the earth,
stretching away to the north, south, and west as far as human eye could
see. Overwhelmed by the stupendous vision, he fell prostrate on the
ground, like a worshipper before the object of his adoration. Then, rising
to his knees, he thanked God for the great boon vouchsafed to him.

His men, gazing eagerly upward, saw him rise and beckon them, while with
his other hand he pointed wildly westward. With springing steps they
rushed to his side, and joined in his delight and his thanks to God as the
marvellous spectacle met their eyes. Heaps of stones were piled up to show
that they had taken possession of this spot for his sovereign, and as they
went down the farther slope they carved on many trees the name of King
Ferdinand of Castile, as the lord of this new land.

Let us repeat here the closing lines of Keats's famous sonnet to Homer, in
which a great poet has admirably depicted the scene, though, by a strange
error, giving the credit to Cortez instead of Balboa:

"Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific--and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise--
Silent, upon a peak in Darien."

Twelve men were sent on in advance to seek the easiest and shortest path
to the sea, one of them a man destined to become still more famous than
Balboa,--Francisco Pizarro, the future conqueror of Peru. Reaching the
shore, they found on it two stranded canoes, into which stepped two of the
men, Blaze de Atienza and Alousa Martine, calling on their comrades to
witness that they were the first to embark on that sea.

For three days the remaining men waited advices from their pioneers, and
then followed the guides sent them to the shore, Balboa, armed with his
sword and buckler, rushing into the water to his middle, and claiming
possession of that vast sea and all its shores in the name of his king,
for whom he pledged himself to defend it against all comers.

Such was the discovery of the great South Sea, as Balboa named it, the
Pacific Ocean, as Magellan soon after called it. The people of the coast
told the Spaniards of a rich and mighty kingdom that lay to the south, and
whose people had tame animals to carry their burdens. The form of these
they drew on the sand, their long necks convincing Balboa that they were
camels, and that the land indicated must be Asia. They really represented