ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 449 



( u ) p. 435." Of the expedition of Vasco Nunez de Balboa." 

 I have already remarked elsewhere (Examen critique de Thistoire 

 de la Geographic du Nouveau Continent, et des progres de FAstro- 

 nomie nautique aux 15eme et 16eme siecles, t. i. p. 349) that Co- 

 lumbus knew, fully ten years before Balboa's expedition, the exist- 

 ence of the South Sea and its great proximity to the east coast of 

 Yeragua. He was conducted to this knowledge, not by theoretical 

 speculations respecting the configuration of Eastern Asia, but by the 

 local and positive reports of the natives, which he collected on his 

 fourth voyage (May 11, 1502, to November 7, 1504). On this 

 fourth voyage the Admiral went from the coast of Honduras to the 

 Puerto de Mosquitos, the western end of the Isthmus of Panama. 

 The reports of the natives, and the comments of Columbus on those 

 reports in the "Carta rarissima" of the 7th of July, 1503, were to 

 the efiect that, " not far from the Rio de Belen, the other sea (the 

 South Sea) turns (boxa) to the mouths of the Granges, so that the 

 countries of the Aurea (i. e. the countries of the Chersonesus aurea 

 of Ptolemy) are situated, in relation to the eastern coasts of Veragua, 

 as Tortosa (at the mouth of the Ebro) is to Fuentarrabia (on the 

 Bidassoa) in Biscay, or as Venice in relation to Pisa." Although 

 Balboa first saw the South Sea from the heights of the Sierra de 

 Quarequa on the 25th of September (Petr. Martyr, Epist. dxl. 

 p. 296), yet it was not until several days later that Alonso Martin 

 de Don Benito, who found a way from the mountains of Quarequa 

 to the Gulf of San Miguel, embarked on the South Sea in a canoe. 

 (Joaquin Acosta, Compendio hist, del Descubrimiento de la Nueva 

 Granada, p. 49.) 



As the taking possession of & considerable part of the west coast 

 of the New Continent by the United States of North America, and 

 the report of the abundance of gold in New California (now called 

 Upper California), have rendered more urgent than ever the forma- 

 tion of a communication between the Atlantic States and the re- 

 gions of the west through the Isthmus of Panama, I feel it my duty 

 to call attention once again to the circumstance that the shortest 

 way to the shores of the Pacific, which was shown by the natives to 

 Alonso Martin de Don Benito, is in the eastern part of the Isthmus, 



QS* 



