PART I

SOUTH AMERICAN FIGHTS AND FIGHTERS

I

Panama and the Knights-Errant of Colonization

I. The Spanish Main

One of the commonly misunderstood phrases in the language is "the

Spanish Main." To the ordinary individual it suggests the Caribbean

Sea. Although Shakespeare in "Othello," makes one of the gentlemen of

Cyprus say that he "cannot 'twixt heaven and main descry a sail," and,

therefore, with other poets, gives warrant to the application of the

word to the ocean, "main" really refers to the other element. The

Spanish Main was that portion of South American territory distinguished

from Cuba, Hispaniola and the other islands, because it was on the main

land.

When the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea were a Spanish lake, the

whole circle of territory, bordering thereon was the Spanish Main, but

of late the title has been restricted to Central and South America.

The buccaneers are those who made it famous. So the word brings up

white-hot stories of battle, murder and sudden death.

The history of the Spanish Main begins in 1509, with the voyages of

Ojeda and Nicuesa, which were the first definite and authorized

attempts to colonize the mainland of South America.

The honor of being the first of the fifteenth-century {4} navigators to

set foot upon either of the two American continents, indisputably

belongs to John Cabot, on June 24, 1497. Who was next to make a

continental landfall, and in the more southerly latitudes, is a

question which lies between Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci.

Fiske, in a very convincing argument awards the honor to Vespucci,

whose first voyage (May 1497 to October 1498) carried him from the

north coast of Honduras along the Gulf coast around Florida, and

possibly as far north as the Chesapeake Bay, and to the Bahamas on his

return.

Markham scouts this claim. Winsor neither agrees nor dissents. His

verdict in the case is a Scottish one, "Not proven." Who shall decide

when the doctors disagree? Let every one choose for himself. As for

me, I am inclined to agree with Fiske.

If it were not Vespucci, it certainly was Columbus on his third voyage

(1498-1500). On this voyage, the chief of the navigators struck the

South American shore off the mouth of the Orinoco and sailed westward

along it for a short distance before turning to the northward. There

he found so many pearls that he called it the "Pearl Coast." It is

interesting to note that, however the question may be decided, all the

honors go to Italy. Columbus was a Genoese. Cabot, although born in

Genoa, had lived many years in Venice and had been made a citizen

there; while Vespucci was a Florentine.

The first important expedition along the northern coast of South

America was that of Ojeda in 1499-1500, in company with Juan de la

Cosa, next to Columbus the most expert navigator and pilot of the age,

and Vespucci, perhaps his equal in nautical science as he {5} was his

superior in other departments of polite learning. There were several

other explorations of the Gulf coast, and its continuations on every

side, during the same year, by one of the Pizons, who had accompanied

Columbus on his first voyage; by Lepe; by Cabral, a Portuguese, and by

Bastidas and La Cosa, who went for the first time as far to the

westward as Porto Rico on the Isthmus of Darien.

On the fourth and last voyage of Columbus, he reached Honduras and

thence sailed eastward and southward to the Gulf of Darien, having not

the least idea that the shore line which he called Veragua was in fact

the border of the famous Isthmus of Panama. There were a number of

other voyages, including a further exploration by La Cosa and Vespucci,

and a second by Ojeda in which an abortive attempt was made to found a

colony; but most of the voyages were mere trading expeditions,

slave-hunting enterprises or searches, generally fruitless, for gold

and pearls. Ojeda reported after one of these voyages that the English

were on the coast. Who these English were is unknown. The news,

however, was sufficiently disquieting to Ferdinand, the Catholic--and

also the Crafty!--who now ruled alone in Spain, and he determined to

frustrate any possible English movement by planting colonies on the

Spanish Main.

II. The Don Quixote of Discoveries and His Rival

Instantly two claimants for the honor of leading such an expedition

presented themselves. The first Alonzo de Ojeda, the other Diego de

Nicuesa. Two more extraordinary characters never went knight-erranting

upon the seas. Ojeda was one of the {6} prodigious men of a time which

was fertile in notable characters. Although small in stature, he was a

man of phenomenal strength and vigor. He could stand at the foot of

the Giralda in Seville and throw an orange over it, a distance of two

hundred and fifty feet from the earth![1]

Wishing to show his contempt for danger, on one occasion he ran out on

a narrow beam projecting some twenty feet from the top of the same

tower and there, in full view of Queen Isabella and her court,

performed various gymnastic exercises, such as standing on one leg, _et

cetera_, for the edification of the spectators, returning calmly and

composedly to the tower when he had finished the exhibition.

He was a magnificent horseman, an accomplished knight and an able

soldier. There was no limit to his daring. He went with Columbus on

his second voyage, and, single-handed, effected the capture of a

powerful Indian cacique named Caonabo, by a mixture of adroitness,

audacity and courage.

Professing amity, he got access to the Indian, and, exhibiting some

polished manacles, which he declared were badges of royalty, he offered

to put them on the fierce but unsophisticated savage and then mount the

chief on his own horse to show him off like a Spanish monarch to his

subjects. The daring programme was carried out just exactly as it had

been planned. When Ojeda had got the forest king safely fettered and

mounted on his horse, he sprang up behind him, held him there firmly in

spite of his efforts, and galloped off to Columbus with his astonished

and disgusted captive.

[Illustration: "Ojeda Galloped Off with His Astonished Captive"]

{7}

Neither of the voyages was successful. With all of his personal

prowess, he was an unsuccessful administrator. He was poor, not to say

penniless. He had two powerful friends, however. One was Bishop

Fonseca, who was charged with the administration of affairs in the

Indies, and the other was stout old Juan de la Cosa. These two men

made a very efficient combination at the Spanish court, especially as

La Cosa had some money and was quite willing to put it up, a prime

requisite for the mercenary and niggardly Ferdinand's favor.

[Illustration: "The Indians Poured a Rain of Poisoned Arrows"]

The other claimant for the honor of leading the colony happened to be

another man small in stature, but also of great bodily strength,

although he scarcely equalled his rival in that particular. Nicuesa

had made a successful voyage to the Indies with Ovando, and had ample

command of means. He was a gentleman by birth and station--Ojeda was

that also--and was grand carver-in-chief to the King's uncle! Among

his other qualities for successful colonization were a beautiful voice,

a masterly touch on the guitar and an exquisite skill in equitation.

He had even taught his horse to keep time to music. Whether or not he

played that music himself on the back of the performing steed is not

recorded.

Ferdinand was unable to decide between the rival claimants. Finally he

determined to send out two expeditions. The Gulf of Uraba, now called

the Gulf of Darien, was to be the dividing line between the two

allotments of territory. Ojeda was to have that portion extending from

the Gulf to the Cape de la Vela, which is just west of the Gulf of

Venezuela. This territory was named new Andalusia. Nicuesa was to

take that between the Gulf and the Cape Gracias á Dios off {8}

Honduras. This section was denominated Golden Castile. Each governor

was to fit out his expedition at his own charges. Jamaica was given to

both in common as a point of departure and a base of supplies.

The resources of Ojeda were small, but when he arrived at Santo Domingo

with what he had been able to secure in the way of ships and men, he

succeeded in inducing a lawyer named Encisco, commonly called the

Bachelor[2] Encisco, to embark his fortune of several thousand gold

castellanos, which he had gained in successful pleadings in the court

in the litigious West Indies, in the enterprise. In it he was given a

high position, something like that of District Judge.

With this reënforcement, Ojeda and La Cosa equipped two small ships and

two brigantines containing three hundred men and twelve horses.[3]

They were greatly chagrined when the imposing armada of Nicuesa,

comprising four ships of different sizes, but much larger than any of

Ojeda's, and two brigantines carrying seven hundred and fifty men,

sailed into the harbor of Santo Domingo.

The two governors immediately began to quarrel. Ojeda finally

challenged Nicuesa to a duel which should determine the whole affair.

Nicuesa, who had everything to lose and nothing to gain by fighting,

but who could not well decline the challenge, said that he was willing

to fight him if Ojeda would put up what would popularly be known to-day

in the pugilistic {9} circles as "a side bet" of five thousand

castellanos to make the fight worth while.[4]

Poor Ojeda could not raise another maravedi, and as nobody would stake

him, the duel was off. Diego Columbus, governor of Hispaniola, also

interfered in the game to a certain extent by declaring that the Island

of Jamaica was his, and that he would not allow anybody to make use of

it. He sent there one Juan de Esquivel, with a party of men to take

possession of it. Whereupon Ojeda stoutly declared that when he had

time he would stop at that island and if Esquivel were there, he would

cut off his head.

Finally on the 10th of November, 1509, Ojeda set sail, leaving Encisco

to bring after him another ship with needed supplies. With Ojeda was

Francisco Pizarro, a middle-aged soldier of fortune, who had not

hitherto distinguished himself in any way. Hernando Cortez was to have

gone along also, but fortunately for him, an inflammation of the knee

kept him at home. Ojeda was in such a hurry to get to El Dorado--for

it was in the territory to the southward of his allotment, that the

mysterious city was supposed to be located--that he did not stop at

Jamaica to take off Esquivel's head--a good thing for him, as it

subsequently turned out.

