"Why do you quarrel about such stuff as this? If you value it so highly, I could take you to a country where it is so common that it is used for the meanest utensils."
These significant words filled the Spaniards with hope and desire, and they eagerly asked where that rich land lay, and how it might be reached.
"At the distance of six suns [six days’ journey] from here," said the cacique, "lies another ocean as great as the one before you. Near its shores is the kingdom I spoke of. But it is very powerful, and if you wish to attack it you will need far more men than you have here."
This was the first the Spaniards had heard of the great southern ocean or of the rich land of Peru. This must be the ocean, thought Balboa, which Columbus sought for without success, the waters which border the East Indies, and the great and rich nation on its shores must be one of the famous countries of Asia. At once the desire arose in his mind to gaze on that unknown sea.
Balboa felt it necessary to do something striking and do it quickly. He had received letters from Zamudio, the agent he had sent to Spain, which were very discouraging. Enciso had complained to King Ferdinand of the way in which he had been treated, and the king had not only refused to support Balboa with a royal warrant for his actions, but had condemned his course and ordered him to return to Spain. His hopes of fortune and greatness were at an end unless he could win the favor of the king by some great enterprise. Such would be the discovery of that great ocean, and this he determined to attempt.
The Isthmus of Darien, which he would have to cross, is not over sixty miles wide. But many of these are miles of mountain, on which grow forests so dense as to be almost impassable. There, too, where it rains for more than half the year, the valleys are converted into marshes, and are so often overflowed that in many places the natives have to dwell in the trees, while from the high grounds rush swollen rivers, fierce and threatening. To march across an unknown and perilous country like this, led by treacherous Indian guides, was a bold and desperate enterprise, surpassing any which the Spaniards had yet attempted. But Balboa was one of the most daring and intrepid of them all, and to win the favor of his sovereign there was no danger he was not ready to face.