6
Balboa, it is said, knelt on the mountain alone, and then his comrades came and planted a cross. And the pious chronicler avers that Te Deum Laudamus and Te Dominum Confitemur were sung. The dog Leoncico barked for joy. Balboa in a loud voice claimed all that was visible for the King of Spain, and the lawyer whom they had brought along drew up a deed which was signed by sixty-seven Spaniards—all that was left of the original hundred and ninety.
Balboa then marched to the sea. Pizarro, one of his companions, afterwards conqueror of Peru, was the first to reach the shore, and with two others they entered an abandoned canoe, and were thus the first white men to sail on the Pacific. Next day, Balboa took possession of the Ocean for the King of Spain. He did not throw his ring in the water, like the Doge of Venice taking possession of the Adriatic, but, clad only in his shirt, he marched with twenty-six of his comrades into the waves. In one hand he carried a banner of Castile; in the other a naked sword. They stood around Balboa, Pizarro and the rest, they made crosses of steel, they kissed one another's sword hilts, they lowered the crimson banner to the water. It had been morning on the mountains and was sunset on the sea—the light of vision and then the many colors of glory sinking toward oblivion. With me also there was some of the light of romance, in the glamour of the evening on the shore of the Southern Sea.