rather than to the north. He therefore turned to the eastward, though
the wind was contrary, and, after a hard buffet against it, doubled
Cape Gracias á Dios, which still retains its expressive name,
significant of his relief at finding that the trend of the beach at
last permitted him to follow his desired course with a fair wind.
During the next two months he searched the entire coast-line as far as
Porto Bello, discovering and examining several openings in the land
which since have been of historical importance, among others the mouth
of the San Juan River and the Chiriqui Lagoon, one of whose principal
divisions still recalls his visit in its name, Almirante Bay, the Bay
of the Admiral. A little beyond, to the eastward of Porto Bello, he
came to a point already known to the Spaniards, having been reached
from Trinidad. The explorer thus acquired the certainty that, from the
latter island to Yucatan, there was no break in the obdurate shore
which barred his access to Asia.

Every possible site for an interoceanic canal lies within the strip of
land thus visited by Columbus shortly before his death in 1504. How
narrow the insurmountable obstacle, and how tantalizing, in the
apparent facilities for piercing it extended by the formation of the
land, were not known until ten years later, when Balboa, led on by the
reports of the natives, reached the eminence whence he, first among
Europeans, saw the South Sea,--a name long and vaguely applied to the
Pacific, because of the direction in which it lay from its discoverer.
During these early years the history of the region we now know as
Central America was one of constant strife among the various Spanish
leaders, encouraged rather than stifled by the jealous home
government; but it was also one of unbroken and venturesome
exploration, a healthier manifestation of the same restless and daring
energy that provoked their internal collisions. In January, 1522, one