27 
CHAP. III. 
Notices of different Authors , ancient and modern , who have spoken of 
the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. — Cortes. — Dampier. — Cramer .— 
Humboldt. — Robinson .— Tadeo de Ortiz. — Orbego^o. — Balbi. 
The first point to which the Commission directed its atten¬ 
tion was the investigation of all the former data upon the 
subject of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. 
I. 
With the great Hernando Cortes originated the idea of 
a communication by this isthmus between the two oceans. 
Its topographical advantages evidently did not escape the per¬ 
spicacity of that extraordinary man ; for it cannot be ex¬ 
plained why, in the midst of a country in general so pro¬ 
digiously fertile, he should have chosen for his own domain 
the only portion of it comparatively unproductive, unless he 
clearly saw that any mode of communication to be hereafter 
carried into effect must necessarily be executed over this 
ground. 
It appears from many passages in his celebrated letters to 
the Emperor Charles V., to have been an object of intense 
interest with Cortes to discover some strait which might natu¬ 
rally unite the two seas. In the outset he was encouraged 
by brilliant expectations, and he announced that he had al¬ 
ready directed several vessels “ to run along the Bay of As- 
“ cension in search of the strait, which it was supposed was 
to be there found.” 
In the meanwhile as his hopes of finding a strait were wan¬ 
ing, the isthmus of Tehuantepec necessarily acquired greater 
and new importance in the eyes of Cortes. And it was he who 
