Читать книгу Prowling about Panama - George A. Miller - Страница 7

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The present conglomerate of humanity living on the Isthmus of Panama is the racial remainder of some very much mixed social history. Here were enacted some of the most stirring stories and tempestuous times in American history. In 1453 the Eastern Roman Empire fell before the assaults of the Turks and closed the land routes to India. Nearly forty years later Columbus set sail in his great effort to find a westward passage for the commerce of Europe. In this he failed, but on his fourth and final voyage discovered the Isthmus of Panama and landed on the shores of the Chiriqui Lagoon, supposing that the beautiful inland sea must be the long-sought passage westward. Here the town of Almirante still bears his name. At Porto Bello and Saint Christopher Bay he made brief stops and returned to Spain having no idea of the character of the isthmus that he had discovered.

On November 3, 1903, exactly four hundred years from the day that Columbus set foot on the soil of Panama, the Republic of Panama declared its sovereign independence and began its national life as one of the family of American nations.

THE JUNGLE IS THE PLACE FOR PICNICS

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Caribbean main was overrun by as unscrupulous and bloodthirsty a set of pirates as ever sailed any sea. Even without these rascals there would have been trouble enough, and with them the story is sufficiently lurid for the most melodramatic taste.

One name stands out above his fellows. The intrepid navigator who first saw the waters of the Pacific set forth at the age of twenty-three as an adventurer, and after various experiences embarked as a stowaway for his second voyage. By personal persuasion he became the partner of his master, and after founding a colony in Darien sent Señor Endico back to Spain in irons for his pains.

This left Balboa supreme, with the whole Castilla de Oro (Castle of Gold) country before him for exploration. He at once sent Pizarro to examine the interior and gathered the scattered fugitives from former expeditions. The combined forces took the field against the Indians. When they reached the domain of Comagre, the most powerful chief of the country, peace was made. This chief was a real aristocrat with mummied ancestors clothed in gold and pearls, and he gave to Balboa four thousand ounces of gold, sixty wives, and offered to show him the way to a country beyond the dim mountains where a powerful people lived in magnificence and sailed ships of solid gold. He also entertained his distinguished visitor with tales of a temple of gold called Dabaibe, forty leagues farther than Darien, and said that the mother of the sun, moon, and stars lived there.

Balboa's imagination was stirred by these stories and he prepared an expedition of discovery. No temple of gold was found, but internal dissensions and Indian attacks disturbed the peace of the colony. Reenforcements arrived, and with them the title of captain-general.

Balboa now set out on what was to be the most famous event of his life. He had been promised the sight of a great ocean to the south, after he had climbed certain mountains. Various Indian oppositions developed, but on the 26th of September, 1513, at about ten o'clock in the morning, Balboa and his men, from the top of a high mountain, saw for the first time the waters of the vast Pacific. The priest of the expedition, named Andreas de Vara, chanted a Te Deum, with the entire company on their knees. A cross was raised, and the names of the Spanish rulers carved on the surrounding trees.

After meeting several Indian tribes the descent was made to the shore, and Balboa waded knee deep into the surf and, waving the banner of Spain, proclaimed that the new-found ocean and all land bordering thereon should be the property of his sovereign.

For a long time this new ocean was known as the South Sea, and Balboa at once set about exploring the vicinity. The Pearl Islands were located, taken possession of, and named. A later expedition by a less difficult route crossed the Isthmus of Panama and conquered the Indians on the Pearl Islands, bringing back plentiful tribute of fine pearls from the subdued chief.

The year following, in 1514, arrived the black villain of the story in the person of Pedrarias, sent out from Spain as governor of Darien. This disturber brought with him two thousand men. Balboa built a fleet of ships on the Atlantic side, took them to pieces, carried them on the backs of Indians across the Isthmus, put them together again, launched them in the waters of the Pacific, and proceeded to explore the coast eastward from Panama. On his return from this trip Balboa was arrested by Pedrarias on a trumped-up charge of treason, and in the forty-second year of his life was beheaded, while declaring his entire innocency of all treachery. Balboa was a product of his age, and of faults he possessed a-plenty, but as one of the great explorers of history his end was a sad reward for the distinguished services that he rendered to the world.