Nicuesa would have followed Ojeda immediately, but his prodigal

generosity had exhausted even his large resources, and he was detained

by clamorous creditors, the law of the island being that no one could

leave it in debt. The gallant little meat-carver labored with success

to settle various suits pending, and thought {10} he had everything

compounded; but just as he was about to sail he was arrested for

another debt of five hundred ducats. A friend at last advanced the

money for him and he got away ten days after Ojeda. It would have been

a good thing if no friend had ever interfered and he had been detained

indefinitely at Hispaniola.

III. The Adventures of Ojeda

Ojeda made a landfall at what is known now as Cartagena. It was not a

particularly good place for a settlement. There was no reason on earth

why they should stay there at all. La Cosa, who had been along the

coast several times and knew it thoroughly, warned his youthful

captain--to whom he was blindly and devotedly attached, by the

way--that the place was extremely dangerous; that the inhabitants were

fierce, brave and warlike, and that they had a weapon almost as

effectual as the Spanish guns. That was the poisoned arrow. Ojeda

thought he knew everything and he turned a deaf ear to all

remonstrances. He hoped he might chance upon an opportunity of

surprising an Indian village and capturing a lot of inoffensive

inhabitants for slaves, already a very profitable part of voyaging to

the Indies.

He landed without much difficulty, assembled the natives and read to

them a perfectly absurd manifesto, which had been prepared in Spain for

use in similar contingencies, summoning them to change their religion

and to acknowledge the supremacy of Spain. Not one word of this did

the natives understand and to it they responded with a volley of

poisoned arrows. The Spanish considered this paper a most {11}

valuable document, and always went through the formality of having the

publication of it attested by a notary public.

Ojeda seized some seventy-five captives, male and female, as slaves.

They were sent on board the ships. The Indian warriors, infuriated

beyond measure, now attacked in earnest the shore party, comprising

seventy men, among whom were Ojeda and La Cosa. The latter, unable to

prevent him, had considered it proper to go ashore with the hot-headed

governor to restrain him so far as was possible. Ojeda impetuously

attacked the Indians and, with part of his men, pursued them several

miles inland to their town, of which he took possession.

The savages, in constantly increasing numbers, clustered around the

town and attacked the Spaniards with terrible persistence. Ojeda and

his followers took refuge in huts and enclosures and fought valiantly.

Finally all were killed, or fatally wounded by the envenomed darts

except Ojeda himself and a few men, who retreated to a small palisaded

enclosure. Into this improvised fort the Indians poured a rain of

poisoned arrows which soon struck down every one but the governor

himself. Being small of stature and extremely agile, and being

provided with a large target or shield, he was able successfully to

fend off the deadly arrows from his person. It was only a question of

time before the Indians would get him and he would die in the frightful

agony which his men experienced after being infected with the poison

upon the arrow-points. In his extremity, he was rescued by La Cosa who

had kept in hand a moiety of the shore party.

The advent of La Cosa saved Ojeda. Infuriated at the slaughter of his

men, Ojeda rashly and {12} intemperately threw himself upon the

savages, at once disappearing from the view of La Cosa and his men, who

were soon surrounded and engaged in a desperate battle on their own

account. They, too, took refuge in the building, from which they were

forced to tear away the thatched roof that might have shielded them

from the poisoned arrows, in fear lest the Indians might set it on

fire. And they in turn were also reduced to the direst of straits.

One after another was killed, and finally La Cosa himself, who had been

desperately wounded before, received a mortal hurt; while but one man

remained on his feet.

Possibly thinking that they had killed the whole party, and withdrawing

to turn their attention to Ojeda, furiously ranging the forest alone,

the Indians left the two surviving Spaniards unmolested, whereupon the

dying La Cosa bade his comrade leave him, and if possible get word to

Ojeda of the fate which had overtaken him. This man succeeded in

getting back to the shore and apprised the men there of the frightful

disaster.

The ships cruised along the shore, sending parties into the bay at

different points looking for Ojeda and any others who might have

survived. A day or two after the battle they came across their

unfortunate commander. He was lying on his back in a grove of

mangroves, upheld from the water by the gnarled and twisted roots of

one of the huge trees. He had his naked sword in his hand and his

target on his arm, but he was completely prostrated and speechless.

The men took him to a fire, revived him and finally brought him back to

the ship.

Marvelous to relate, he had not a single wound upon him!

{13}

Great was the grief of the little squadron at this dolorous state of

affairs. In the middle of it, the ships of Nicuesa hove in sight.

Mindful of their previous quarrels, Ojeda decided to stay ashore until

he found out what were Nicuesa's intentions toward him. Cautiously his

men broke the news to Nicuesa. With magnanimity and courtesy

delightful to contemplate, he at once declared that he had forgotten

the quarrel and offered every assistance to Ojeda to enable him to

avenge himself. Ojeda thereupon rejoined the squadron, and the two

rivals embraced with many protestations of friendship amid the acclaim

of their followers.

The next night, four hundred men were secretly assembled. They landed

and marched to the Indian town, surrounded it and put it to the flames.

The defenders fought with their usual resolution, and many of the

Spaniards were killed by the poisonous arrows, but to no avail. The

Indians were doomed, and the whole village perished then and there.

Nicuesa had landed some of his horses, and such was the terror inspired

by those remarkable and unknown animals that several of the women who

had escaped from the fire, when they caught sight of the frightful

monsters, rushed back into the flames, preferring this horrible death

rather than to meet the horses. The value of the plunder amounted to

eighteen thousand dollars in modern money, the most of which Nicuesa

took.

The two adventurers separated, Nicuesa bidding Ojeda farewell and

striking boldly across the Caribbean for Veragua, which was the name

Columbus had given to the Isthmian coast below Honduras; while Ojeda

crept along the shore seeking a convenient {14} spot to plant his

colony. Finally he established himself at a place which he named San

Sebastian. One of his ships was wrecked and many of his men were lost.

Another was sent back to Santo Domingo with what little treasure they

had gathered and with an appeal to Encisco to hurry up.

They made a rude fort on the shore, from which to prosecute their

search for gold and slaves. The Indians, who also belonged to the

poisoned-arrow fraternity, kept the fort in constant anxiety. Many

were the conflicts between the Spaniards and the savages, and terrible

were the losses inflicted by the invaders; but there seemed to be no

limit to the number of Indians, while every Spaniard killed was a

serious drain upon the little party. Man after man succumbed to the

effects of the dreadful poison. Ojeda, who never spared himself in any

way, never received a wound.

From their constant fighting, the savages got to recognize him as the

leader and they used all their skill to compass destruction. Finally,

they succeeded in decoying him into an ambush where four of their best

men had been posted. Recklessly exposing themselves, the Indians at

close range opened fire upon their prisoner with arrows. Three of the

arrows he caught on his buckler, but the fourth pierced his thigh. It

is surmised that Ojeda attended to the four Indians before taking

cognizance of his wound. The arrow, of course, was poisoned, and

unless something could be done, it meant death.

He resorted to a truly heroic expedient. He caused two iron plates to

be heated white-hot and then directed the surgeon to apply the plates

to the wound, one at the entrance and the other at the exit of the

arrow. {15} The surgeon, appalled by the idea of such torture, refused

to do so, and it was not until Ojeda threatened to hang him with his

own hands that he consented. Ojeda bore the frightful agony without a

murmur or a quiver, such was his extraordinary endurance. It was the

custom in that day to bind patients who were operated upon surgically,

that their involuntary movements might not disconcert the doctors and

cause them to wound where they hoped to cure. Ojeda refused even to be

bound. The remedy was efficacious, although the heat of the iron, in

the language of the ancient chronicler, so entered his system that they

used a barrel of vinegar to cool him off.

Ojeda was very much dejected by the fact that he had been wounded. It

seemed to him that the Virgin, his patron, had deserted him. The

little band, by this time reduced to less than one hundred people, was

in desperate straits. Starvation stared it in the face when

fortunately assistance came. One Bernardino de Talavera, with seventy

congenial cut-throats, absconding debtors and escaped criminals, from

Hispaniola, had seized a Genoese trading-ship loaded with provisions

and had luckily reached San Sebastian in her. They sold these

provisions to Ojeda and his men at exorbitant prices, for some of the

hard-earned treasure which they had amassed with their great

expenditure of life and health.

There was no place else for Talavera and his gang to go, so they stayed

at San Sebastian. The supply of provisions was soon exhausted, and

finally it was evident that, as Encisco had not appeared with any

reënforcements or supplies, some one must go back to Hispaniola to

bring rescue to the party. Ojeda offered to do this himself. Giving

the charge of affairs at {16} San Sebastian to Francisco Pizarro, who

promised to remain there for fifty days for the expected help, he

embarked with Talavera.

Naturally Ojeda considered himself in charge of the ship; naturally

Talavera did not. Ojeda, endeavoring to direct things, was seized and

put in chains by the crew. He promptly challenged the whole crew to a

duel, offering to fight them two at a time in succession until he had

gone through the ship, of which he expected thereby to become the

master; although what he would have done with seventy dead pirates on

the ship is hard to see. The men refused this wager of battle, but

fortune favored this doughty little cavalier, for presently a great

storm arose. As neither Talavera nor any of the men were navigators or

seamen, they had to release Ojeda. He took charge. Once he was in

charge, they never succeeded in ousting him.

