But the new governor of Panama, Pedro de los Rios, interdicted all further volunteering for an enterprise he considered chimerical, and even sent a vessel to the island of Gallo to bring back Pizarro and his companions. The associates, on the other hand, were less inclined than ever to give up their enterprise, now that better prospects had opened, so that Pizarro peremptorily refused to obey the governor's commands, and used all his eloquence in persuading his men not to abandon him. But the hardships they had endured, and the prospect of soon revisiting their families and friends, pleaded so strongly against him, that when he drew a line with his sword upon the sand, and told those that wished to leave him to pass over it, only thirteen of his veterans remained true to his fortunes.
With this select band of heroes Pizarro now retired to the desert island of Gorgona, where, as it lay further from the coast, he could await with greater security the reinforcements which he trusted the zeal of his associates would soon be able to procure. Nor was he deceived, for Almagro and Luque, by their repeated solicitations, at length prevailed upon the governor to send out a small vessel to his assistance, though without one landsman on board, that he might not be encouraged to any new enterprise. Meanwhile Pizarro and his faithful "thirteen" had spent five long months on their wretched island, their eyes constantly turned to the north, until, heart-sick and despairing from hope deferred, they resolved to intrust themselves to the inconstant waves upon a miserable raft, rather than remain any longer in that dreadful wilderness. But now at last the vessel from Panama appeared, and raised them so thoroughly from the deepest despondency to the most extravagant hopes, that Pizarro easily induced not only his old friends, but also the crew of the vessel, to sail farther to the south instead of returning at once to Panama.
This time the winds were favourable, and after a voyage of twenty days they at length reached the town of Tumbez on the coast of Peru, where the magnificent temple of the sun and the palace of the Incas, with its costly golden vases, exceeded their most sanguine expectations. But once more Pizarro, too weak to attempt invasion, was obliged to content himself with the view of the riches he one day hoped to possess, and returned to Panama after an absence of three years.
Amidst interminable delays and difficulties, which, although not to be compared to those he had endured, would still have totally discouraged a mind of a less iron mould, five years more elapsed before the matchless perseverance of Pizarro met with its reward. On the 14th of April, 1531, he landed in Peru for the second time, and in a few months the empire of the Incas lay prostrate at his feet. The poor adventurer of Gorgona was now one of the richest men on earth.
From this time the stream of conquest and discovery continuously rolled on to the south, so that after a few years the whole coast of Peru and Chili, as far as the wilds of Patagonia, was either known or subject to the Spaniards.
But while Pizarro and his comrades were thus opening the south-west coast of America to the knowledge of mankind, the conqueror of Mexico was no less anxious to add to his laurels the glory of discovery in the Northern Pacific, whose shores his warriors had reached in 1521, soon after the fall of the Aztec capital. Desirous of opening a new passage to the East Indies, he fitted out a fleet (1526), which, under the command of his kinsman Alvaro de Saavedra, was to sail to the Moluccas, and most likely discovered part of the Radack and Ralick Archipelago, visited and described three centuries later by Kotzebue and Chamisso.
In the year 1536 Cortez himself undertook a maritime expedition to the north, discovered the peninsula of California, and explored the greater part of the long and narrow bay which separates it from the mainland. After the return of this great man to Spain, where, loaded with ingratitude, he died in 1547, Rodriguez Cabrillo (1543) sailed as far as Monterey, and subsequently the pilot of the expedition, Bartholomew Ferreto, reached 43° N. lat., where Vancouver's Cape Oxford is situated.
In the year 1542 Villalobos made the first attempt to establish a colony on the Philippine Islands with settlers from Mexico, but, having failed, the colonisation did not take place before 1565. The intelligence of this success was brought to America by the pilot and monk, Fray Andreas Urdaneta, who sailed on the 1st of June from Manilla and arrived on the 3rd of October in the Mexican port of Acapulco. All previous attempts to sail from Asia to America had failed, on account of the opposing trade-winds; but Urdaneta sailed northward till he encountered the favourable west wind, which carried him to the New World across the wide bosom of the Pacific. The discovery of this new ocean route was of considerable importance to the Spaniards, and, to perpetuate the memory of Urdaneta's nautical ability, they continued to call the passage by his name.
About the same time another Spanish pilot, Juan Fernandez, discovered the proper sea route from Callao to Chili, by first sailing far out to sea, and thus avoiding the coast-currents from the south. He also discovered the island which still bears his name, and has become so celebrated by the adventures of Alexander Selkirk, and the immortal tale of Daniel Defoe.