Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 5, 2025
Francisco Pizarro, a restless spirit who had been associated with Balboa and others in discovery and exploration, determining to test the truth of these reports, made several voyages south. Finally, he landed on the shores of Peru with an army of followers who numbered less than two hundred.
Michael the Archangel, Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, the leader of the men who had crossed the lofty mountain chain, had been told that an island remarkable for the size of its pearls lay within sight of the coast and that its king was rich and powerful and often made war against the caciques whose states lay on the coast, especially Chiapes and Tumaco.
I dashed wildly out through the station, across Panama's main street, down a rugged lane to the first steps descending to the track, and tumbled joyously onto a slowly moving train to discover that it was the Balboa labor-train and that the Colon passenger was already half-way to Diablo Hill.
In front, the placid Pacific, the "South Sea" of the Spaniards, spread dimly away into the void of night, its several islands seen only by the darker darkness that marked where they lay. On the other side of the hill the rumble of cranes and night labor came up from Balboa dock.
After this he was associated with Vasco Nunez de Balboa in establishing a settlement at Darien, and from Balboa he may first have heard rumours of Peru itself, for it was to Balboa that an Indian chief had said concerning some gold which had been collected from the natives: 'If this is what you prize so much that you are willing to leave your homes and risk even life itself for it, I can tell you of a land where they eat and drink out of golden vessels, and gold is as common as iron with you. Later, Pizarro was sent to traffic with the natives on the Pacific side of the isthmus for gold and pearls, and presently from the south came Andagoya, bringing accounts of the wealth and grandeur of the countries which lay beyond, and also of the hardships and difficulties endured by the few navigators who had sailed in that direction.
The form of these they drew on the sand, their long necks convincing Balboa that they were camels, and that the land indicated must be Asia. They really represented the llama of Peru, an animal resembling the camel in form.
How narrow the insurmountable obstacle, and how tantalizing, in the apparent facilities for piercing it extended by the formation of the land, were not known until ten years later, when Balboa, led on by the reports of the natives, reached the eminence whence he, first among Europeans, saw the South Sea, a name long and vaguely applied to the Pacific, because of the direction in which it lay from its discoverer.
The Indian kindly told him every thing he knew, but at the same time warned him not to go over there, for the Indians were many and were fierce, and would eat human flesh. But Balboa was not to be discouraged.
While Hojida, Vespucci, Pinzon and de Solis were exploring the eastern coast from La Plata to Yucatan, Ponce de Leon in 1512 discovered Florida, and in 1513 Vasco Nunez de Balboa descried the Pacific Ocean from the heights of Darien, revealing for the first time the existence of a new continent.
The Spaniards explore the Southwest.% Now it must be noticed that up to 1513 no European had explored the interior of either North or South America. They had merely touched the shores. In 1513 the work of exploration began. Balboa then crossed the Isthmus of Panama. Cortes took the city and made himself master of Mexico.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking