health and strength of vigorous manhood, for he was but thirty-eight
years of age at the time he made his great discovery. For a few months
only he was to retain that power undisputed; then was to ensue a period
of depression in his fortunes, followed by his early death. So long as
he remained at a distance from Antigua del Darien, devoting himself to
original research in the wilderness and the subjugation of the natives,
his success was unparalleled; but whenever he returned to the settlement
disaster seemed to welcome him.
Leading his enthusiastic soldiers down the southern slopes of the
mountain, Balboa entered the province of a cacique named Chiapes, who,
unaware of what had happened to his northern neighbor, Quaraqua, like
him offered battle to the strangers. They were few in number, wayworn
and hungry-looking, so he set upon them with his warriors--and his
experience was like that of all others who had opposed Balboa, who
poured a volley from his arquebuses into the ranks of the enemy, and
then, in the confusion that followed, let loose the dogs of war.
Stunned by the reports of the guns, confused by smoke and flames, and
overcome with astonishment, many of the Indians fell to the ground and
became easy prey to the blood-hounds, while many others were made
captive. To these latter the Quaraquano guides made such representations
of the Spaniards' power to slay by means of thunder and lightning, and
of their magnanimity to the vanquished, that Cacique Chiapes issued from
his hiding-place and appeared before Balboa with gifts of wrought gold
amounting to five hundred pounds in weight. In return he received the
proffered friendship of the commander, and trifles like hawk-bells,
beads, and looking-glasses, with which he was greatly pleased and
contented.
Their friendship having been established on a secure basis, Balboa sent
back his guides and carriers to Quaraqua with orders for all his
soldiers there, who were able, to join him without delay. While he
remained in the cacique's village, three scouting-parties of twelve men
each were sent out to explore the country between the mountains and the
southern coast. These several parties were commanded by Juan de Escary,
Alonzo Martin, and Francisco Pizarro, the last-named--then a lieutenant
or captain under Balboa--to become, in the wisdom of Providence, the
conqueror of Peru. The scouting-party under Alonzo Martin was the first
to reach the sea-side, and, finding on the beach an Indian canoe, the
captain stepped into it and was pushed by his men out into the water, so
that he could rightfully claim to be the first European to embark upon
the southern ocean.
After his scouts had returned and the men from Quaraqua had rejoined
him, Balboa himself set out for the coast, with less than thirty men,
but all well armed, and accompanied by Cacique Chiapes and some
warriors. They reached the sea-side on the last day of September, 1513,
at evening, and as the tide was out sat down to await its return. The
tides on the Caribbean coast of the isthmus rise and fall but little,
while on the Pacific coast they are swift and turbulent. Soon the flats
in front of Balboa were covered with foaming waters rushing in like
war-horses, and, leaving his shady seat beneath the forest trees above
the beach, he advanced to meet the curling waves. He was in complete
armor, with a shining helmet on his head, breast-plate, greaves, and
gauntlets. He must have seemed a brave and gallant figure indeed to
Chiapes and his warriors as, drawing his sword and taking in his left
hand a banner upon which was painted the arms of Castile and Aragon, he
waded into the tide. The fierce waves assailed him violently, dashing
first against his knees, then against waist and breast; but he withstood
them valiantly, and, waving both banner and sword, shouted in a loud
voice: "Long live the high and mighty sovereigns of Castile! Thus in
their names do I take possession of these seas and regions; and if any
other prince, whether Christian or infidel, pretends any right to them,
I am ready and resolved to oppose him, and to assert the just claims of
my sovereigns."
