Page:The gilded man (El Dorado) and other pictures of the Spanish occupancy of America.djvu/19

ment near Maracaybo, the great Admiral was industriously preparing for a new voyage of discovery. He sailed in 1502, and on the 17th of August of that year he landed, after meeting much tempestuous weather, at Truxillo in Honduras. Sailing along the Mosquito Coast, beaten day and night by severe storms, Columbus reached Porto Bello and Chiriqui. Gold was found in quantities at Chiriqui and Veragua, in the vicinity of the famous mines of Tisingal, which the French filibuster Ravenau de Lussan mentioned as late as 1698.^[1] The various efforts of the Spanish to plant colonies on the Isthmus and in western New Granada^[2] had only insignificant results till Vasco Nuñez de Balboa in 1511 assumed the direction of the colony in Darien, with a firm hand, but without any higher right, and with great sagacity immediately brought about closer relations with the surrounding Indian tribes. The tribe of Dabaybe on the Rio Atrato, who had many ornaments of gold, pointed to the west and south as the regions from which this gold came. Balboa, following the directions of the Indians, who hoped to get rid of their distrusted guests and send them to their nearest enemies, reached the coast of the Pacific Ocean on the 25th of September, 1543. There he seems to have heard a report^[3] of a wealthy tribe which lived on the seacoast far to the south and used large sheep as beasts of burden. From this time forward the attention of the Span-

1. The name of "The Rich Coast," Costa Rica, is still attached to that part of Central America north of Chiriqui.
2. Ojeda and Diego de Nicuesa.
3. Quintana, and Herrera, dec. i. lib. x. cap. iii.