BALBOA BEHEADED. 



235 



The king created him Adelantado of the South Sea, and Go- 

 vernor of Panama and Coyba, but subject to Pedrarias, the 

 Governor of Darien. The latter regarded him as his rival, 

 and, by a successful series of treacherous arts, brought against 

 him a well-contrived charge of treason to the king. He was 

 reluctantly found guilty by the alcalde, and by Pedrarias con- 

 demned to be beheaded, as a traitor and usurper of the terri- 

 tories of the crown. The execution took place in the public 

 square of a small town near Darien, and was witnessed by 

 Pedrarias from between the reeds of the wall of a house some 

 twelve paces from the scaffold. Balboa and four of his officers 

 were beheaded in quick succession during the brief twilight of a 

 tropical evening. Pedrarias confiscated Balboa's property, and 

 ordered his head to be impaled upon a pole and exposed upon 

 the public square till decomposition should ensue. 



Thus perished, at the age of forty-two years, — the victim of the 

 meanest envy and the most odious treachery, — a man who will 

 be ever remembered as one of the most illustrious of the early 

 discoverers. Events transformed him from a rash and turbulent 

 adventurer into a discreet and patriotic captain ; and, from the 

 moment when he felt that he had drawn the attention of the 

 world upon him, his conduct was that of a man born and pre- 

 destined to greatness. He fell in the zenith of his glory, a 

 worthy cotemporary of Columbus, da Gama, and Magellan. 



Juan Diaz de Solis, who, with Yanez Pinzon, Amerigo Ves- 

 pucci, and Juan de la Cosa, the pilot of Columbus, was a member 

 of the Spanish council appointed to deliberate upon discoveries 

 yet to be made, sailed to South America in 1514, and, doubling 

 Capes St. Roque, St. Augustin, and Frio, entered the bay upon 

 which now stands the city of Rio Janeiro, and was probably the 

 first European to set foot upon the coast thus far to the south. 

 He supposed the bay to be the mouth of a passage through to 

 the South Sea so lately discovered by Balboa. He proceeded 

 to the south, ascertaining the position of every headland and 