In spite of his seamanship, the caravel was wrecked on the island of

Cuba. They were forced to make their way along the shore, which was

then unsettled by Spain. Under the leadership of Ojeda the party

struggled eastward under conditions of extreme hardship. When they

were most desperate, Ojeda, who had appealed daily to his little

picture of the Virgin, which he always carried with him, and had not

ceased to urge the others to do likewise, made a vow to establish a

shrine and leave the picture at the first Indian village they came to

if they got succor there.

Sure enough, they did reach a place called Cueyabos, where they were

hospitably received by the Indians, and where Ojeda, fulfilling his

vow, erected a log hut, or shrine, in the recess of which he left, with

much regret, the picture of the Virgin which had accompanied {17} him

on his wanderings and adventures. Means were found to send word to

Jamaica, still under the governorship of Esquivel, whose head Ojeda had

threatened to cut off when he met him. Magnanimously forgetting the

purpose of the broken adventurer, Esquivel despatched a ship to bring

him to Jamaica. We may be perfectly sure that Ojeda said nothing about

the decapitation when the generous hearted Esquivel received him with

open arms. Ojeda with Talavera and his comrades were sent back to

Santo Domingo. There Talavera and the principal men of his crew were

tried for piracy and executed.

Ojeda found that Encisco had gone. He was penniless, discredited and

thoroughly downcast by his ill fortune. No one would advance him

anything to send succor to San Sebastian. His indomitable spirit was

at last broken by his misfortunes. He lingered for a short time in

constantly increasing ill health, being taken care of by the good

Franciscans, until he died in the monastery. Some authorities say he

became a monk; others deny it; it certainly is quite possible. At any

rate, before he died he put on the habit of the order, and after his

death, by his own direction, his body was buried before the gate, so

that those who passed through it would have to step over his remains.

Such was the tardy humility with which he endeavoured to make up for

the arrogance and pride of his exciting life.

IV. Enter One Vasco Nuñez de Balboa

Encisco, coasting along the shore with a large ship, carrying

reënforcements and loaded with provisions for the party, easily

followed the course of Ojeda's {18} wanderings, and finally ran across

the final remnants of his expedition in the harbor of Cartagena. The

remnant was crowded into a single small, unseaworthy brigantine under

the command of Francisco Pizarro.

Pizarro had scrupulously kept faith with Ojeda. He had done more. He

had waited fifty days, and then, finding that the two brigantines left

to him were not large enough to contain his whole party, by mutual

agreement of the survivors clung to the death-laden spot until a

sufficient number had been killed or had died to enable them to get

away in the two ships. They did not have to wait long, for death was

busy, and a few weeks after the expiration of the appointed time they

were all on board.

There is something terrific to the imagination in the thought of that

body of men sitting down and grimly waiting until enough of them should

die to enable the rest to get away! What must have been the emotions

that filled their breasts as the days dragged on? No one knew whether

the result of the delay would enable him to leave, or cause his bones

to rot on the shore. Cruel, fierce, implacable as were these

Spaniards, there is something Homeric about them in such crises as

these.

That was not the end of their misfortunes, for one of the two

brigantines was capsized. The old chroniclers say that the boat was

struck by a great fish. That is a fish story, which, like most fish

stories, it is difficult to credit. At any rate, sink it did, with all

on board, and Pizarro and about thirty men were all that were left of

the gallant three hundred who had followed the doughty Ojeda in the

first attempt to colonize South America.

Encisco was for hanging them at once, believing that {19} they had

murdered and deserted Ojeda, but they were able to convince him at last

of the strict legality of their proceedings. Taking command of the

expedition himself, as being next in rank to Ojeda, the Bachelor led

them back to San Sebastian. Unfortunately, before the unloading of his

ship could be begun, she struck a rock and was lost; and the last state

of the men, therefore, was as bad as the first.

Among the men who had come with Encisco was a certain Vasco Nuñez,

commonly called Balboa. He had been with Bastidas and La Cosa on their

voyage to the Isthmus nine years before. The voyage had been a

profitable one and Balboa had made money out of it. He had lost all

his money, however, and had eked out a scanty living on a farm at

Hispaniola, which he had been unable to leave because he was in debt to

everybody. The authorities were very strict in searching every vessel

that cleared from Santo Domingo, for absconders. The search was

usually conducted after the vessel had got to sea, too!

Balboa caused himself to be conveyed aboard the ship in a provision

cask. No one suspected anything, and when the officers of the boat had

withdrawn from the ship and Hispaniola was well down astern, he came

forth. Encisco, who was a pettifogger of the most pronounced type,

would have dealt harshly with him, but there was nothing to do after

all. Balboa could not be sent back, and besides, he was considered a

very valuable reënforcement on account of his known experience and

courage.

It was he who now came to the rescue of the wretched colonists at San

Sebastian by telling them that across the Gulf of Darien there was an

Indian tribe with many villages and much gold. Furthermore, these {20}

Indians, unfortunately for them, were not acquainted with the use of

poisoned arrows. Balboa urged them to go there. His suggestion was

received with cheers. The brigantines, and such other vessels as they

could construct quickly, were got ready and the whole party took

advantage of the favorable season to cross the Gulf of Darien to the

other side, to the present territory of Panama which has been so

prominent in the public eye of late. This was Nicuesa's domain, but

nobody considered that at the time.

They found the Indian villages which Balboa had mentioned, fought a

desperate battle with Cacique Cemaco, captured the place, and

discovered quantities of gold castellanos (upward of twenty-five

thousand dollars). They built a fort, and laid out a town called Maria

de la Antigua del Darien--the name being almost bigger than the town!

Balboa was in high favor by this time, and when Encisco got into

trouble by decreeing various oppressive regulations and vexatious

restrictions, attending to things in general with a high hand, they

calmly deposed him on the ground that he had no authority to act, since

they were on the territory of Nicuesa. To this logic, which was

irrefutable, poor Encisco could make no reply. Pending the arrival of

Nicuesa they elected Balboa and one Zamudio, a Biscayan, to take charge

of affairs.

The time passed in hunting and gathering treasure, not unprofitably

and, as they had plenty to eat, not unpleasantly.

V. The Desperate Straits of Nicuesa

Now let us return to Nicuesa. Making a landfall, Nicuesa, with a small

caravel, attended by the two {21} brigantines, coasted along the shore

seeking a favorable point for settlement. The large ships, by his

orders, kept well out to sea. During a storm, Nicuesa put out to sea

himself, imagining that the brigantines under the charge of Lope de

Olano, second in command would follow him. When morning broke and the

storm disappeared there were no signs of the ships or brigantines.

Nicuesa ran along the shore to search for them, got himself embayed in

the mouth of a small river, swollen by recent rains, and upon the

sudden subsidence of the water coincident with the ebb of the tide, his

ship took ground, fell over on her bilge and was completely wrecked.

The men on board barely escaped with their lives to the shore. They

had saved nothing except what they wore, the few arms they carried and

one small boat.

Putting Diego de Ribero and three sailors in the boat and directing

them to coast along the shore, Nicuesa with the rest struggled westward

in search of the two brigantines and the other three ships. They

toiled through interminable forests and morasses for several days,

living on what they could pick up in the way of roots and grasses,

without discovering any signs of the missing vessels. Coming to an arm

of the sea, supposed to be Chiriqui Lagoon off Costa Rica, in the

course of their journeyings, they decided to cross it in a small boat

rather than make the long detour necessary to get to what they believed

to be the other side. They were ferried over to the opposite shore in

the boat, and to their dismay discovered that they were upon an almost

desert island.

It was too late and they were too tired, to go farther that night, so

they resolved to pass the night on the {22} island. In the morning

they were appalled to find that the little boat, with Ribero and the

three sailors, was gone. They were marooned on a desert island with

practically nothing to eat and nothing but brackish swamp water to

drink. The sailors they believed to have abandoned them. They gave

way to transports of despair. Some in their grief threw themselves

down and died forthwith. Others sought to prolong life by eating

herbs, roots and the like.

They were reduced to the condition of wild animals, when a sail

whitened the horizon, and presently the two brigantines dropped anchor

near the island. Ribero was no recreant. He had been convinced that

Nicuesa was going farther and farther from the ships with every step

that he took, and, unable to persuade him of that fact, he deliberately

took matters into his own hands and retraced his course. The event

justified his decision, for he soon found the brigantines and the other

ships. Olano does not seem to have bestirred himself very vigorously

to seek for Nicuesa, perhaps because he hoped to command himself; but

when Ribero made his report he at once made for the island, which he

reached just in time to save the miserable remnant from dying of

starvation.

As soon as he could command himself, Nicuesa, whose easy temper and

generous disposition had left him under the hardships and misfortunes

he had sustained, sentenced Olano to death. By the pleas of his

comrades, the sentence was mitigated, and the wretched man was bound in

chains and forced to grind corn for the rest of the party--when there

was any to grind.

