Balboa heard this surprising announcement with delight, and, ambitious to be honored as the discoverer of the unnamed sea and the country abounding with rich mines, began to plan to go there and achieve the notoriety that would make his name forever famous. On the first of September, 1513, Vasco Nuñez, with one hundred and ninety men and a number of Indian guides, embarked at Santa Maria de la Antigua and set sail in a brigantine for the Indian village of Coyba. Here he began his toilsome and dangerous march across the isthmus. After enduring untold hardships the pertinacious Spaniard and his small body of wayworn followers arrived at the foot of the Sierra de Quarequa, intercepting the view of the unseen ocean.[308] While climbing the rugged slope of the intervening mountain, on the twenty-fifth of September, Balboa commanded his men to halt and to remain where they were until he had reached the summit and surveyed the wide expanse of the great ocean billowing between the isthmus and the remote shores of India. When the enthusiastic Spaniard ascended to the top of the mountain and beheld the Mar del Sur (Sea of the South), he fell upon his knees and thanked God for honoring him as its discoverer, “as he was a man of moderate ability, little knowledge, and humble birth.” Calling to his men to come to him, he ordered them, after surveying the discovered sea, to construct a wooden cross, and to plant it where he had kneeled and rendered thanks for the honor conferred on him. A mound of stones was built near the cross as a monument to commemorate the discovery of the ocean and the adjacent country for his majesty, the king of Spain. Descending the southern slope of the mountain, Balboa and his followers made their way to the shore of the bay, which he called San Miguel, where the proud discoverer, with a banner embellished with the picture of the Holy Virgin and Child and the insignia of Spain, marched into the sea, and took possession of it in the name of his sovereign, King Ferdinand. Having explored a part of the southern coast of the isthmus, Vasco Nuñez and his men reëntered the wilderness and arrived at Santa Maria de la Antigua on the nineteenth of January, 1514.