, which we were now visiting, the ottomans were covered with the richest French silks, with raised figures in beautiful patterns worked on them. In front of the seats hung down an impenetrable veil of silken tassels. Rev. G. Jones' Excursion. Ivy. This plant saves many animals from want This was the end of the Mamelukes. On the fol- and death, in autumn and spring. In October, it lowing day the soldiers rushed into the city, and un-blooms in profusion, and its flowers become a der the pretext of searching for more victims, plun-universal banquet to the insect race. dered a large part of it before the pacha and his son durst venture out to suppress their fury. Our horses, on reaching this bloody court, seemed themselves to be seized with the very spirit of violence; for pricking their ears, they rushed up the steep ascent with headlong speed, and, whirling through Saladin's court, and then through a larger one, brought us up at length in front of the governour's palace. It is a long building and spacious, but is otherwise by no means remarkable. Abdi Effen The great black fly (musca grossa) and its numerous tribe, with multitudes of smallwinged creatures, resort to them: also, those beautiful animals, the latest birth of the year, the admiral and peacock butterflies. In its honey, it yields a constant supply of food, till the frost of November. In the spring, in the bitter months of March and April, when the wild products of the field are nearly consumed, the ivy ripens its berries; and almost entirely constitutes the food of the missel-thrush, the wood-pigeon, and other birds. AMERICAN CAVERNS. ABOUT twelve miles west of the Knox cavern, the village of Schoharie is situated, in the midst of a delightful valley, surrounded by mountains from four to six hundred feet in height.-These mountains are composed principally of secondary limestone, in which are hundreds of caverns. Many of these are interesting from the circumstance of their being natural ice-houses, so cold as to contain ice all the year, others on account of their vast size, and others because they contain some of the most curious specimens that nature forms in these dark and deep re cesses. During a few years past I have explored many of these caverns, but as I would weary you were I to describe all I have seen, I will only give you a sketch of the Great cavern, the most interesting one, by far, in this part of the United States. This cavern is situated about three miles northeast of Schoharie Court House, and was first explored in 1831. The first opening is a gradual depression in the earth, about twelve feet in depth, which reaches to a perpendicular passage in the limestone, about ten feet in length, six in breadth, and seventy-five in depth. This opening was at first descended by a rope but it is now by a ladder, which, in its present condition, is by far the more dangerous of the two. At this depth is a narrow fissure in the rock, from which the mineral, prickly arragonite has been procured. From the base of the ladder commences a passage from four to ten feet in width, and fifty-five in length, running in a southerly direction, at an angle of at least sixty degrees with the horizon. The walls of this passage, when first discovered, were covered with some of the most beautiful arragonite ever found in this country, but they were soon stripped of this interesting mineral and the cavern, it was supposed, contained no more. During my last visit I saw a quantity of clay adhering to the rock at the height of about forty feet, and it seemed possible that a deposite of arragonite might be concealed under it. With considerable difficulty I succeeded in reaching this spot by means of a ladder, placed upon a projecting rock and extending across the passage. After removing the clay, I had the pleasure of finding what I had anticipated, and in the course of a few hours obtained about a bushel of this elegant mineral. But I might have paid dearly for my treasure, for the least slip or unsteadiness would have sent me headlong down a gulf of one hundred feet in depth, upon a floor of pointed rocks. low rough rocks, and pushes himself forward. At the distance of a few feet the roof is so high that he can assume an erect position. The passage varies in width from five to thirty feet, and the water from two to thirty feet in depth. A few hundred feet from the entrance he meets with a semicircular dam formed of calcareous tufa. This is a brown spongy mass of lime, sand, &c., deposited by water. Over this dam the water falls twelve or fifteen inches, and the navigator is obliged to stand on this frail barrier and draw the boat into the water above. But he soon meets with thirteen similar dams formed in the same manner, from fifteen to twenty feet apart, and from two to fourteen inches above the water. The light reflected from these little waterfalls, presents a view of almost unrivalled beauty.-Having passed these obstructions he soon reaches the termination of the water and ascending a small rocky hill, he enters, through a narrow opening, the Square Room, which is about fifty feet square, and sixty feet high. Upon the floor lie scattered masses of rock, which appear to have just fallen from the roof, and huge shapeless blocks hang upon the poise and seem to threaten the intruder with instant death.-At this spot he hears the mournful sound of an unseen waterfall, resounding through the chasms of the rocks, which he easily imagines to be his funeral knell. There are in this wing of the cavern no peculiar formations, except the dams, in consequence of the abundance of sandstone mingled with the limestone. From the perpendicular passage the subterranean traveller creeps a distance of twenty feet, when he arrives at a narrow opening to the left, leading into a room about twenty feet in diameter, and about thirty feet high. Returning by the aperture, he proceeds thirty feet farther, when he reaches a second lake extending across the cavern. This lake is about ten feet below the level of the first; (to which it is connected by a small brook that runs on the west side of the low opening :) and is in many places about thirty feet deep, consequently it can be crossed only by a boat. Into this he now enters, and after sailing three hundred feet over water so transparent that the smallest pebble can be seen by torch-light at the bottom, he reaches the spot where the water disappears beneath the rocks. After climbing up the steep acclivity to the right, he stands in the Rotunda, the noblest room in the cav ern. It is of a regular and circular form, one hundred feet in diameter and nearly one hundred feet in height. The floor descends gradually to the centre, forming a spacious gallery all around it. When first discovered this room was very rich in mineralogical specimens, but they were long since removed to the cabinets of the curious. At the end of this inclined passage is a second perpendicular descent of fifteen feet, and from this to the bottom of the cavern, is another descent of To the right of the Rotunda were at first several thirty feet and of about the same inclination as the rooms, but they last winter, were united by the clay third passage. Here the opening is about ten feet being dug away which separated them. In this clay wide, but the perpendicular walls reach about one have been found vast numbers of beautiful white hundred feet in height. On the north is an aper- stalagmites and stalactites, and vast slabs of alabasture sufficiently high to admit a person lying flat ter, in and on which were found stalagmites weighupon the rocky bottom. Here is seen a lake, as ing four or six hundred pounds each. Some of the smooth as a mirror, and clear as crystal, on whose most curious specimens that have been found here, bosom lies a boat just large enough to contain a are in Peale's museum in New York, the most sinsingle person. Whoever has the boldness to navi-gular of which is a stalagmite exactly resembling gate this gloomy region, unaided and alone, places the hunian mammary or suckling organ. lights on the bow and stern of the boat, falls upon As you are acquainted with the manner in which his knees, inclines his head to protect it from the these specimens are formed, you may be surprised |