made many incursions into the surrounding country, and succeeded
in collecting much gold, the yellow metal being more plentiful there than
in the West India islands. In those expeditions he showed a wise spirit of
conciliation and won the friendship of several of the Indian chiefs. In
one of their excursions a quarrel arose among the Spaniards about the
division of the gold they had obtained. They were almost at sword's-point
when a young Indian chief, surprised to find them so hot about what seemed
to him a useless substance, upset the gold out of the balance, and turned
to Balboa, saying,--

"Why do you quarrel about such stuff as this? If you value it so highly, I
could take you to a country where it is so common that it is used for the
meanest utensils."

These significant words filled the Spaniards with hope and desire, and
they eagerly asked where that rich land lay, and how it might be reached.

"At the distance of six suns [six days' journey] from here," said the
cacique, "lies another ocean as great as the one before you. Near its
shores is the kingdom I spoke of. But it is very powerful, and if you wish
to attack it you will need far more men than you have here."

This was the first the Spaniards had heard of the great southern ocean or
of the rich land of Peru. This must be the ocean, thought Balboa, which
Columbus sought for without success, the waters which border the East
Indies, and the great and rich nation on its shores must be one of the
famous countries of Asia. At once the desire arose in his mind to gaze on
that unknown sea.

Balboa felt it necessary to do something striking and do it quickly. He
had received letters from Zamudio, the agent he had sent to Spain, which
were very discouraging. Enciso had complained to King Ferdinand of the way
in which he had been treated, and the king had not only refused to support
Balboa with a royal warrant for his actions, but had condemned his course
and ordered him to return to Spain. His hopes of fortune and greatness
were at an end unless he could win the favor of the king by some great
enterprise. Such would be the discovery of that great ocean, and this he
determined to attempt.

The Isthmus of Darien, which he would have to cross, is not over sixty
miles wide. But many of these are miles of mountain, on which grow forests
so dense as to be almost impassable. There, too, where it rains for more
than half the year, the valleys are converted into marshes