5
After this, we find him associated with Balboa, the discoverer of the
Pacific, and cooperating with him in establishing the settlement at
Darien. He had the glory of accompanying this gallant cavalier in his
terrible march across the mountains, and of being among the first
Europeans, therefore, whose eyes were greeted with the long-promised
vision of the Southern Ocean.
After the untimely death of his commander, Pizarro attached himself to
the fortunes of Pedrarias, and was employed by that governor in several
military expeditions, which, if they afforded nothing else, gave him the
requisite training for the perils and privations that lay in the path of the
future Conqueror of Peru.
In 1515, he was selected, with another cavalier named Morales, to cross
the Isthmus and traffic with the natives on the shores of the Pacific. And
there, while engaged in collecting his booty of gold and pearls from the
neighbouring islands, as his eye ranged along the shadowy line of coast
till it faded in the distance, his imagination may have been first fired with
the idea of, one day, attempting the conquest of the mysterious regions
beyond the mountains. On the removal of the seat of government across
the Isthmus to Panama, Pizarro accompanied Pedrarias, and his name
became conspicuous among the cavaliers who extended the line of
conquest to the north over the martial tribes of Veragua.
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