To follow Nicuesa's career further would be simply to chronicle the

story of increasing disaster. He lost {23} ship after ship and man

after man. Finally reduced in number to one hundred men, one of the

sailors, which had been with Columbus remembered the location of Porto

Rico as being a haven where they might establish themselves in a

fertile and beautiful country, well-watered and healthy. Columbus had

left an anchor under the tree to mark the place, and when they reached

it they found that the anchor had remained undisturbed all the years.

They were attacked by the Indians there, and after losing twenty

killed, were forced to put to sea in two small brigantines and a

caravel, which they had made from the wrecks of their ships. Coasting

along the shore, they came at last to an open roadstead where they

could debark.

"In the name of God," said the disheartened Nicuesa, "let us stop here."

There they landed, called the place after their leader's exclamation,

Nombre de Dios. The caravel, with a crew of the strongest, was

despatched for succour, and was never heard of again.

One day, the colonists of Antigua were surprised by the sound of a

cannon shot. They fired their own weapons in reply, and soon two ships

carrying reënforcements for Nicuesa under Rodrigo de Colmenares,

dropped anchor in front of the town.

By this time the colonists had divided into factions, some favoring the

existing régime, others inclining toward the still busy Encisco, others

desirous of putting themselves under the command of Nicuesa, whose

generosity and sunny disposition were still affectionately remembered.

The arrival of Colmenares and his party, gave the Nicuesa faction a

decided preponderance; and, taking things in their own hands, they

determined to despatch one of the ships, with two {24} representatives

of the colony, up the coast in search of the governor. This expedition

found Nicuesa without much difficulty. Again the rescuing ship arrived

just in time. In a few days more, the miserable body of men, reduced

now to less than sixty, would have perished of starvation.

Nicuesa's spirit had not been chastened by his unparalleled

misfortunes. He not only accepted the proffered command of the

colony--which was no more than his right, since it was established on

his own territory--but he did more. When he heard that the colonists

had amassed a great amount of gold by trading and thieving, he harshly

declared that, as they had no legitimate right there, he would take

their portion for himself; that he would stop further enterprises on

their part--in short, he boastfully declared his intention of carrying

things with a high hand in a way well calculated to infuriate his

voluntary subjects. So arrogant was his bearing and so tactless and

injudicious his talk, that the envoys from Antigua fled in the night

with one of the ships and reported the situation to the colony. Olano,

still in chains, found means to communicate with his friends in the

other party. Naturally he painted the probable conduct of the governor

in anything but flattering colors.

All this was most impolitic in Nicuesa. He seemed to have forgotten

that profound political principle which suggests that a firm seat in

the saddle should be acquired before any attempts should be made to

lead the procession. The fable of "King Stork and the Frogs" was

applicable to the situation of the colonists.

In this contingency they did not know quite what to do. It was Balboa

who came to their rescue again. {25} He suggested that, although they

had invited him, they need not permit Nicuesa to land. Accordingly,

when Nicuesa hove in sight in the other ship, full of determination to

carry things in his own way, they prevented him from coming ashore.

Greatly astonished, he modified his tone somewhat, but to no avail. It

was finally decided among the colonists to allow him to land in order

to seize his person. Arrangements were made accordingly, and the

unsuspicious Nicuesa debarked from his ship the day after his arrival.

He was immediately surrounded by a crowd of excited soldiers menacing

and threatening him. It was impossible for him to make headway against

them.

He turned and fled. Among his other gubernatorial accomplishments was

a remarkable fleetness of foot. The poor little governor scampered

over the sands at a great pace. He distanced his fierce pursuers at

last and escaped to the temporary shelter of the woods.

Balboa, a gentleman by birth and by inclination as well--who had,

according to some accounts, endeavored to compose the differences

between Nicuesa and the colonists--was greatly touched and mortified at

seeing so brave a cavalier reduced to such an undignified and desperate

extremity. He secretly sought Nicuesa that night and profferred him

his services. Then he strove valiantly to bring about an adjustment

between the fugitive and the brutal soldiery, but in vain.

Nicuesa, abandoning all his pretensions, at last begged them to receive

him, if not as a governor, at least as a companion-at-arms, a

volunteer. But nothing, neither the influence of Balboa nor the

entreaties {26} of Nicuesa, could mitigate the anger of the colonists.

They would not have the little governor with them on any terms. They

would have killed him then and there, but Balboa, by resorting to harsh

measures, even causing one man to be flogged for his insolence, at last

changed that purpose into another--which, to be sure, was scarcely less

hazardous for Nicuesa.

He was to be given a ship and sent away forever from the Isthmus.

Seventeen adherents offered manfully to share his fate. Protesting

against the legality of the action, appealing to them to give him a

chance for humanity's sake, poor Nicuesa was hurried aboard a small,

crazy bark, the weakest of the wretched brigantines in the harbor.

This was a boat so carelessly constructed that the calking of the seams

had been done with a blunt iron. With little or no provisions, Nicuesa

and his faithful seventeen were forced to put to sea amid the jeers and

mockery of the men on shore. The date was March 1, 1511. According to

the chroniclers, the last words that those left on the island heard

Nicuesa say were, "Show thy face, O Lord, and we shall be saved." [5]

A pathetic and noble departure!

Into the misty deep then vanished poor Nicuesa and his faithful

followers on that bright sunny spring morning. And none of them ever

came back to tell the tale of what became of them. Did they die of

starvation in their crazy brigantine, drifting on and on while they

rotted in the blazing sun, until her seams opened and she sank? Did

they founder in one of the sudden and fierce storms which sometimes

swept {27} that coast? Did the deadly teredo bore the ship's timbers

full of holes, until she went down with all on board? Were they cast

on shore to become the prey of Indians whose enmity they had provoked

by their own conduct? No one ever knew.

It was reported that years afterward on the coast of Veragua some

wandering adventurers found this legend, almost undecipherable, cut in

the bark of a tree, "_Aqui anduvo el desdichado Diego de Nicuesa_,"

which may be translated, "Here was lost the unfortunate Diego de

Nicuesa." But the statement is not credited. The fate of the gallant

little gentleman is one of the mysteries of the sea.

Of the original eleven hundred men who sailed with the two governors

there remained perhaps thirty of Ojeda's and forty of Nicuesa's at

Antigua with Encisco's command. This was the net result of the first

two years of effort at the beginning of government in South America on

the Isthmus of Panama, with its ocean on the other side still undreamed

of. What these men did there, and how Balboa rose to further

prominence, his great exploits, and finally how unkind Fate also

overtook him, will form the subject of the next paper.

[1] At least, the assertion is gravely made by the ancient chroniclers.

I wonder what kind of an outfielder he would have made today.

[2] From the Spanish word "bachiller," referring to an inferior degree

in the legal profession.

[3] In the absence of particular information, I suppose the ships to be

small caravels of between fifty and sixty tons, and the brigantines

much smaller, open, flat-bottomed boats with but one mast--although a

modern brigantine is a two-masted vessel.

[4] The castellano was valued at two dollars and fifty-six cents, but

the purchasing power of that sum was much greater then than now. The

maravedi was the equivalent of about one-third of a cent.

[5] Evidently he was quoting the exquisite measures of the Eightieth

Psalm, one of the most touching appeals of David the Poet-King, in

which he says over and over again, "Turn us again, O God, and cause Thy

Face to shine, and we shall be saved."

{31}

II

Panama, Balboa and a Forgotten Romance

I. The Coming of the Devastator

This is the romantic history of Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, the most

knightly and gentle of the Spanish discoverers, and one who would fain

have been true to the humble Indian girl who had won his heart, even

though his life and liberty were at stake. It is almost the only love

story in early Spanish-American history, and the account of it,

veracious though it is, reads like a novel or a play.

After Diego de Nicuesa had sailed away from Antigua on that enforced

voyage from which he never returned, Vasco Nuñez de Balboa was supreme

on the Isthmus. Encisco, however, remained to make trouble. In order

to secure internal peace before prosecuting some further expeditions,

Balboa determined to send him back to Spain, as the easiest way of

getting rid of his importunities and complaints.

A more truculent commander would have no difficulty in inventing a

pretext for taking off his head. A more prudent captain would have

realized that Encisco with his trained mouth could do very much more

harm to him in Spain than he could in Darien. Balboa thought to

nullify that possibility, however, by sending Valdivia, with a present,

to Hispaniola, and Zamudio {32} with the Bachelor to Spain to lay the

state of affairs before the King. Encisco was a much better advocate

than Balboa's friend Zamudio, and the King of Spain credited the one

and disbelieved the other. He determined to appoint a new governor for

the Isthmus, and decided that Balboa should be proceeded against

rigorously for nearly all the crimes in the decalogue, the most serious

accusation being that to him was due the death of poor Nicuesa. For by

this time everybody was sure that the poor little meat-carver was no

more.

An enterprise against the French which had been declared off filled

Spain with needy cavaliers who had started out for an adventure and

were greatly desirous of having one. Encisco and Zamudio had both

enflamed the minds of the Spanish people with fabulous stories of the

riches of Darien. It was curiously believed that gold was so plentiful

that it could be fished up in nets from the rivers. Such a piscatorial

prospect was enough to unlock the coffers of a prince as selfish as

Ferdinand. He was willing to risk fifty thousand ducats in the

adventure, which was to be conducted on a grand scale. No such

expedition to America had ever been prepared before as that destined

for Darien.

