A few lines more as to the Spanish and Portuguese navigators in these waters, and then we shall have done with them for the present. In 1499 one of the Pinçons sailed from Spain straight to the Amazon, as has been mentioned, avoiding the West Indies, as if he knew precisely whither he was bound, and reached there in January of 1500. A few months later a large Portuguese expedition under Pedro Cabral, starting for India around the cape, was blown so far to the west that it ran against Brazil. Everybody was hitting upon untrodden shores in those inspiring days, and Cabral promptly took possession for his king. As this shore was outside (east of) the hemisphere assigned by the Pope to the Spanish, the Portuguese kept it for 389 years, in spite of Pinçon’s priority. In 1508 Ojeda obtained the government of the northern coast of South America, and Nicuesa of the region north of the Gulf of Darien; and with the arrival of these adventurers in New Spain began that era of rapine and horror which will forever disgrace the Spanish name. The rapacious governors and their wild crews quarreled and fought with each other as well as with the downtrodden natives, and exploration was carried on by piracy. A learned man, Martin Enciso, went out to take command in 1510, but he was deposed by his soldiers the next year and sent back to Europe, where he made the first book printed in Spanish (1519) describing America. His place was taken by Vasco Nuñez Balboa, who entered upon a career of exploration and peaceful conquest, generally conciliating the Indians, who told him of another sea not far to the west, and on September 25, 1513, guided him to the summit of a hill near Panama, whence he, first of Europeans, gazed upon the Pacific. Who can imagine the emotions of such a sight!—for it told the Spaniards that this land was not the eastern margin of Asia, but a new continent. Balboa made his way through the forests as rapidly as he could, and on the 29th, wading into the surf, banner in hand, took possession of the waters in the name of the King of Castile. Balboa at once began preparations to utilize his discovery, for the Indians had also excited him and his men by tales of a country to the south abounding in gold. He cut and shaped timbers for small ships, and had with enormous trouble and labor transported these across the isthmus, intending there to build a fleet and sail southward, when he was superseded in command by a new governor, Pedrarias. This man, a jealous and brutal adventurer, on a false pretext of disloyalty arrested and beheaded Balboa before he could get away—an act that “was one of the greatest calamities that could have happened to South America at that time; for ... a humane and judicious man would have been the conqueror of Peru, instead of the cruel and ignorant Pizarro.” The frightful destruction of the country of the Incas soon followed, while Cortés overran Mexico and De Soto invaded Florida.