10 THE ISTHMUS OF PANAMA. 



cultivating the rugged soil upon the northern coast. 

 The one trusted for the future upon her soldiers and 

 riches, while the other established the foundation of 

 a great and permanent commonwealth, by cultivat- 

 ing the soil. The Puritans were the fathers of a 

 people that now extend across this broad continent, 

 from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and have built up 

 countless cities, and established commercial relations 

 with every other nation ; while the Spanish colonies 

 have been depopulated, and bear but feeble traces of 

 a once powerful existence. 



Such has ever been the history of communities 

 who neglected agriculture as the great source of 

 wealth. A beneficent Providence has made the 

 cultivation of the soil one of the chief means on which 

 depend a nation's prosperity and advancement ; but 

 the Spaniard neglected this, and after having skim- 

 med the mines of their surface gold, or become dis- 

 appointed in its pursuit, left the country the same 

 almost unbroken forest that he found it, and so it 

 remains to this day. 



About the year 1510, Vasques Nunes de Balbao 

 established the town of Santa Maria on the Darien 

 Gulf. This person, whose career was brilliant, al- 

 though short, had owned an estate in Hayti, where, 

 having become involved in some difficulty with the 

 government, he was sentenced to be executed ; but 

 he escaped by secreting himself in a bread-cask, on 

 board a vessel about to sail on an expedition to 

 " capture Carthagena, Veragua, and other western 



