Immediately following the death of Columbus, his enterprising lieutenants, men like Vespucci, Ojeda, Balboa, and others of equal prominence, pushed their explorations farther westward, and Balboa, the boldest of the Spanish conquistadores, fitted out an expedition in Hispaniola, which island was then the base of operations of Spanish exploration and conquest, and sailed across the narrow sea to the coast of that portion of Central America we now call Panama. Balboa established a rendezvous and base of supplies and operations on the coast, and thence continued his journey inland, and on the 23rd of September, 1513, surmounted the heights of Darien, and from that eminence beheld the expansive stretches of watery waste known today as the Pacific Ocean. Balboa, continuing his explorations along the coasts of Panama, soon discovered that the land was not an island, but a continent, and becoming acquainted with the Indians who inhabited the country, he learned that there were two large bodies connected by a smaller body. Balboa understood this statement to mean two large bodies of water connected by a smaller body of water, and therefore, naturally came to the conclusion that the Indians meant that the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans were connected at some point or other along the isthmus by a natural water-way. What the Indians really meant was that there were two large bodies of land, to the north and south, and that these large bodies were connected by a long, narrow strip of land, part of which he was then exploring. The Spaniards, naturally eager to extend their explorations into the great western ocean, began to search for the connecting water-way, and this quest was continued by them for nearly half a century; but they finally realized that the two great oceans of the world were separated by the impassable barrier of a continuous chain of mountainous land. The conquerer of Mexico, Cortez, after finishing the subjugation of the Indians of that part of the Spanish possessions, in 1526, was commanded by the King of Spain to proceed to the Isthmus and to assist in the search for the secret water-way.