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VOYAGES
A N D D I S C O V E R I E S OF
while they aided to erect the cross and pile up the mound of stones, marveled exceedingly at the meaning of these monuments, little thinking that they marked the subjugation of their land. The memorable event here recorded took place on the 26th of September, 1513 ; so that the Spaniards had spent twenty days in performing the journey from the province of Careta to the summit of the mountain, a distance which at present, it is said, does not require more than six days' travel.
Indeed the
isthmus in this neighborhood is not more than eighteen leagues in breadth in its widest part, and in some places merely seven ; but it consists of a ridge of extremely high and rugged mountains. When the discoverers traversed it, they had no route but the Indian paths, and often had to force their way amidst all kinds of obstacles, both from the savage country and its savage inhabitants. In fact, the details of this narrative sufficiently account for the slowness of their progress, and present an array of difficulties and perils, which, as has been well observed, none but those "men of iron " could have subdued and overcome.*
CHAPTEE X. VASCO NUNEZ MARCHES TO THE SHORES OF THE SOUTH SEA. [1513]
H A V I N G taken possession of the Pacific Ocean and all its realms from the summit of the mountain, Vasco Nunez now descended * Vidas de Espanoles CÊlèbres, por Don Manuel Josef Quintana, torn. ii. p. 40.