No man but Balboa could have accomplished it. He was not any more courageous than his followers, but he possessed great powers of magnetism as well as prudence, sagacity, and amiability; in a word, he had genius, the genius of leadership. His soldiers were his children. He wished to bear the heaviest burdens himself; his post in battle was the most dangerous of all; his endurance surpassed that of the strongest men. His army consisted of one hundred and ninety Spaniards, one thousand Indians, useful to carry baggage, and some fierce blood-hounds.
Balboa set forth on the 1st of September, 1513. The journey was estimated to be of six days’ duration, but it was only after twenty-five days of desperate fighting, and of struggles with disease and fatigue, that they reached the summit of the mountain from which Balboa had been informed the great ocean could be seen.
Commanding his army to halt, Balboa advanced alone to the apex and there beheld the South Sea stretching before him in boundless extent. Amid great exultation he took formal possession of land and sea, cutting the king’s name on trees and erecting crosses and mounds of stones as records thereof.
Leaving the greater part of his men where they were, Balboa proceeded with eighty Spaniards, and under the guidance of a friendly chief, toward the coast. Arriving at the borders of one of the vast bays, he rushed into the ocean with drawn sword and called upon the witnesses to observe that he possessed it in the name of Spain.
He now wished to make conquest of the countries to the south, which the natives declared to be a great and wealthy empire, but having too few men to attempt the enterprise, he returned to Darien, carrying with him a treasure valued at nearly half a million of dollars—the largest treasure yet collected in America. He sent messengers to Spain, but before these arrived Don Pedrarias Davila had been sent out to supersede him in command. The King, however, in consideration of his services, sent letters appointing Balboa Adelantado or Admiral. The enormous project of conveying ship-building material across the Isthmus was accomplished, and two brigantines were constructed. Adverse weather and other misfortunes prevented the Spaniards from reaching Peru, and Pedrarias recalled Balboa to Darien. Balboa obeyed, never dreaming of the treachery awaiting him. He was seized and imprisoned, and finally condemned to death by the jealous Pedrarias, and the sentence was carried out in spite of the protests of the colonists.
The conquest of Peru was afterward accomplished by Pizarro, who, while he was as able a man as Balboa, was much more cruel and unscrupulous. Three years later Magellan entered the South Sea, after sailing around the southern extremity of the continent. It was Magellan who gave this ocean the name Pacific, in recognition of the fine weather he encountered in crossing it. His fleet reached the islands of the Indian Archipelago, and returned to Europe by way of the Cape of Good Hope, thus completing the first circumnavigation of the globe.
In the same year which witnessed the unjust execution of Balboa (1517), the northern coast of Yucatan was explored, and also the southern coast of Mexico. Instead of encountering naked savages, the explorers were surprised to find well-clad and highly civilized people, so bold and warlike as to drive off the intruders with great slaughter. Velasquez, governor of Cuba, determined to conquer the wealthy country thus discovered, and prepared a fleet of ten vessels, which he sent out under command of Hernando Cortes, a man who had already achieved some military distinction. He landed in Mexico on March 4th, 1519, where his ships and artillery, and especially his horses, created the wildest fear and astonishment among the natives, who regarded the strangers as divine beings. They were soon to be undeceived, however, for a reign of war and oppression was begun, which resulted in the death of the Emperor Montezuma, the levelling of their ancient temples, and the ultimate extinction of the Aztec nation.
Meanwhile, the mainland of the American continent had been visited and partly explored.
The first voyage to the northern coast was made by John Cabot in 1497, under the auspices of Henry VIII of England. His object was less the discovery of a new continent than the finding of a northwest passage to the coast of Asia. Cabot sighted land on the 26th of June, probably the Island of Newfoundland. On the 3d of July he reached the coast of Labrador. He was then the first of modern navigators to discover the North American continent, Columbus being a whole year behind him. Cabot explored the coast for nine hundred miles, in a southerly direction, and returned to England. The next year his son, Sebastian, visited the same region, still looking for that northwest passage.
The Portuguese also, made early voyages with the same illusory object in view. In 1500, Gaspar Cortereal reached the American continent. In his second voyage his ship was lost, and his brother, who went in search of him, also perished.