Vasco Nuñez de BalboaOber, Frederick A. (Frederick Albion)
History
Vasco Nuñez de Balboa
Ober, Frederick A. (Frederick Albion)
Balboa, Vasco Nuñez de (17475-1519)
"Oh ho," he laughed, as the volunteers came pressing forward, some
shaking with ague, some limping on crutches, and all filled with
enthusiasm. "So ye all desire to go? I' faith, but I wish ye all could
do so. But go back to your posts, my good men, all that can manage a
cross-bow or an arquebuse, and there keep vigilant watch, for who knows
when, or in what manner, the foe may appear? Rodrigo and I will go
forth, the one by water and the other by land; but there must perforce
be a great gap of forest between us, through which the savages may come
by stealth and fall upon the town. So, I say, keep watch by night and by
day; and inasmuch as all are engaged in a common defence, and all
entitled to equal shares in the spoils, even so shall it be."
Balboa was moved thus to deliver himself, because of ten thousand pieces
of gold in the treasury, remaining undivided, which his enemies declared
he intended to seize for himself and send as a donative to the king. For
this reason he said, "We shall all share alike, from commander down to
drummer-boy and trumpeter, and no man shall be deprived of his portion."
Then he marched off at the head of his armored band of braves, followed
by the acclaim of those he left behind to guard the town. As for those
who went with him: being all of them gallant souls, and generous to a
fault, more disposed to fight for treasure than to quarrel over its
division afterwards, they acquiesced without a murmur. Colmenares had
already embarked his force of sixty men, when Balboa set off and lost
himself in the forest with his seventy, so that the settlement appeared
quite deserted.
The canoes of Colmenares were paddled by stalwart Indians taken from
Careta's tribe, who were ignorant of the intended uprising, but could
not, of course, be unaware that the expedition was proceeding against
some of their people with hostile purpose. But they asked no questions,
being reasonably certain that any such would be answered only by blows,
and exerted their strength to such good purpose that by nightfall of the
day in which they had embarked the Spaniards reached the vicinity of
Tichiri. It was probably at or near a place now indicated on the map as
"Punta Escondida," or Lost Point, and may have been thus named because
of its vague and misty appearance in the shades of evening-time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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