THE history of the Isthmus of Panama, which was the point of departure for the whole of those notable conquests which placed nearly all South America under the heel of Spain, began with its discovery by Alonzo de Ojeda in 1499.

The great name of Columbus figures prominently in this period, for in the course of his fourth voyage he spent much time in sailing backwards and forwards from east to west along the coast of Terra Firma in a vain search for a passage through which his ships might pass to the land of the Grand Khan.

But it was not ordained that the great navigator should add this laurel to his crown, albeit his enterprise made the way easier for those who were to follow.

Baffled by contrary winds and other adverse factors he had eventually to retire from what in his chagrin he termed “the Coast of Contradictions” and return to Spain, never to sail from its ports again.

The reports of Columbus as to the plentifulness of gold in the region of the isthmus sent many other adventurous mariners and captains to the Spanish Main, and soon the history of the time resolved itself into intrigues, jealousies, and savage conflicts between the Indians and the intruders, the latter enduring all kinds of privations in the hope of reaching that rumoured land which overflowed with gold. Dramatic developments began to ensue under an expedition which set out from Hispaniola under the leadership of Enciso, a wealthy notary. On board the ship in which he embarked was a mysterious barrel sent from a farm situated on the seashore, and no sooner was the vessel well out to sea than there emerged from this cask a tall muscular man in the prime of life. Vasco NuÑez de Balboa, who had devised this means of escaping from his creditors, proved in the end to be a valuable addition to the expedition, though the commander’s first impulse and threat was to maroon the stowaway on the first uninhabited island they might come across. They landed at Cartagena and were menaced by the natives, who hovered around them, doubtless remembering previous invasions and the outrages they had suffered. By pacific measures, however, the newcomers conciliated the Indians, at whose hands they then received valuable assistance and supplies of such provisions as the country had to offer. Balboa soon assumed a prominence in the discussions and deliberations of the expedition. He recommended strongly the attractions of an Indian village which he had come across when sailing some years before with Bastides. It lay upon the banks of a river called Darien, and the country all around was not only fertile, but abounded in gold, whilst the natives, although warlike, never made use of the dreaded poisoned arrow. With such enthusiasm did Balboa urge the claims of this region that Enciso determined to follow his advice, and they set sail thither and arrived and founded the town or city of Santa Maria de la Antigua del Darien. The natives of the existing village they put to the sword, having robbed them of all the golden ornaments they wore and the food supplies collected in their huts.

Enciso immediately entered upon his duties as alcalde and lieutenant of the absent Governor Ojeda, but discontent soon broke out amongst the men, who, hoping for rich gains, had begun to get alarmed at the attitude Enciso took with regard to the golden treasure they had captured. Balboa’s chance had now come, and, taking advantage of this discontent, he sought to gather around him a faction strong enough to dethrone Enciso from his position of command, recollecting doubtless the latter’s threat to maroon him and availing himself of this opportunity for revenge. The legal aspect of the case aided in upsetting the pretensions of Enciso to rule on a territory which lay on the west side of the Gulf of Darien, for by the royal command it was clearly under the jurisdiction of Nicuesa, a rival adventurer.

The deposition of Enciso was accomplished, and Balboa and one Tzemudio were appointed alcaldes by the colony with a cavalier named Valdivia as Regidor. This arrangement, however, was not satisfactory, the general opinion being that the sole authority should be vested in one individual, and it was while the dispute concerning this matter was going on that two ships arrived commanded by Colmenares who, with provisions, was in search of Nicuesa. This man claimed that Nicuesa was the legitimate governor of the province, and that, in his absence, he, Colmenares, was the proper person to command. Balboa could hardly controvert this, and his authority having been acknowledged, Colmenares set out along the coast in pursuance of his search for the missing governor, whom he found at Nombre de Dios.

There ensued a long duel between Balboa and Nicuesa for the supreme authority, and eventually the former won, Nicuesa being placed on a wretched vessel and driven out to sea, nothing further ever being heard of him or his crew.

The rival claims of Enciso and Balboa for the vacant governorship of the community led to its division into two factions, and the high favour in which Balboa was held by the majority was such that, unable with all his eloquence to prevail against him, the erudite and skilful Enciso was put into prison and his property confiscated, after a trial which had but the merest semblance of legality, on a charge of having usurped the office of alcalde in a territory which did not come under his jurisdiction.

When at length, through the intercession of his friends, he regained his liberty he received permission to return to Spain. Balboa took the precaution of sending in the same vessel one of his most intimate followers, to prevent the deposed Enciso from gaining too much sympathy at court, and to answer the charges which would doubtless be preferred by him. Further, Balboa sent a handsome present in gold to the royal treasurer of Hispaniola to impress him with the richness of the new country and obtain what he knew to be a powerful influence with the King.

After the departure of the caravel with his predecessor on board, Balboa set about organising an expedition into the interior, to discover and obtain as much of the precious metal as he could, for he wisely foresaw that if he provided the royal treasury at home with an abundance of the much-coveted gold, any irregularities in his late proceedings would be overlooked by the avaricious Ferdinand.

He sent Pizarro and a band on one such errand into a province called Coyba, but on their setting out they were assailed by the Indians of Darien led by their native lord or cacique, Zemaco, and after a fierce encounter the Spaniards were forced to retreat. Balboa despatched two vessels to Nombre de Dios to bring away the remnant of Nicuesa’s followers who had been left there. While coasting the shores of the isthmus these vessels picked up two Spaniards, painted like the Indians with whom they had been living. These men had been well treated by Careta the cacique of Coyba and repaid his kindness by instigating their countrymen to attack this friendly native and rob him of his wealth and treasure. They carried back to Balboa the news of their discovery at Careta, and he, pleased with the intelligence, set out with a strongly armed force to carry out this base design. On his arrival the unsuspecting chief received him with all the hospitality his savage customs could supply, but even this was not sufficient to deter Balboa from using strategy to overcome resistance and plunder the village, making captives of Careta, his wives and children and many of his people, and taking them back as prisoners to Santa Maria.

