134 SOUTH AMERICA— THE ANDES REGIONS. 



resemble West Europe in the density of their population. In 1892 the actual 

 population was approximately estimated at 4,200,000. 



Progress of Discovery axd Conquest. 



The name of Colombia is so far justified by the fact that Culumbus really 

 visited its shores between the Chiriqui lagoon and the San Ulas Islands ; but he 

 never sighted the mainland stretching from the Gulf of Uraba to the Goajiros 

 peninsula. This section of the seaboard was first coasted by Bastidas and his 

 pilots, who, however, formed no settlements, nor did Hojeda and his companion 

 Vespucci push farther west than the headland of Cape de la Yela. The isthmian 

 region where Columbus had found the gold which earned for him the title of Duke 

 of Yeragua, and which was known to be limited southwards by another ocean, 

 proved much more attractive to the Spanish adventurers. In 1513 Nunez de 

 Balboa had already crossed the isthmus in 23 days, thus discovering the South 

 Sea, and tracing a clear route between the two oceans, from Puerto Bello to 

 Panama. Vessels were now launched on the Pacific waters to explore the sea- 

 board, in one direction towards Mexico and California, in another towards Peru, 

 the Biru of legendary reports, 



Pascual Andagoya was the first to coast the shores of New Grenada, returning 

 to Panama in 1522, with fresh news of the land of gold ; two years later Fran- 

 cesco Pizarro and his associates, Diego Almagro and Hernando de Luque, were 

 already organising expeditions of conquest. Pizarro himself advanced but a short 

 distance along the coast, where he had to struggle with the natives and with 

 famine ; but Almagro penetrated over 300 miles southwards to the mouth of the 

 Rio San Juan, that is to say, the river whose valley indicates, with that of the 

 Atrato, the true geographical limits of the southern continent. 



In 1526 the Spanish pioneers continued to advance along the Pacific coast 

 southwards, and at last, after numerous misadventures, passed the limits of the 

 present Colombian seaboard, reaching the Bay of Guayaquil, and landing at 

 Tumbez on Peruvian soil in 1527. 



The marvellous adventures of Cortez and Pizarro necessarily threw into the 

 shade the lands immediately south of Panama, although even this region was 

 known to abound in the precious metals. But after the conquest of Peru a back- 

 ward movement set in, resulting in the invasion of the Colombian plateaux of 

 Tuquen-es, Antioquia, and Cundinamarca by b mds of adventurers starting, some 

 from Venezuela, some from Ecuador. The coastlunds, however, were also visited 

 at an early date, and after a first disastrous expedition, made in 1508, from the 

 shores of the Gulf of Uraba, the Spaniards had already gained a permanent footing 

 on the Colombian seaboard in 1525, when thej^ founded the city of Santa Marta, 

 not far from the Magdalena delta, but the settlers were not numerous enough to 

 extend their expeditions beyond the Sierra Nevada and surrounding valleys. 



Thus it happened that the first serious expedition, or rather plundering and 

 murderous campaign, in the interior, started not from the coast, but from 

 Venezuela in the year 1530. Armed with the mandate of Charles V., authorising 