"Long live the sovereigns of Spain!" shouted the band on shore. "We will
defend these their new possessions, even to the death, and against all
the potentates of the world. _Viva! Viva!_" Returning to shore, Vasco
Nunez drew a dagger and with it carved a cross on the trunk of a tree,
saying: "In this sign we shall conquer the heathen, and the blessings of
our religion will we give them, in exchange for their barbarous
practices. At the point of the sword will we compel them. Now taste ye
the waters of this sea, and by its being salt shall ye know that they
are of the ocean. They are salt, like the seas of the north; and the
waters are vast, like the seas of the north; but from them they are
separated by intervening mountains, as ye know, and can swear that they
pertain to the great Sea of the South, which has been the object of long
search, and at last is found and taken possession of for our dread
sovereigns." Saying this, he caused the notary of the expedition, Andres
de Valderrabano, to confirm all that had been done and said in writing,
to which all present subscribed their names.
The spot where these historic incidents took place was a secluded nook
in the great and tortuous bay of San Miguel, which deeply indents the
southern coast of Darien, and lies southwest from the harbor of Careta,
in a straight line about sixty miles distant. Both names still adorn
modern maps of the isthmus, and indicate approximately the terminal
points of Balboa's great journey from the north coast to the south, in
the year 1513.
Cacique Chiapes and his men looked on in wonder while their new allies
performed the strange ceremonials, remaining passive, but evidently not
approving what they did not understand. When, however, a few days later,
Balboa demanded of the cacique that he produce canoes in which he might
embark for some distant islands, the latter protested that the time was
bad for ventures on the sea. It was then the month of October, and that
month, with November and December, comprised the season of storms, in
which the winds were strong and variable, the seas at any moment liable
to rise suddenly. But Balboa was persistent. He cared not for the
storms. "My God will protect me," he said. "For am I not fighting the
good fight and converting the infidels to the true faith? Go get the
canoes."
Cacique Chiapes shook his head and said, "Perhaps your God may be
stronger than my god; but no god that the Indians serve can protect us
from the waves at this season of the year."
"That is because the god you worship is not the true God, whom we
reverently serve," answered Balboa. "He hath protected us, 'mid dangers
many, and will continue to do so."
But Chiapes was unconvinced, and as chief of an inland tribe,
unacquainted with navigation, he hesitated to embark. He compromised,
however, by guiding the Spaniards to the littoral province of one
Cuquera, whose subjects were fishermen and owned a great number of
canoes. Cuquera confirmed the statement of Chiapes, that the season was
unpropitious for a venture at sea, but at sight of some pearls the chief
displayed, which, he said, had been obtained on the islands off-shore,
Balboa was more than ever determined to make the voyage. Overcoming the
objections of the caciques, he crowded sixty of his men into nine
canoes, and, accompanied by the faithful Chiapes, embarked upon the
bosom of the gulf. Hardly, however, had the canoes reached open water,
when they were assailed by a frightful tempest. "Deafening was the
tumult of the infuriated winds, which strewed the earth with the frail
materials of the Indian huts. The rivers, swollen by the rains,
overflowed their banks, tearing away in their violent course rocks and
trees; and the tempestuous sea, roaring horribly among the rocky islands
and reefs with which the gulf is filled, broke its waves against them,
menacing with inevitable shipwreck those audacious mortals who had
invaded this watery realm."
The intrepid spirit of Balboa had caused him to mock these dangers when
on land; but soon he had good cause to repent his rash impulse, and,
yielding to the importunities of the Indians, sought shelter on an
islet. It appeared to be high and dry as the company landed there in the
evening, but during the night the rising tide gained upon them until
finally they were waist-deep in water. At or near midnight the wind went
down with the tide, and at dawn next morning the unfortunate mariners
sought their canoes, only to find them partially wrecked and all the
provisions they had contained washed away. They spent part of the day in
calking the open seams with grass and the bark of trees, and in the
afternoon embarked in the crazy craft and sought the shore.
After hours of exposure to the tropic sun, they landed near nightfall at
the upper end of the gulf, in the province of a cacique named Tumaco.
The Spaniards, like the Indians, were weak and famishing, having labored
all day without either food or drink; but no sooner had they made land
in safety than the indomitable Balboa set out in search of the Indian
town. It was at a little distance from the shore, and was not reached
until midnight. The inhabitants had been informed of their coming and
made a stout defence; but were soon routed by the Spaniards and driven
into the forest at the point of the sword.
