INTRODUCTION.
VI
covering that imaginary strait, and making his w a y into this Southern Ocean.
T h e illustrious navigator, however,
was doomed to die, as it were, upon the threshold o f his discoveries.
It was reserved for one o f his followers,
V a s c o Nunez de Balboa, to obtain the first v i e w o f the promised ocean, from the lofty mountains o f Darien, some years after the eyes o f the venerable Admiral had been closed in death.
T h e expeditions here narrated, therefore,
may be considered as springing immediately out o f the voyages o f Columbus, and fulfilling some o f his grand designs.
T h e y may be compared to the attempts o f ad足
venturous knights-errant to achieve the enterprise left un足 finished b y some illustrious predecessor.
Neither is this
comparison entirely fanciful ; on the contrary, it is a curi足 ous fact, well worthy o f notice, that the spirit o f chivalry entered largely into the early expeditions o f the Spanish discoverers, giving them a character wholly distinct from similar enterprises, undertaken by other nations.
It will
not, perhaps, be considered far-sought, if w e trace the cause o f this peculiarity to the domestic history o f the Spaniards during the middle ages. Eight centuries o f incessant warfare with the Moorish usurpers o f the Peninsula, produced a deep and lasting effect upon Spanish character and manners.
The war
being ever close at home, mingled itself with the domestic habits and concerns o f the Spaniard. soldier.
H e was born a
T h e wild and predatory nature o f the war also
made him a kind o f chivalrous marauder.
His horse and