Among the many claimants for its command, he picked out an old cavalier

named Pedro Arias de Avila, called by the Spaniards Pedrarias.[1]

This Pedrarias was seventy-two years old. He was of good birth and

rich, and was the father of a large and interesting family, which he

prudently left behind him in Spain. His wife, however, insisted on

going {33} with him to the New World. Whether or not this was a proof

of wifely devotion--and if it was, it is the only thing in history to

his credit--or of an unwillingness to trust Pedrarias out of her sight,

which is more likely, is not known. At any rate, she went along.

Pedrarias, up to the time of his departure from Spain, had enjoyed two

nick-names, El Galan and El Justador. He had been a bold and dashing

cavalier in his youth, a famous tilter in tournaments in his middle

age, and a hard-fighting soldier all his life. His patron was Bishop

Fonseca. Whatever qualities he might possess for the important work

about to be devolved upon him would be developed later.

His expedition included from fifteen hundred to two thousand souls, and

there were at least as many more who wanted to go and could not for

lack of accommodations. The number of ships varies in different

accounts from nineteen to twenty-five. The appointments both of the

general expedition and the cavaliers themselves were magnificent in the

extreme. Many afterward distinguished in America went in Pedrarias's

command, chief among them being De Soto. Among others were Quevedo,

the newly appointed Bishop of Darien, and Espinosa, the judge.

The first fleet set sail on the 11th of April, 1514, and arrived at

Antigua without mishap on the 29th of June in the same year. The

colony at that place, which had been regularly laid out as a town with

fortifications and with some degree at least of European comfort,

numbered some three hundred hard-bitten soldiers. The principle of the

survival of the fittest had resulted in the selection of the best men

from all the previous expeditions. They would have been a {34}

dangerous body to antagonize. Pedrarias was in some doubt as to how

Balboa would receive him. He dissembled his intentions toward him,

therefore, and sent an officer ashore to announce the meaning of the

flotilla which whitened the waters of the bay.

The officer found Balboa, dressed in a suit of pajamas engaged in

superintending the roofing of a house. The officer, brilliant in silk

and satin and polished armour, was astonished at the simplicity of

Vasco Nuñez's appearance. He courteously delivered his message,

however, to the effect that yonder was the fleet of Don Pedro Arias de

Avila, the new Governor of Darien.

[Illustration: "Balboa . . . Engaged in Superintending the Roofing of a

House"]

Balboa calmly bade the messenger tell Pedrarias that he could come

ashore in safety and that he was very welcome. Balboa was something of

a dissembler himself on occasion, as you will see. Pedrarias thereupon

debarked in great state with his men, and, as soon as he firmly got

himself established on shore, arrested Balboa and presented him for

trial before Espinosa for the death of Nicuesa.

II. The Greatest Exploit since Columbus's Voyage

During all this long interval, Balboa had not been idle. A singular

change had taken place in his character. He had entered upon the

adventure in his famous barrel on Encisco's ship as a reckless,

improvident, roisterous, careless, hare-brained scapegrace.

Responsibility and opportunity had sobered and elevated him. While he

had lost none of his dash and daring and brilliancy, yet he had become

a wise, a prudent and a most successful captain. Judged by the high

standard of the modern times, Balboa was {35} cruel and ruthless enough

to merit our severe condemnation. Judged by his environments and

contrasted with any other of the Spanish conquistadores he was an angel

of light.

[Illustration: "The Expedition Had to Fight Its Way Through Tribes of

Warlike and Ferocious Mountaineers"]

He seems to have remained always a generous, affectionate, open-hearted

soldier. He had conducted a number of expeditions after the departure

of Nicuesa to different parts of the Isthmus, and he amassed much

treasure thereby, but he always so managed affairs that he left the

Indian chiefs in possession of their territory and firmly attached to

him personally. There was no indiscriminate murder, outrage or plunder

in his train, and the Isthmus was fairly peaceable. Balboa had tamed

the tempers of the fierce soldiery under him to a remarkable degree,

and they had actually descended to cultivating the soil between periods

of gold-hunting and pearl-fishing. The men under him were devotedly

attached to him as a rule, although here and there a malcontent, unruly

soldier, restless under the iron discipline, hated his captain.

Fortunately he had been warned by a letter from Zamudio, who had found

means to send it via Hispaniola, of the threatening purpose of

Pedrarias and the great expedition. Balboa stood well with the

authorities in Hispaniola. Diego Columbus had given him a commission

as Vice-Governor of Darien, so that as Darien was clearly within Diego

Columbus's jurisdiction, Balboa was strictly under authority. The news

in Zamudio's letter was very disconcerting. Like every Spaniard, Vasco

Nuñez knew that he could expect little mercy and scant justice from a

trial conducted under such auspices as Pedrarias's. He determined,

therefore, to secure himself in his position by some splendid

achievement, which would so work upon the {36} feelings of the King

that he would be unable, for very gratitude, to press hard upon him.

The exploit that he meditated and proposed to accomplish was the

discovery of the ocean upon the other side of the Isthmus. When

Nicuesa came down from Nombre de Dios, he left there a little handful

of men. Balboa sent an expedition to rescue them and brought them down

to Antigua. Either on that expedition or on another shortly afterward,

two white men painted as Indians discovered themselves to Balboa in the

forest. They proved to be Spaniards who had fled from Nicuesa to

escape punishment for some fault they had committed and had sought

safety in the territory of an Indian chief named Careta, the Cacique of

Cueva. They had been hospitably received and adopted into the tribe.

In requital for their entertainment, they offered to betray the Indians

if Vasco Nuñez, the new governor, would condone their past offenses.

They filled the minds of the Spaniards, alike covetous and hungry, with

stories of great treasures and what was equally valuable, abundant

provisions, in Coreta's village.

Balboa immediately consented. The act of treachery was consummated and

the chief captured. All that, of course, was very bad, but the

difference between Balboa and the men of his time is seen in his after

conduct. Instead of putting the unfortunate chieftain to death and

taking his people for slaves, Balboa released him. The reason he

released him was because of a woman--a woman who enters vitally into

the subsequent history of Vasco Nuñez, and indeed of the whole of South

America. This was the beautiful daughter of the chief. Anxious to

propitiate his captor, Careta offered Balboa this flower of the family

{37} to wife. Balboa saw her, loved her and took her to himself. They

were married in accordance with the Indian custom; which, of course,

was not considered in the least degree binding by the Spaniards of that

time. But it is to Balboa's credit that he remained faithful to this

Indian girl. Indeed, if he had not been so much attached to her it is

probable that he might have lived to do even greater things than he did.

In his excursions throughout the Isthmus, Balboa had met a chief called

Comagre. As everywhere, the first desire of the Spanish was gold. The

metal had no commercial value to the Indians. They used it simply to

make ornaments, and when it was not taken from them by force, they were

cheerfully willing to exchange it for beads, trinkets, hawks' bells,

and any other petty trifles. Comagre was the father of a numerous

family of stalwart sons. The oldest, observing the Spaniards brawling

and fighting--"brabbling," Peter Martyr calls it--about the division of

gold, with an astonishing degree of intrepidity knocked over the scales

at last and dashed the stuff on the ground in contempt. He made amends

for his action by telling them of a country where gold, like Falstaff's

reasons, was as plenty as blackberries. Incidentally he gave them the

news that Darien was an isthmus, and that the other side was swept by a

vaster sea than that which washed its eastern shore.

These tidings inspired Balboa and his men. They talked long and

earnestly with the Indians and fully satisfied themselves of the

existence of a great sea and of a far-off country abounding in treasure

on the other side. Could it be that mysterious Cipango of Marco Polo,

search for which had been the object of Columbus's voyage? The way

there was discussed and the {38} difficulties of the journey estimated,

and it was finally decided that at least one thousand Spaniards would

be required safely to cross the Isthmus.

Balboa had sent an account of this conversation to Spain, asking for

the one thousand men. The account reached there long before Pedrarias

sailed, and to it, in fact, was largely due the extensive expedition.

Now when Balboa learned from Zamudio of what was intended toward him in

Spain, he determined to undertake the discovery himself. He set forth

from Antigua the 1st of September, 1513, with a hundred and ninety

chosen men, accompanied by a pack of bloodhounds, very useful in

fighting savages, and a train of Indian slaves. Francisco Pizarro was

his second in command. All this in lieu of the one thousand Spaniards

for which he had asked, which was not thought to be too great a number.

The difficulties to be overcome were almost incredible. The expedition

had to fight its way through tribes of warlike and ferocious

mountaineers. If it was not to be dogged by a trail of pestilent

hatreds, the antagonisms evoked by its advance must be composed in

every Indian village or tribe before it progressed farther. Aside from

these things, the topographical difficulties were immense. The

Spaniards were armour-clad, as usual, and heavily burdened. 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. He made

friends with the chiefs {39} through whose territories he passed, if

they were willing to be friends. If they chose to be enemies, he

fought them, he conquered them and then made friends with them then.

Such a singular mixture of courage, adroitness and statesmanship was he

that everywhere he prevailed by one method or another. Finally, in the

territory of a chief named Quarequa, he reached the foot of the

mountain range from the summit of which his guides advised him that he

could see the object of his expedition.