Groping within the bohios, or Indian huts, the victors found an abundant
supply of provisions, with which they appeased their raging appetites,
and also a large number of beautiful pearls, besides a quantity of gold.
As some of the pearls were contained in shells freshly taken from the
water, Balboa concluded that the seat of the pearl fishery was not far
distant, and was very anxious to obtain possession of the cacique,
believing that he could inform him in the matter. Having captured a son
of Tumaco, he loaded him with gifts, such as a shirt made in Castile,
and other trifles valued by the savages, and sent him in search of his
father. The chief had sought refuge in a wild den among the rocks, deep
in the forest; but he was very much impressed by the beautiful presents
brought by his son, and consented to emerge from his retreat. When he
appeared before Balboa he had with him six hundred pieces of gold, and
pearls to the number of two hundred and forty. The gold was wrought into
ornaments, and the pearls, though most of them large and perfect in
shape, had been injured by fire, with which the Indians had opened the
shells.
All this treasure Tumaco presented to Balboa, and when he saw with what
joy it was received, and understood that the pearls were especially
appreciated, he sent a party of his divers to search for more. Thirty
naked Indians, accustomed all their lives to dive for pearls, went down
the coast in a canoe, accompanied by six Spaniards as witnesses; but the
sea was so rough that they dared not fish in deep water, where the large
pearl-oysters lay. The storm, however, had caused a great number of
oysters to be washed ashore, and there they collected more than ninety
ounces of small though perfect pearls, which were freely given to the
Spaniards. The best of these, with specimens of the oysters from which
they were taken, were set apart by the conscientious Balboa, as an
acceptable gift to his sovereign.
More precious than pearls, however highly they were valued by the
explorer, was certain information conveyed to Balboa by Tumaco,
confirming the rumors that had reached him in the interior, respecting a
vast country to the southward, which abounded in gold and gems. This was
Peru, subsequently to be subjugated by Francisco Pizarro, then a humble
follower of Balboa, and with him on this occasion. In order to impress
the Spaniards with the high state of that country's civilization, Tumaco
described as well as he could the beasts of burden used by the
inhabitants of the distant empire. He moulded in clay, it is said, a
figure of the animal known as the _llama_, which the Spaniards, as they
had never seen or heard of it before, supposed might be a deer or a
tapir--the latter being the largest animal they had found in South
America.
But, great and glowing as were Balboa's hopes respecting that wonderful
country to the southward, he was obliged to confess himself unable to
explore it at that season and with the small force at his command. He
made an experimental voyage along the coast for several leagues,
cautiously feeling his way through an inundated forest on the border of
the gulf, but dared not venture out at sea, where the wild winds roared
and the waves beat incessantly upon the shores of distant islands.
Pointing to one of these islands about five or six leagues distant,
Tumaco told Balboa that its waters produced the largest and finest of
pearls, such as the Spaniards had never seen, for size and beauty; but
he could not take him to it then, much as he desired to please him. The
two chiefs, the Indian and the Spaniard, were then in the former's
war-canoe, hewn from the trunk of an immense forest tree, and paddled by
a crew of sixty Indians. The paddlers themselves were stark naked, but
the heads of the oars they used were inlaid with pearls. Of this
circumstance, says a contemporary chronicler, "Balboa caused a record to
be made by the notary, for the sake, no doubt, of establishing the
credit of what he himself should write to the sovereign (no less needy
and covetous than the discoverers themselves) concerning the opulence of
the new country."
