Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet never did I breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold. Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes He star’d at the Pacific – and all his men Look’d at each other with a wild surmise - Silent, upon a peak in Darien. – Keats. Prescott’s classic and beautifully written work describes what Cortez and his men went on to do, and how it was that they came to destroy the empire of the Aztecs –