There were but sixty-seven men capable of ascending that mountain. The

toil and hardship of the journey had incapacitated the others. Next to

Balboa, among the sixty-seven, was Francisco Pizarro. Early on the

morning of the 25th of September, 1513, the little company began the

ascent of the Sierra. It was still morning when they surmounted it and

reached the top. Before them rose a little cone, or crest, which hid

the view toward the south. "There," said the guides, "from the top of

yon rock, you can see the ocean." Bidding his men halt where they

were, Vasco Nuñez went forward alone and surmounted the little

elevation.

A magnificent prospect was embraced in his view. The tree-clad

mountains sloped gently away from his feet, and on the far horizon

glittered a line of silver which attested the accuracy of the claim of

the Indians as to the existence of a great sea on the other side of

what he knew now to be an isthmus. Balboa named the body of water that

he could see far away, flashing in the sunlight of that bright morning,

"the Sea of the South," or "the South Sea." [2]

Drawing his sword, he took possession of it in the {40} name of Castile

and Leon. Then he summoned his soldiers. Pizarro in the lead they

were soon assembled at his side. In silent awe they gazed, as if they

were looking upon a vision. Finally some one broke into the words of a

chant, and on that peak in Darien those men sang the "Te Deum Laudamus."

[Illustration: "He Took Possession of the Sea in the Name of Castile

and Leon"]

Somehow the dramatic quality of that supreme moment in the life of

Balboa has impressed itself upon the minds of the successive

generations that have read of it since that day. It stands as one of

the great episodes of history. That little band of ragged,

weather-beaten, hard-bitten soldiers, under the leadership of the most

lovable and gallant of the Spaniards of his time, on that lonely

mountain peak rising above the almost limitless sea of trackless

verdure, gazing upon the great ocean whose waters extended before them

for thousands and thousands of miles, attracts the attention and fires

the imagination.

Your truly great man may disguise his imaginative qualities from the

unthinking public eye, but his greatness is in proportion to his

imagination. Balboa, with the centuries behind him, shading his eye

and staring at the water:

----Dipt into the future far as human eye could see,

Saw the visions of the world, and all the wonder that would be.

He saw Peru with its riches; he saw fabled Cathay; he saw the uttermost

isles of the distant sea. His imagination took the wings of the

morning and soared over worlds and countries that no one but he had

ever dreamed of, all to be the fiefs of the King of Castile. It is

interesting to note that it must have been to Balboa, of all men, that

some adequate idea of the real size of the earth first came.

{41}

Well, they gazed their fill; then, with much toil, they cut down trees,

dragged them to the top of the mountain and erected a huge cross which

they stayed by piles of stones. Then they went down the mountain-side

and sought the beach. It was no easy task to find it, either. It was

not until some days had passed that one of the several parties broke

through the jungle and stood upon the shore. When they were all

assembled, the tide was at low ebb. A long space of muddy beach lay

between them and the water. They sat down under the trees and waited

until the tide was at flood, and then, on the 29th of September, with a

banner displaying the Virgin and Child above the arms of Spain in one

hand and with drawn sword in the other, Balboa marched solemnly into

the rolling surf that broke about his waist and took formal possession

of the ocean, and all the shores, wheresoever they might be, which were

washed by its waters, for Ferdinand of Aragon, and his daughter Joanna

of Castile, and their successors in Spain. Truly a prodigious claim,

but one which for a time Spain came perilously near establishing and

maintaining.[3]

[Illustration: "He Threw the Sacred Volume to the Ground in a Violent

Rage"]

Before they left the shore they found some canoes and voyaged over to a

little island in the bay, which they called San Miguel, since it was

that saint's day, and where they were nearly all swept away by the

rising tide. They went back to Antigua by another route, somewhat less

difficult, fighting and making peace as before, and amassing treasure

the while. Great was the joy of the colonists who had been left

behind, when Balboa and his men rejoined them. {42} Those who had

stayed behind shared equally with those who had gone. The King's royal

fifth was scrupulously set aside and Balboa at once dispatched a ship,

under a trusted adherent named Arbolancha, to acquaint the King with

his marvelous discovery, and to bring back reënforcements and

permission to venture upon the great sea in quest of the fabled golden

land toward the south.

III. "Furor Domini"

Unfortunately for Vasco Nuñez, Arbolancha arrived just two months after

Pedrarias had sailed. The discovery of the Pacific was the greatest

single exploit since the voyage of Columbus. It was impossible for the

King to proceed further against Balboa under such circumstances.

Arbolancha was graciously received, therefore, and after his story had

been heard a ship was sent back to Darien instructing Pedrarias to let

Balboa alone, appointing him an adelantado, or governor of the islands

he had discovered in the South Sea, and all such countries as he might

discover beyond.

All this, however took time, and Balboa was having a hard time with

Pedrarias. In spite of all the skill of the envenomed Encisco, who had

been appointed the public prosecutor in Pedrarias's administration,

Balboa was at last acquitted of having been concerned in the death of

Nicuesa. Pedrarias, furious at the verdict, made living a burden to

poor Vasco Nuñez by civil suits which ate up all his property.

It had not fared well with the expedition of Pedrarias, either, for in

six weeks after they landed, over seven hundred of his unacclimated men

were dead of fever and other diseases, incident to their lack of {43}

precaution and the unhealthy climate of the Isthmus. They had been

buried in their brocades, as has been pithily remarked, and forgotten.

The condition of the survivors was also precarious. They were starving

in their silks and satins.

Pedrarias, however, did not lack courage. He sent the survivors

hunting for treasures. Under different captains he dispatched them far

and wide through the Isthmus to gather gold, pearls, and food. They

turned its pleasant valleys and its noble hills into earthly hells.

Murder, outrage and rapine flourished unchecked, even encouraged and

rewarded. All the good work of Balboa in pacifying the natives and

laying the foundation for a wise and kindly rule was undone in a few

months.

Such cruelties had never before been practised in any part of the New

World settled by the Spaniards. I do not suppose the men under

Pedrarias were any worse than others. Indeed, they were better than

some of them, but they took their cue from their terrible commander.

Fiske calls him "a two-legged tiger." That he was an old man seems to

add to the horror which the story of his course inspires. The

recklessness of an unthinking young man may be better understood than

the cold, calculating fury and ferocity of threescore and ten. To his

previous appellations, a third was added. Men called him, "_Furor

Domini_"--"The Scourge of God." Not Attila himself, to whom the title

was originally applied, was more ruthless and more terrible.

Balboa remonstrated, but to no avail. He wrote letter after letter to

the king, depicting the results of Pedrarias' actions, and some tidings

of his successive communications, came trickling back to the {44}

governor, who had been especially cautioned by the King to deal

mercifully with the inhabitants and set them an example of Christian

kindness and gentleness that they might be won to the religion of Jesus

thereby! Pedrarias was furious against Balboa, and would have withheld

the King's dispatches acknowledging the discovery of the South Sea by

appointing him adelantado; but the Bishop of Darien, whose friendship

Balboa had gained, protested and the dispatches were finally delivered.

The good Bishop did more. He brought about a composition of the bitter

quarrel between Balboa and Pedrarias. A marriage was arranged between

the eldest daughter of Pedrarias and Balboa. Balboa still loved his

Indian wife; it is evident that he never intended to marry the daughter

of Pedrarias, and that he entered upon the engagement simply to quiet

the old man and secure his countenance and assistance for the

undertaking he projected to the mysterious golden land toward the

south. There was a public betrothal which effected the reconciliation.

And now Pedrarias could not do enough for Balboa, whom he called his

"dear son."

IV. The End of Balboa

Balboa, therefore, proposed to Pedrarias that he should immediately set

forth upon the South Sea voyage. Inasmuch as Pedrarias was to be

supreme in the New World and as Balboa was only a provincial governor

under him, the old reprobate at last consented.

Balboa decided that four ships, brigantines, would be needed for his

expedition. The only timber fit for shipping, of which the Spaniards

were aware, {45} grew on the eastern side of the Isthmus. It would be

necessary, therefore, to cut and work up the frames and timbers of the

ships on the eastern side, then carry the material across the Isthmus,

and there put it together. Vasco Nuñez reconnoitered the ground and

decided to start his ship-building operations at a new settlement

called Ada. The timber when cut and worked had to be carried sixteen

miles away to the top of the mountain, then down the other slope, to a

convenient spot on the river Valsa, where the keels were to be laid,

the frames put together, the shipbuilding completed, and the boats

launched on the river, which was navigable to the sea.

This amazing undertaking was carried out as planned. There were two

setbacks before the work was completed. In one case, after the frames

had been made and carried with prodigious toil to the other side of the

mountain, they were discovered to be full of worms and had to be thrown

away. After they had been replaced, and while the men were building

the brigantines, a flood washed every vestige of their labor into the

river. But, as before, nothing could daunt Balboa. Finally, after

labors and disappointments enough to crush the heart of an ordinary

man, two of the brigantines were launched in the river. Most of the

carrying had been done by Indians, over two thousand of whom died under

the tremendous exactions of the work.

