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It was a splendid road to fortune which Columbus opened to the adventurers of Spain, and hundreds of them soon took that promising path. Among these was one Vasco Nunez de Balboa, a man poor in gold or land, but rich in courage and ambition, and weary enough of trying to live at home like a gentleman with the means of a peasant. In the year 1501 he crossed the seas to Hispaniola, where, like Cortez, he took up land and began to till the soil for a living. But he had not the skill or good luck of Cortez, and after years of labor he found himself poorer than when he commenced. He began to see that nature had not meant him for a farmer, and that if he wanted a fortune he must seek it in other fields.

Balboa was not alone in this. There were others, with better-filled pockets than he, who were ripe for adventure and eager for gold. A famous one of these was Alonso de Ojeda, one of the companions of Columbus and the hero of the adventure with the Carib chief already described, who in 1509 sailed for South America and founded a settlement named by him San Sebastian. He left orders with Enciso, a lawyer of the town of San Domingo, to fit out two more vessels and follow him with provisions for his new settlement.

Enciso sailed in 1510, his vessels well laden with casks of bread and other food-stuffs. There was more in them, indeed, than Enciso dreamed of, for when far from land there crept out of one of these casks a haggard, woe-begone, half-starved stowaway, who looked as if he had not many ounces of life left in him. It was Vasco Nunez de Balboa, who had taken this way to join the expedition and escape from his creditors, since they would not have permitted him to go openly. The cask in which he snugly lay had been carried from his farm to the ship among others containing provisions.

Enciso was furious when he saw this unwelcome addition to his crew. He threatened to throw him overboard, and on second thought vowed to leave him to starve on a desert island. The poor fellow fell on his knees and tearfully begged for mercy. Others joined him in entreaties, and Enciso at length softened and spared him his life. He was to pay bitterly for his kindness before many days.

The expedition had its adventures on the seas, ending in a wreck, and when San Sebastian was reached Ojeda was not to be found, and the settlement was a ruin. Enciso was in a quandary what to do, but Balboa had been on that coast before, on his first voyage out from Spain, and knew of an Indian village on the Darien River where they might find food and shelter. He advised Enciso to go thither, and a journey was made overland, among hostile Indians and with little food. The adventurers were half-starved when at length they reached their goal.

Here they founded a new settlement named Santa Maria, no doubt first disposing of the Indians in the usual Spanish fashion,–killing some and making slaves of others. But it was not long before there were bitter quarrels among themselves. Enciso had forbidden them to have any private trade for gold with the natives, a ukase which they strongly resented. The result was that a party rose against him, with Balboa at its head. Enciso was deprived of his authority, but when they tried to elect another in his place it did not prove easy. Diego de Nicuesa, who had made a settlement near there, was sent for by some of the settlers, but when he came, Balboa’s party would not receive him, and he, with seventeen companions, was placed in a crazy old barque and left to find their way back to Hispaniola as best they could.