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Updated: June 27, 2025
A warm, moist atmosphere exists here which exhausts the strength and speedily saps the energy of any man, even the most robust. With all these obstacles which Nature seemed to have rejoiced in placing in Balboa's path, there was yet another no less formidable, and this was the resistance which the savage inhabitants of this inhospitable shore would offer to his progress.
Before we speak of Balboa's wonderful expedition, we must notice the discovery of a country that forms the most northerly side of that arc, cut so deeply into the continent, and which bears the name of the Gulf of Mexico. In 1502 Juan Ponce de Leon, a member of one of the oldest families in Spain, had arrived in Hispaniola with Ovando.
The cazique would not accept it, but said, "You are poor and desolate I am rich and powerful. I will not hurt you, though you are my enemy." He then ordered him safe conduct through the forests; and Balboa regained his own people, the Spaniards, in safety. This escape softened Balboa's heart, and he never afterwards treated the Indians with the same severity.
He stated that he had once before been on an expedition in this same gulf, and on the western side he well remembered an Indian village, on the banks of a river, called by the natives Darien. Enciso pleased with Balboa's advice, resolved to take possession of this village, and to drive out all the Indians.
This man was Balboa's bitter enemy. He had presumed to make dishonorable overtures to Balboa's Indian wife. The woman had indignantly repulsed his advances and had made them known to her husband. Balboa had sternly reproved Garavito and threatened him with death. Garavito had nourished his hatred, and had sought opportunity to injure his former captain.
Their way led through thick and overgrown and pathless jungles or across lofty and broken mountain-ranges, which could be surmounted only after the most exhausting labor. The distance as the crow flies, was short, less than fifty miles, but nearly a month elapsed before they approached the end of their journey. Balboa's enthusiasm and courage had surmounted every obstacle.
It was not till 1522 that a regular expedition was despatched in the direction south of Panama, under the conduct of Pascual de Andagoya, a cavalier of much distinction in the colony. But that officer penetrated only to the Puerto de Pinas, the limit of Balboa's discoveries, when the bad state of his health compelled him to reembark and abandon his enterprise at its commencement.6
At last he reached the summit, and a wide and novel prospect burst upon him with an effect almost like that of the Pacific upon Balboa's gaze.
Balboa's men robbed the village of all its gold and silver, and of every thing valuable in it; and even he himself, whose heart the love of gold had begun already to harden, shared with his men the plunder. It was a dear bought victory, however; for though the Indians had lost six hundred of their number in the contest, they could easily recruit their forces.
The fact that Pizzaro was a member of Balboa's party when that explorer discovered the Pacific and that he himself was in charge of a Spanish colony at Darien in 1510, makes his appearance at this Exposition appropriate.
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