Part 64 (1/2)

So on the 1st of September, 1513, he set out in the direction which the natives hadindicated, and by the 24th he had reached a mountain from the topof which his guides told him he would behold the sea. On the 25th his party ascended, himself in front, and it was not long before he stood gazing upon the distant ocean, the first of Europeans to discern the long-coveted sea. Down the other slope the Spaniards went. The path was a difficult one, and it was three days before one of his advanced squads reached the beach. Not till the next day, the 29th, did Vasco Nunez himself join those in advance, when, striding into the tide, he took possession of the sea and its bordering lands in the name of his sovereigns. It was on Saint Miguel's Day, and the Bay of Saint Miguel marks the spot to-day. Towards the end of January, 1514, he was again with the colony at Antigua del Darien. Thence, in March, he dispatched a messenger to Spain with news of the great discovery.

[Sidenote: Pedrarias.]

[Sidenote: 1517. Balboa executed.]

This courier did not reach Europe till after a new expedition had been dispatched under Pedrarias, and with him went a number of followers, who did in due time their part in thridding and designating these new paths of exploration. We recognize among them Hernando de Soto, Bernal Diaz, the chronicler of the exploits of Cortes, and Oviedo, the historian. It was from April till June, 1514, that Pedrarias was on his way, and it was not long before the new governor with his imposing array of strength brought the recusant Balboa to trial, out of which he emerged burdened with heavy fines. The new governor planned at once to reap the fruits of Balboa's discovery. An expedition was sent along his track, which embarked on the new sea and gathered spoils where it could. Pedrarias soon grew jealous of Balboa, for it was not without justice that the state of the augmented colony was held to compare unfavorably with the conditions which Balboa had maintained during his rule. But constancy was never of much prevalence in these days, and Balboa's chains, lately imposed, were stricken off to give him charge of an exploration of the sea which he had discovered. Once here, Balboa planned new conquests and a new independency. Pedrarias, hearing of it through a false friend of Balboa, enticed the latter into his neighborhood, and a trial was soon set on foot, which ended in the execution of Balboa and his abettors.

This was in 1517.

It was not long before Pedrarias removed his capital to Panama, and in 1519 and during the few following years his captains pushed their explorations northerly along the sh.o.r.es of the South Sea, as the new ocean had been at once called.

[Sidenote: 1515. Biru.]

[Sidenote: 1519. Panama founded.]

As early as 1515 Pizarro and Morales had wandered down the coast southward to a region called Biru by the natives, and this was as far as adventure had carried any Spaniard, during the ten years since Balboa's discovery. They had learned here of a rich region farther on, and it got to be spoken of by the same name, or by a perversion of it, as Peru. In this interval the town of Panama had been founded (1519), and Pizarro and Almagro, with the priest Luque, were among those to whom allotments were made.

[Sidenote: Peru.]

[Sidenote: Chili.]

[Sidenote: Chiloe.]

It was by these three a.s.sociates, in 1524 and 1526, that the expeditions were organized which led to the exploration of the coasts of Peru and the conquest of the region. The equator was crossed in 1526; in 1527 they reached 9 south. It was not till 1535 that, in the progress of events, a knowledge of the coast was extended south to the neighborhood of Lima, which was founded in that year. In the autumn of 1535, Almagro started south to make conquest of Chili, and the bay of Valparaiso was occupied in September, 1536. Eight years later, in 1544, explorations were pushed south to 41. It was only in 1557 that expeditions reached the archipelago of Chiloe, and the whole coast of South America on the Pacific was made out with some detail down to the region which Magellan had skirted, as will be shortly shown.

[Sidenote: 1508. Ocampo and Cuba.]

It will be remembered that in 1503 Columbus had struck the coast of Honduras west of Cape Gracias a Dios. He learned then of lands to the northwest from some Indians whom he met in a canoe, but his eagerness to find the strait of his dreams led him south. It was fourteen years before the promise of that canoe was revealed. In 1508 Ocampo had found the western extremity of Cuba, and made the oath of Columbus ridiculous.

[Sidenote: 1517. Yucatan.]

In 1517 a slave-hunting expedition, having steered towards the west from Cuba, discovered the sh.o.r.es of Yucatan; and the next year (1518) the real exploration of that region began when Juan de Grijalva, a nephew of the governor of Cuba, led thither an expedition which explored the coast of Yucatan and Mexico.

[Sidenote: 1518. Cortes.]

[Sidenote: 1519.]

When Grijalva returned to Cuba in 1518, it was to find an expedition already planned to follow up his discoveries, and Hernando Cortes, who had been in the New World since 1504, had been chosen to lead it, with instructions to make further explorations of the coast,--a purpose very soon to become obscured in other objects. He sailed on the 17th of November, and stopped along the coast of Cuba for recruits, so it was not till February 18, 1519, that he sunk the sh.o.r.es of Cuba behind him, and in March he was skirting the Yucatan sh.o.r.e and sailed on to San Juan de Uloa. In due time, forgetting his instructions, and caring for other conquests than those of discovery, he began his march inland. The story of the conquest of Mexico does not help us in the aim now in view, and we leave it untold.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRIJALVA.

[From Barcia's _Herrera_.]]

[Sidenote: Quinsay.]

It was not long after this conquest before belated apostles of the belief of Columbus appeared, urging that the capital of Montezuma was in reality the Quinsay of Marco Polo, with its great commercial interests, as was maintained by Schoner in his _Opusculum Geographic.u.m_ in 1533.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GLOBE GIVEN IN SCHoNER'S _OPUSCULUM GEOGRAPHIc.u.m_, 1533.]