Vasco Nuñez de Balboa

by Frederick A. Ober

After hours of exposure to the tropic sun, they landed near nightfall at the upper end of the gulf, in the province of a cacique named Tumaco. The Spaniards, like the Indians, were weak and famishing, having labored all day without either food or drink; but no sooner had they made land in safety than the indomitable Balboa set out in search of the Indian town. It was at a little distance from the shore, and was not reached until midnight. The inhabitants had been informed of their coming and made a stout defence; but were soon routed by the Spaniards and driven into the forest at the point of the sword.

Groping within the bohios, or Indian huts, the victors found an abundant supply of provisions, with which they appeased their raging appetites, and also a large number of beautiful pearls, besides a quantity of gold. As some of the pearls were contained in shells freshly taken from the water, Balboa concluded that the seat of the pearl fishery was not far distant, and was very anxious to obtain possession of the cacique, believing that he could inform him in the matter. Having captured a son of Tumaco, he loaded him with gifts, such as a shirt made in Castile, and other trifles valued by the savages, and sent him in search of his father. The chief had sought refuge in a wild den among the rocks, deep in the forest; but he was very much impressed by the beautiful presents brought by his son, and consented to emerge from his retreat. When he appeared before Balboa he had with him six hundred pieces of gold, and pearls to the number of two hundred and forty. The gold was wrought into ornaments, and the pearls, though most of them large and perfect in shape, had been injured by fire, with which the Indians had opened the shells.

All this treasure Tumaco presented to Balboa, and when he saw with what joy it was received, and understood that the pearls were especially appreciated, he sent a party of his divers to search for more. Thirty naked Indians, accustomed all their lives to dive for pearls, went down the coast in a canoe, accompanied by six Spaniards as witnesses; but the sea was so rough that they dared not fish in deep water, where the large pearl-oysters lay. The storm, however, had caused a great number of oysters to be washed ashore, and there they collected more than ninety ounces of small though perfect pearls, which were freely given to the Spaniards. The best of these, with specimens of the oysters from which they were taken, were set apart by the conscientious Balboa, as an acceptable gift to his sovereign.

More precious than pearls, however highly they were valued by the explorer, was certain information conveyed to Balboa by Tumaco, confirming the rumors that had reached him in the interior, respecting a vast country to the southward, which abounded in gold and gems. This was Peru, subsequently to be subjugated by Francisco Pizarro, then a humble follower of Balboa, and with him on this occasion. In order to impress the Spaniards with the high state of that country's civilization, Tumaco described as well as he could the beasts of burden used by the inhabitants of the distant empire. He moulded in clay, it is said, a figure of the animal known as the llama, which the Spaniards, as they had never seen or heard of it before, supposed might be a deer or a tapir—the latter being the largest animal they had found in South America.

But, great and glowing as were Balboa's hopes respecting that wonderful country to the southward, he was obliged to confess himself unable to explore it at that season and with the small force at his command. He made an experimental voyage along the coast for several leagues, cautiously feeling his way through an inundated forest on the border of the gulf, but dared not venture out at sea, where the wild winds roared and the waves beat incessantly upon the shores of distant islands. Pointing to one of these islands about five or six leagues distant, Tumaco told Balboa that its waters produced the largest and finest of pearls, such as the Spaniards had never seen, for size and beauty; but he could not take him to it then, much as he desired to please him. The two chiefs, the Indian and the Spaniard, were then in the former's war-canoe, hewn from the trunk of an immense forest tree, and paddled by a crew of sixty Indians. The paddlers themselves were stark naked, but the heads of the oars they used were inlaid with pearls. Of this circumstance, says a contemporary chronicler, "Balboa caused a record to be made by the notary, for the sake, no doubt, of establishing the credit of what he himself should write to the sovereign (no less needy and covetous than the discoverers themselves) concerning the opulence of the new country."

Several weeks were consumed by Balboa in exploring the country adjacent to San Miguel, and on a day in the first week of November, Tumaco took him and his companions in his war-canoe to the uppermost end of the great bay. With them also was the still faithful Chiapes, who considered himself in some sort as Balboa's sponsor, and who, when the time for parting came, is said to have shed tears, so deeply was he affected. He gladly assumed the care of the Spanish sick and wounded, and took them with him to his village in the mountains, while Balboa, with his able-bodied veterans, essayed to return by another route across the isthmus. The territory at the head of the bay was controlled by Cacique Techoan, who vied with the other chiefs in bestowing gold and pearls upon the Spaniards, and who furnished them with burden-bearers and provisions for the journey.

That Techoan was not entirely disinterested was shown conclusively by his guiding them to the abode of a cacique whom he represented as a rich and powerful lord, but an insufferable tyrant. This tyrant was known as the "Crœsus of the mountains" (or its equivalent in the Indian language), and, as may be believed by those acquainted with the character of Balboa, the latter was not unwilling to seek him out and make his acquaintance. But Ponca (for that was his name) was not anxious to meet the Spaniards, especially when he learned that they were coming in company with his deadly enemy, and fled farther into the mountains, taking with him, it was thought, the bulk of his treasure. He left behind, however, some three thousand pieces of gold, which the Indian allies discovered and took to Balboa, who used every exertion to entrap him and force him to disclose the hiding-place of his vast wealth. He caught him at last; but when questioned as to his gold, Ponca answered that all he had the Spaniards already possessed, and that it had been left him by his ancestors. More than this he would not disclose, even when the cruel Spaniards put him to the torture, and, provoked by his obstinacy, in the heat of their passion, gave him and three companions to the dogs, who finished the revolting business by tearing them to pieces.

In extenuation of their cruelty the Spaniards afterwards described Ponca as a monster of depravity, with deformed limbs, a frightful countenance, and a sanguinary nature. The guilt of his death, said one of their countrymen, "rests more with the Indians than the Castilians; yet they were not the judges of Ponca!" They assumed, however, that any Indian who refused to reveal the hiding-place of treasures which they desired to possess was deserving of death, believing, as they did, that there was nothing of greater worth in the world than gold, or its equivalent in material wealth. Thus cheaply did they hold the lives of the Indians, reckoning their immortal souls as of less worth than perishable gold. In this respect Balboa was no better than his comrades, and in truth set them an example which they were not slow in following.

The senseless avarice of the Spaniards wrought its own retribution on this journey, for they had laden their carriers with gold to a greater extent than with provisions, and this was done notwithstanding their route lay through a sterile wilderness yielding no supplies. The consequence was that they soon began to feel the effects of famine, some of them, as well as many Indian carriers, sinking by the wayside to rise no more. Rumors preceding the Spaniards informed the natives that they desired, above all other things, gold and like treasure, and thus gold was invariably brought as a peace offering, to the neglect of provisions, so that the soldiers (says the historian who perused Balboa's journal) "yet wanted nourishment and pursued their melancholy way, cursing the riches which burdened but could not feed them."

Still they clung desperately to those riches, stained as they were with the blood of innocent Indians, and when Balboa learned that a short distance off the main route he was pursuing there lived a powerful cacique named Tubanamá, who had, according to report, vast stores of gold, he made a forced march and by a night attack fell upon and surprised him, with all his family. When threatened that unless he gave up his gold he should be tortured and thrown to the dogs, or bound hand and foot and cast into the river, he approached Balboa and, pointing to his naked sword, exclaimed: "Who that hath not lost his senses would think of prevailing against that weapon, which can cleave a man at a stroke? Who would not rather caress than oppose such men as thou? Kill me not, I implore thee, and I will bring thee all the gold I possess, and as much more as can be procured!"