Page:A History of the Pacific Northwest.djvu/22



Balboa discovers the Pacific. It is a far cry from the Isthmus of Panama to the capes above Bering's Strait; and the explorations which unveiled that long coast line form a thrilling chapter in the history of our continent. The story opens on the twenty-fifth of September, 1513, when Balboa, surrounded by sixty Spanish companions, stood on a peak of the Darien Mountains and gazed with the rapture of a discoverer on the waters of the South Sea. It closes, practically, two hundred and sixty-five years later when Captain Cook rounded the "western extremity of all America," in latitude 65° and 46′, calling the point of land Cape Prince of Wales.

Claims its coasts for Spain. Balboa, at the moment of his discovery, proclaimed that the coasts and islands pertaining to the South Sea belonged to Spain. Four days later he reached the shore at the Gulf of San Miguel and, thereupon, took possession in a more formal manner, among other things, marching into the surf at the head of his party.