Embarking upon the two brigantines, Balboa soon reached the Pacific,

where he was presently joined by the two remaining boats as they were

completed. He had now four fairly serviceable ships and three hundred

of the best men of the New World under his command. He was well

equipped and well provisioned {46} for the voyage and lacked only a

little iron and a little pitch, which, of course, would have to be

brought to him from Ada on the other side of the Isthmus. The lack of

that little iron and that little pitch proved the undoing of Vasco

Nuñez. If he had been able to obtain them or if he had sailed away

without them, he might have been the conqueror of Peru; in which case

that unhappy country would have been spared the hideous excesses and

the frightful internal brawls and revolutions which afterward almost

ruined it under the long rule of the ferocious Pizarros. Balboa would

have done better from a military standpoint than his successors, and as

a statesman as well as a soldier the results of his policy would have

been felt for generations.

History goes on to state that while he was waiting for the pitch and

iron, word was brought to him that Pedrarias was to be superseded in

his government. This would have been delightful tidings under any

other circumstances, but now that a reconciliation had been patched up

between him and the governor, he rightly felt that the arrival of a new

governor might materially alter the existing state of affairs.

Therefore, he determined to send a party of four adherents across the

mountains to Ada to find out if the rumours were true.

If Pedrarias was supplanted the messengers were to return immediately,

and without further delay they would at once set sail. If Pedrarias

was still there, well and good. There would be no occasion for such

precipitate action and they could wait for the pitch and iron. He was

discussing this matter with some friends on a rainy day in 1517--the

month and the date not being determinable now. The sentry attached to

the governor's quarters, driven to the shelter of the {47} house by the

storm, overheard a part of this harmless conversation. There is

nothing so dangerous as a half-truth; it is worse than a whole lie.

The soldier who had aforetime felt the weight of Balboa's heavy hand

for some dereliction of duty, catching sentences here and there,

fancied he detected treachery to Pedrarias and thought he saw an

opportunity of revenging himself, and of currying favor with the

governor, by reporting it at the first convenient opportunity.

Now, there lived at Ada at the time one Andres Garavito. 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. The men sent by Balboa to Ada to find out the state of

affairs were very maladroit in their manoeuvres, and their peculiar

actions awakened the suspicions of Pedrarias. The first one who

entered the town was seized and cast into prison. The others thereupon

came openly to Ada and declared their purposes. This seems to have

quieted, temporarily, the suspicions of Pedrarias; but the implacable

Garavito, taking opportunity, when the governor's mind was unsettled

and hesitant, assured him that Balboa had not the slightest intention

whatever of marrying Pedrarias's daughter; that he was devoted to his

Indian wife, and intended to remain true to her; that it was his

purpose to sail to the South Sea, establish a kingdom and make himself

independent of Pedrarias.

{48} The old animosity and anger of the governor awoke on the instant.

There was no truth in the accusations except in so far as it regarded

Vasco Nuñez's attachment to his Indian wife, and indeed Balboa had

never given any public refusal to abide by the marital engagement which

he had entered into; but there was just enough probability in

Garavito's tale to carry conviction to the ferocious tyrant. He

instantly determined upon Balboa's death. Detaining his envoys, he

sent him a very courteous and affectionate letter, entreating him to

come to Ada to receive some further instructions before he set forth on

the South Sea.

Among the many friends of Balboa was the notary Arguello who had

embarked his fortune in the projected expedition. He prepared a

warning to Vasco Nuñez, which unfortunately fell into the hands of

Pedrarias and resulted in his being clapped into prison with the rest.

Balboa unsuspiciously complied with the governor's request, and,

attended by a small escort, immediately set forth for Ada.

He was arrested on the way by a company of soldiers headed by Francisco

Pizarro, who had nothing to do with the subsequent transactions, and

simply acted under orders, as any other soldier would have done.

Balboa was thrown into prison and heavily ironed; he was tried for

treason against the King and Pedrarias. The testimony of the soldier

who had listened in the rainstorm was brought forward, and, in spite of

a noble defense, Balboa was declared guilty.

Espinosa, who was his judge, was so dissatisfied with the verdict,

however, that he personally besought Pedrarias to mitigate the

sentence. The stern old tyrant refused to interfere, nor would he

entertain {49} Balboa's appeal to Spain. "He has sinned," he said

tersely; "death to him!" Four of his companions--three of them men who

had been imprisoned at Ada, and the notary who had endeavored to warn

him--were sentenced to death.

It was evening before the preparations for the execution were

completed. Balboa faced death as dauntlessly as he had faced life.

Pedrarias was hated in Ada and Darien; Balboa was loved. If the

veterans of Antigua had not been on the other side of the Isthmus,

Balboa would have been rescued. As it was, the troops of Pedrarias

awed the people of Ada and the judicial murder went forward.

Balboa was as composed when he mounted the scaffold as he had been when

he welcomed Pedrarias. A proclamation was made that he was a traitor,

and with his last breath he denied this and asserted his innocence.

When the axe fell that severed his head, the noblest Spaniard of the

time, and one who ranks with those of any time, was judicially

murdered. One after the other, the three companions, equally as

dauntless, suffered the unjust penalty. The fourth execution had taken

place in the swift twilight of the tropical latitude and the darkness

was already closing down upon the town when the last man mounted the

scaffold. This was the notary, Arguello, who had interfered to save

Balboa. He seems to have been beloved by the inhabitants of the town,

for they awakened from their horror, and some of consideration among

them appealed personally to Pedrarias, who had watched the execution

from a latticed window, to reprieve the last victim. "He shall die,"

said the governor sternly, "if I have to kill him with my own hand."

So, to the future sorrow of America, and to the {50} great diminution

of the glory and peace of Spain, and the world, passed to his death the

gallant, the dauntless, the noble-hearted Balboa. Pedrarias lived

until his eighty-ninth year, and died in his bed at Panama; which town

had been first visited by one of his captains, Tello de Guzman, founded

by Espinosa and upbuilt by himself.

There are times when a belief in an old-fashioned Calvinistic hell of

fire and brimstone is an extremely comforting doctrine, irrespective of

theological bias. Else how should we dispose of Nero, Tiberius,

Torquemada, and gentlemen of their stripe? Wherever such a company may

be congregated, Pedro Arias de Avila is entitled to a high and

exclusive place.

[1] In the English chronicles he is often spoken of as Davila, which is

near enough to Diabolo to make one wish that the latter sobriquet had

been his own. It would have been much more apposite.

[2] It was Magellan who gave it the inappropriate name of "Pacific."

[3] To-day not one foot of territory bordering on that sea belongs to

Spain. The American flag flies over the Philippines--shall I say

forever?

{53}

III

Peru and the Pizarros

A Study in Retribution

"They that take the sword shall perish by the sword."

I. The Chief Scion of a Famous Family

The reader will look in vain on the map of modern Spain for the ancient

province of Estremadura, yet it is a spot which, in that it was the

birthplace of the conquerors of Peru and Mexico--to say nothing of the

discoverer of the Mississippi--contributed more to the glory of Spain

than any other province in the Iberian peninsula. In 1883, the ancient

territory was divided into the two present existing states of Badajoz

and Caceres. In the latter of these lies the important mountain town

of Trujillo.

Living there in the last half of the fifteenth century was an obscure

personage named Gonzalo Pizarro. He was a gentleman whose lineage was

ancient, whose circumstances were narrow and whose morals were loose.

By profession he was a soldier who had gained some experience in the

wars under the "Great Captain," Gonsalvo de Cordova. History would

take no note of this vagrom and obscure cavalier had it not been for

his children. Four sons there were whose qualities and opportunities

were such as to have enabled them to play a somewhat large part in the

world's affairs {54} in their day. How many unconsidered other

progeny, male or female, there may have been, God alone

knows--possibly, nay probably, a goodly number.

The eldest son was named Francisco. His mother, who was not married to

his father--indeed not married to anybody at any time so far as I can

find out--was a peasant woman named Francisca Gonzales. Francisco was

born about the year 1471. His advent was not of sufficient importance

to have been recorded, apparently, and the exact date of his

terrestrial appearance is a matter of conjecture, with the guesses

ranging between 1470 and 1478. A few years after the arrival of

Francisco, there was born to Gonzales, and this time by his lawful

wife, name unknown, a second son, Hernando. By the woman Gonzales, a

score of years later, this promiscuous father had two more illegitimate

sons, one of whom he named Gonzalo after himself, and the third he

called Juan. Francisca Gonzales also bore a fourth son, of whom

Gonzalo Pizarro was not the father, who was known as Martin de

Alcántara. Thus Hernando, the second, was legitimate; Gonzalo and Juan

were his illegitimate half-brethren, having the same father but a

different mother; while Alcántara was a uterine brother to the three

illegitimate Pizarros, having the same mother but a different father.

There must have been marvelous qualities in the original Pizarro, for

such a family is rarely to be met with in history.

Such a mixed state of affairs was not so shocking in those days as it

would be at present. I do not find that anybody cast any stones at the

Pizarros on account of these irregularities in their birth. In fact,

they had plenty of companions in their anomalous social relations, and

it is a speaking commentary on the {55} times that nobody seemed to

consider it as especially disgraceful or even very remarkable.

