2 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES* 
failed to perform. In his march across the isthmus 
which separates the Atlantic from the Pacific, (an 
enterprise designated by Robertson as the boldest 
on which the Spaniards had hitherto ventured in 
the New World,) Balboa, having been informed by 
his Indian guides, that he might view the sea from 
the next mountain, advanced alone to its summit; 
and beholding the vast ocean spread out before him 
in all its majesty, fell on his knees, and rendered 
thanks to God for having conducted him to so 
important a discovery. He hastened towards the 
object he had so laboriously sought, and, on reach¬ 
ing its margin, plunged up to his middle in its 
waves, with his sword and buckler, and took 
possession of it in the name of his sovereign, 
Ferdinand of Spain. 
Seven years after this important event, Magellan, 
a Portuguese, despatched by the court of Spain to 
ascertain the exact situation of the Molucca Islands, 
sailed along the eastern coast of South America, 
discovered the straits that bear his name; and, 
passing through them, first launched the ships of 
Europe in the Southern Sea. It is, however, pro¬ 
bable, that neither Balboa, while he gazed with 
transport on its mighty waters, nor Magellan, when 
he first whitened with his canvass the waves of 
that ocean whose smooth surface induced him to 
call it the Pacific, had any idea either of its vast 
extent, of the numerous islands that studded its 
bosom, the diversified and beautiful structure of 
those foundations, which myriads of tiny architects 
had reared from the depths of the ocean to the 
level of its highest wave, or of the varied tribes 
of man by whom they were inhabited. Boldly 
pursuing his way across the untraversed surface 
of this immense ocean, Magellan discovered the 
