Veragua, Costa Rica,
Nicaragua, were successively occupied; and his brave cavaliers forced a
way across forest and mountain and warlike tribes of savages, till, at
Honduras, they came in collision with the companions of Cortes, the
Conquerors of Mexico, who had descended from the great northern
plateau on the regions of Central America, and thus completed the
survey of this wild and mysterious land.
It was not till 1522 that a regular expedition was despatched in the
direction south of Panama, under the conduct of Pascual de Andagoya, a
cavalier of much distinction in the colony. But that officer penetrated
only to the Puerto de Pinas, the limit of Balboa's discoveries, when the
bad state of his health compelled him to reembark and abandon his
enterprise at its commencement.6
Yet the floating rumors of the wealth and civilization of a mighty nation
at the South were continually reaching the ears and kindling the dreamy
imaginations of the colonists; and it may seem astonishing that an
expedition in that direction should have been so long deferred. But the
exact position and distance of this fairy realm were matter of conjecture.
The long tract of intervening country was occupied by rude and warlike
races; and the little experience which the Spanish navigators had already
had of the neighboring coast and its inhabitants, and still more, the
tempestuous character of the seas--for their expeditions had taken place
at the most unpropitious seasons of the year--enhanced the apparent
difficulties of the undertaking, and made even their stout hearts shrink
from it.
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