The poor outraged chieftain pleaded with his captor to be released, offering to become his ally and show him the realms where gold and riches abounded, and as a pledge of his good faith to give his daughter as a wife to the Spanish Governor, who, seeing all the advantages that would accrue from the friendship of the natives, and not unmoved by the youth and beauty of the proffered wife, accepted the alliance. After impressing his new allies with the power of the Spanish armaments, and astonishing them with the sight of the war horses which were strange to them, he allowed them to depart loaded with presents, but leaving the chief’s daughter, who willingly remained as the so-called wife of the future discoverer of the Pacific.

Balboa, with eighty men, once more made his way to Coyba and assisted Careta in invading the territories of one of his enemies, who were compelled to retreat and take shelter in the mountain fastnesses. Continuing their invasion, the combined forces ravaged the lands, sacked villages, putting the inhabitants to the sword and securing much booty. They then visited the province of another cacique, Comagre by name, who was indeed one of the most formidable in the whole country, having at his command three thousand fighting men, and living in what was for these parts a very palace, built of stone and wood and containing many apartments. There was in this palace a great hall in which the chieftain preserved the bodies of his ancestors, dried by fire and wrapped in mantles of cotton richly wrought and interwoven with pearls and jewels of gold. Among the sons of this cacique was one who was of a lofty and generous spirit and superior sagacity. He it was who struck the scales and scattered the gold which the Spaniards were weighing out and quarrelling over. Disdainful and disgusted at their sordid spirit, he asked them why they quarrelled over such a trifle, and said that, from the lofty hills in front of them, he would show them a mighty sea navigated by people who had vessels almost as large as their own, adding that on the shores of this great sea dwelt kings who ate and drank out of golden vessels, and ruled over lands in which gold was as plentiful as iron was amongst the Spaniards.

Imagine the eagerness with which Balboa plied this youthful Indian with questions regarding the means of arriving at such opulent regions, and how his imagination must have been stirred at the intimation of the sea he was shortly to discover.

The difficulties to be overcome, the fierce resistance which he was assured would be offered to his advance through the country he must traverse, only stimulated his ambition to be the first to sail upon the unknown sea. Henceforward all his plans were laid with the one idea of reaching it, and he sent off envoys in great haste to Hispaniola laden with much of the treasure he had already obtained, hoping thus to arouse the interest of his King to such a pitch that he should be furnished with a sufficient force of arms and men to enable him to accomplish a mighty discovery. As some time would elapse before an answer to his request could reach him, Balboa with his followers made incursions into the country round their settlement, exploring the river and its tributaries, but always meeting with a steady opposition from the natives.

Of the hundreds of adventures they must here have met with history records but few, and although they discovered much booty and captured many slaves, they also lost much in their endeavours to transport it to their capital.

Many of the natives lived in huts built like nests in the branches of the trees and reached by ladders, which the inmates drew up at night or when suddenly attacked. These arboreal homes, built of light woodwork and thatched with leaves, were many of them large enough to hold good-sized families, and when other means of overcoming these nest-dwellers failed, the Spaniards would compel them to descend by threatening to fell the trees or set fire to them. And this all for gold. Gold was the object of their search, and no cruelty was too great for them to inflict on any who kept them from their booty. One golden temple, whose renown had reached them, was for many years to come the object of a restless enterprise on the part of the Spaniards. Hundreds of lives were lost in search of it, but never was its whereabouts discovered, clans and tribes joining in confederacy to resist the advances of their enemies.

Balboa at last constructed a fortress round the town to resist the attacks of and guard against surprise by his wily enemies. Weary of waiting for the reinforcements he had sent for, his followers grew impatient, and anxious and distressed at the non-arrival of help, he determined to go in person back to Spain and urge his claims for assistance to accomplish what he now looked upon as his mission. His followers, however, dissuaded him from leaving them in what was still a dangerous position, for they relied upon their leader to counsel and protect them. Other envoys were found and despatched with letters full of enthusiastic accounts of the wealth of the country, a portion of the gold obtained being also sent, each man giving some of his private hoard to swell the general amount. Surely the King on receiving this evidence of the wealth and resources of his new possessions would not fail to furnish means of extending and developing them.

It was while awaiting the issue of this second mission that the weary and discontented colony of adventurers grew troublesome, and it required all the resourceful ingenuity and sagacity of Balboa to prevent civil war from breaking out. Order had hardly been re-established when two ships arrived from Hispaniola with supplies and men and a commission for Balboa, which although not from the source of royal power itself at least gave a semblance of legal status to his governorship, coming as it did from the hands of the King’s treasurer, Miguel de Pasamonte, to whom the present sent had proved acceptable.

These were the events which led up to the great discovery, and Balboa was just congratulating himself on the security of his position and the hopefulness of his prospects when he received news from the colleague he had sent home that Enciso had succeeded in arousing the King’s resentment and indignation against Balboa, who was shortly to be summoned back to Spain to answer most serious charges on account of his harsh treatment of Nicuesa. The only comfort left to Balboa was the fact that the information he now received was private and that no definite order had yet reached him from the King. Desperate as he felt the enterprise to be without reinforcements, he yet determined to risk all upon the venture of crossing the isthmus before the King’s commands could reach him. Choosing one hundred and ninety of the most reckless and daring of the wild adventurers that composed his colony, and arming them in such a manner as he thought fitting for the occasion, taking with him several of the Darien Indians whom he won to his side by kindness, and a number of dogs, amongst them his famous hound Leonico, he set out on this perilous undertaking.