Hernando, the second son, received a good education for the day. The

others were thrown mainly on their own resources. Legend says that

Francisco was suckled by a sow. The statement may be dismissed as a

fable, but it is more than probable that the assertion that he was a

swineherd is correct. It is certain that to the day of his death he

could neither read nor write. He never even learned to sign his own

name, yet he was a man of qualities who made a great figure in history

in spite of these disabilities, leaving behind him an immortal if

unenviable name. His career was humble and obscure to the vanishing

point for forty years, of which practically nothing is known. It is

alleged that he made a campaign in Italy with his father, but this is

doubtful. A father who left him to tend the swine, who did nothing for

his education, would not have bothered to take him a-soldiering.

We leave the field of conjecture, however, and meet him in far-off

America in 1510 as an officer under Alonzo de Ojeda--that Don Quixote

among discoverers. His qualities had obtained for him some preferment,

for when Ojeda left the miserable remnants of his colony at San

Sebastian on the Gulf of Darien, and returned to Cuba for help, Pizarro

was put in charge, with instructions to wait a certain time, and if

succour did not reach him to leave. He waited the required time,

indeed waited longer, until enough people died to enable the brigantine

that had been left with them to carry the survivors, and then sailed

away. He was a member of Encisco's expedition to Darien, in which he

fell in with the youthful and {56} romantic Vasco Nuñez de Balboa.

With Balboa he marched across the Isthmus, and was the second white man

to look upon the Great South Sea in 1513. Subsequently, he was an

officer under that American Nero, Pedro Arias de Avila, commonly called

Pedrarias, the founder and Governor of Panama, the conqueror of

Nicaragua and parts adjacent. Oviedo says that between his seventieth

year, which was his age when he came to America, and his eighty-sixth

year, when he died, the infamous Pedrarias caused more than two million

Indians to be put to death, besides a numerous lot of his own

countrymen. If we lop off two ciphers, the record is still bad enough.

In 1515, Pizarro and Morales, by direction of Pedrarias, made an

expedition to the south of the Gulf of San Miguel, into the territory

of a chieftain named Biru, from whom they early got into the habit of

calling the vague land believed to exist in the South Sea, the "Land of

Biru," or Peru. It was on this expedition that the Spaniards, hotly

pursued by the natives, stabbed their captives one by one and left them

dying at intervals in the pathway to check pursuit. The practice was

effective enough and the action throws an interesting light on the

Spanish conquistador in general and Pizarro in particular.

It fell to the lot of Pizarro also to arrest his old captain, Balboa,

just as the latter was about to sail on a voyage of discovery to the

fabulous gold country of Peru in 1517.[1] When Balboa and Pizarro had

crossed the Isthmus six years before, the son of the Cacique Comagre,

observing their avidity for gold, told them {57} that it abounded in a

mysterious land far toward the south, and the young Indian made a

little clay image of a llama further to describe the country.

To conquer that El Dorado had been Balboa's cherished dream. Well

would it have been for the country had not the jealousy of Pedrarias

cut short Balboa's career by taking off his head, thus forcing the

enterprise to be undertaken by men of coarser mould and meaner clay.

It does not appear that Pizarro had any hand in the judicial murder of

Balboa, and no reflection can be made on his conduct for the arrest,

which was simply a matter of military duty, probably as distasteful to

Pizarro as it was surprising to Balboa.

II. The Terrible Persistence of Pizarro

In 1519, Pizarro was living in Panama in rather straightened

circumstances. His life had been a failure. A soldier of fortune, he

possessed little but his sword. He was discontented, and although now

nearly fifty years of age, he still had ambition. With remembrance of

what he had heard the young Indian chief tell Balboa, constantly

inciting him to a further grapple with hitherto coy and elusive

fortune, he formed a partnership with another poverty-stricken but

enterprising veteran named Diego de Almagro, whose parentage was as

obscure as Pizarro's--indeed more so, for he is reputed to have been a

foundling, although Oviedo describes him as the son of a Spanish

laboring man. The two men supplemented each other. Pizarro, although

astute and circumspect, was taciturn and chary of speech, though fluent

enough on occasion; he was slow in making up his mind, too, but when it

{58} was made up, resolute and tenacious of his purpose. Almagro was

quick, impulsive, generous, frank in manner, "wonderfully skilled in

gaining the hearts of men," but sadly deficient in other qualities of

leadership. Both were experienced soldiers, as brave as lions and

nearly as cruel as Pedrarias himself--being indeed worthy disciples of

his school.

The two penniless, middle-aged soldiers of fortune determined to

undertake the conquest of that distant empire--a stupendous resolution.

Being almost without means, they were forced to enlarge the company by

taking on a third partner, a priest named Luque, who had, or could

command, the necessary funds. With the sanction of Pedrarias, who

demanded and received a share, largely gratuitous, in the expedition,

they bought two of the four vessels which Balboa had caused to be taken

to pieces, transported them across the Isthmus, then set them up again,

and relaunched in the Pacific. Enlisting one hundred men under his

banner, Pizarro set sail with the first vessel on the 14th of November,

1524. Almagro was to follow after with reënforcements and supplies in

the second ship. One Andagoya had made a short excursion southward

some time before, but they soon passed his latitude and were the first

white men to cleave those southern seas.

With only their hopes to guide them, without pilot, chart or

experience, being, I suspect, indifferent sailors and wretched

navigators, they crept along the forbidding shore in a crazy little

ship, landing from time to time, seeing no evidence of the empire,

being indeed unable to penetrate the jungles far enough to find out

much of anything about the countries they passed. Finally, at one

place, that they afterwards called "Starvation {59} Harbor," the men

rebelled and demanded to be led back. They had seen and heard little

of importance. There seemed to be nothing before them but death by

starvation.

Pizarro, however, who has been aptly described as "terribly

persistent," refused to return. He sent the ship back to the Isles of

Pearls for provisions, and grimly clung to the camp on the desolate

shore. When twenty of his men were dead of starvation, the ship came

back with supplies. In one of their excursions, during this wait at

Starvation Harbor, they had stumbled upon and surprised an Indian

village in which they found some clumsy gold ornaments, with further

tales of the El Dorado to the southward. Instead of yielding to the

request of his men that they immediately return in the ship, therefore,

the indomitable Spaniard made sail southward. He landed at various

places, getting everywhere little food and less gold, but everywhere

gaining more and more confirmation that the foundation of his dreams

was not "the baseless fabric of a vision."

In one place they had a fierce battle with the Indians in which two of

the Spaniards were killed and a large number wounded. Pizarro now

determined to return to Panama with the little gold he had picked up

and the large stories he had heard, there to recruit his band and to

start out again. Almagro meanwhile had set forth with his ship with

sixty or seventy additional adventurers. He easily followed the traces

of Pizarro on the shore but the ships did not meet. Almagro went

farther south than Pizarro. At one landing-place he had a furious

battle with the natives in which he lost an eye. He turned back after

reaching the mouth of the river San Juan in about the fourth {60}

parallel of north latitude. He, too, had picked up some little

treasure and a vast quantity of rumor to compensate for his lost optic

and bitter experience. But the partners had little to show for their

sufferings and expenditures but rumors and hopes.

Pedrarias in disgust withdrew from the expedition for a price, which,

with the money necessary to send out a second expedition, was furnished

through Luque by the Licentiate Espinosa. About September, 1526, with

two ships, the two captains set forth once more. This time they had

with them a capable pilot named Ruiz. They avoided the coast and

steered direct for the mouth of the San Juan River. Pizarro surprised

a village here, carried off some of the natives, and a considerable

amount of gold. This Almagro, as the best "persuader," took back to

Panama in the hope that by exhibiting it he could gain much needed

reënforcements for their expedition.

The ships were very much undermanned. The experience of the first

expedition, as related by the survivors, had been so horrible that it

was with difficulty that they could get anybody to go with them on the

second. Pizarro agreed to remain at the mouth of the river and examine

the vicinity, while Ruiz with the second ship sailed southward to see

what he could discover. Pizarro's men found no gold, although they

explored the country with prodigious labor. Indians fell upon them, at

one time killing fourteen who had stranded in a canoe on the bank of a

river. Many other Spaniards perished, and all except Pizarro and a few

of the stoutest hearts begged to return to Panama.

Ruiz came back just as they had begun to despair. He had crossed the

Equator, the first European to {61} cross it from the north, and had

sailed half a degree south from the line.[2]

He brought back some Indians, further specimens of gold and silver

ornaments, exquisitely woven woollen garments, _et cetera_, which he

had taken from a craft cruising near the shore, which were proofs

positive of the existence of the long-desired country.

Almagro now made his appearance with reënforcements and the keels were

soon turned to the south. Coasting along the shore, they saw

increasing evidence of cultivation in the valleys and uplands, backed

by the huge snow-crowned range of the Andes. Large villages appeared

here and there. Finally, they anchored opposite a considerable town

laid out in well-defined streets, containing about two thousand houses,

many of them built of stone. From their position close to the shore

they thought that they could make out that the inhabitants wore

ornaments of gold. Several canoes approached the ship, one of them

crowded with warriors carrying a species of gold mask as an ensign.