Several weeks were consumed by Balboa in exploring the country adjacent
to San Miguel, and on a day in the first week of November, Tumaco took
him and his companions in his war-canoe to the uppermost end of the
great bay. With them also was the still faithful Chiapes, who considered
himself in some sort as Balboa's sponsor, and who, when the time for
parting came, is said to have shed tears, so deeply was he affected. He
gladly assumed the care of the Spanish sick and wounded, and took them
with him to his village in the mountains, while Balboa, with his
able-bodied veterans, essayed to return by another route across the
isthmus. The territory at the head of the bay was controlled by Cacique
Techoan, who vied with the other chiefs in bestowing gold and pearls
upon the Spaniards, and who furnished them with burden-bearers and
provisions for the journey.
That Techoan was not entirely disinterested was shown conclusively by
his guiding them to the abode of a cacique whom he represented as a rich
and powerful lord, but an insufferable tyrant. This tyrant was known as
the "Croesus of the mountains" (or its equivalent in the Indian
language), and, as may be believed by those acquainted with the
character of Balboa, the latter was not unwilling to seek him out and
make his acquaintance. But Ponca (for that was his name) was not anxious
to meet the Spaniards, especially when he learned that they were coming
in company with his deadly enemy, and fled farther into the mountains,
taking with him, it was thought, the bulk of his treasure. He left
behind, however, some three thousand pieces of gold, which the Indian
allies discovered and took to Balboa, who used every exertion to entrap
him and force him to disclose the hiding-place of his vast wealth. He
caught him at last; but when questioned as to his gold, Ponca answered
that all he had the Spaniards already possessed, and that it had been
left him by his ancestors. More than this he would not disclose, even
when the cruel Spaniards put him to the torture, and, provoked by his
obstinacy, in the heat of their passion, gave him and three companions
to the dogs, who finished the revolting business by tearing them to
pieces.
In extenuation of their cruelty the Spaniards afterwards described Ponca
as a monster of depravity, with deformed limbs, a frightful countenance,
and a sanguinary nature. The guilt of his death, said one of their
countrymen, "rests more with the Indians than the Castilians; yet _they_
were not the judges of Ponca!" They assumed, however, that any Indian
who refused to reveal the hiding-place of treasures which they desired
to possess was deserving of death, believing, as they did, that there
was nothing of greater worth in the world than gold, or its equivalent
in material wealth. Thus cheaply did they hold the lives of the Indians,
reckoning their immortal souls as of less worth than perishable gold. In
this respect Balboa was no better than his comrades, and in truth set
them an example which they were not slow in following.
The senseless avarice of the Spaniards wrought its own retribution on
this journey, for they had laden their carriers with gold to a greater
extent than with provisions, and this was done notwithstanding their
route lay through a sterile wilderness yielding no supplies. The
consequence was that they soon began to feel the effects of famine,
some of them, as well as many Indian carriers, sinking by the wayside to
rise no more. Rumors preceding the Spaniards informed the natives that
they desired, above all other things, gold and like treasure, and thus
gold was invariably brought as a peace offering, to the neglect of
provisions, so that the soldiers (says the historian who perused
Balboa's journal) "yet wanted nourishment and pursued their melancholy
way, cursing the riches which burdened but could not feed them."
Still they clung desperately to those riches, stained as they were with
the blood of innocent Indians, and when Balboa learned that a short
distance off the main route he was pursuing there lived a powerful
cacique named Tubanama, who had, according to report, vast stores of
gold, he made a forced march and by a night attack fell upon and
surprised him, with all his family. When threatened that unless he gave
up his gold he should be tortured and thrown to the dogs, or bound hand
and foot and cast into the river, he approached Balboa and, pointing to
his naked sword, exclaimed: "Who that hath not lost his senses would
think of prevailing against that weapon, which can cleave a man at a
stroke? Who would not rather caress than oppose such men as thou? Kill
me not, I implore thee, and I will bring thee all the gold I possess,
and as much more as can be procured!"
XIV
A RIVAL IN THE FIELD
1514
Cacique Tubanama was warlike as well as wealthy, but he had been
completely cowed by Balboa's display of force and weapons, so that he
readily complied with the Spaniard's demands. Sending his men into the
forest, he remained as a hostage with his captor, while they ransacked
his storehouses for gold. So successful were they that within three days
gold was brought in to the amount of six thousand crowns; but even then
Balboa professed himself dissatisfied and declared there must be much
more concealed in the province. As Tubanama positively declared to the
contrary, he finally gave the cacique his freedom, but when he departed
for the coast took with him, it is said, his eighty wives and eldest
son.
Great quantities of virgin gold having been discovered in the mountain
streams, he resolved to return, and found a settlement in that region,
but the condition of his command at that time forced him to resume his
homeward march without delay. Most of his men were now so exhausted
that, like Balboa himself, who was ill of a fever, they had to be borne
in hammocks on the Indians' shoulders. In this manner marching, and in
such sorry state that by a concerted effort the caciques might have
destroyed them utterly, the Spaniards approached the province of
Comogre, where they found themselves among friends and on familiar
ground. The old chief was dead, they were told, but in his place ruled
the young cacique who had first informed Balboa of the South Sea and
Peru. He received him hospitably, as before, and made him a present of
all the gold he and his subjects had collected since they parted, in
return for which Balboa gave him a shirt and a soldier's cloak. As he
had embraced Christianity, young Comogre considered himself vastly
superior to the pagans about him, and when clad in the garments of the
Christians, he assumed the airs of a king and compelled his naked
subjects to do him homage.
At this, or a point previously reached on their journey, the Spaniards
were rejoined by the wounded and invalids who had been left with
Chiapes. Though but a handful of soldiers, they had travelled in safety
through the forests and defiles of the mountains, such was the terror
with which the deeds of Balboa had inspired the natives. One of the
provinces they had passed through was governed by a minor cacique named
Bonouvama, who not only detained, but entertained them most hospitably
with everything his territory afforded. When they left his town he
placed himself at their head, and on arriving in the presence of Balboa,
said to him: "Lo, we are here! Receive, O valiant man, thy companions
safe and uninjured, even as when they entered my bohio. May He who gives
us the fruits of the earth, and who creates the thunder and the
lightning, preserve thee and them, my lord!"
Balboa was deeply affected by the cacique's speech and meritorious
actions. He graciously replied that they should arrange a perpetual
friendship and alliance, as he hoped to do with all the caciques of
Darien, and after bestowing upon him some beads, toys, and a Spanish
shirt, sent him back to his province greatly rejoicing. Although, as we
have too often seen, he acted with great cruelty towards some of the
caciques, to those who approached him in a pacific spirit he was ever
friendly and benign. That he grew to understand the nature of the
Indians is shown by his success in converting them from enemies to
friends, and by the alliances which he cemented with more than a score
of native caciques in the course of his wonderful journey. There never
was a Spaniard among his contemporaries, excepting perhaps De Soto, who
had such success with the aborigines. Columbus and Cortes, Pizarro and
Velasquez (who conquered Cuba), and all others who came in their train,
lamentably failed in their dealings with the Indians. Balboa's success
with his men was no less than with the Indians he encountered, for he
had a faculty for winning their affections and holding them, which no
other commander of his time displayed. Pizarro approached him in this
respect; but Pizarro received his initial training under Balboa himself.
Bidding Comogre farewell, Balboa led his men through the province
belonging to Ponca, where he was met by four Castilians, who informed
him that a ship and a caravel well laden with supplies had arrived at
Darien during his absence, and that he was awaited there with great
anxiety. Hastening thence to Coyba, the territory of his father-in-law,
he embarked at the port of Careta for Antigua del Darien, where he
arrived the following day, which was January 19, 1514, after an absence
of four months and twenty days. Every week, nearly every day, that had
passed since his departure had been filled with exciting incident, and,
moreover, he had returned to report to his fellow-citizens of Antigua
one of the greatest discoveries of the age. No wonder, then, that the
entire population sallied forth to greet him at the gates of the town,
and that they rent the air with shouts of joy and welcome.