Finally, on the 18th of February, 1519, the fleet lost sight of Cuba at Cape San Antonio, on the western end of the island. It consisted in all of eleven vessels, most of them small, and had on board six hundred and sixty-three soldiers and sailors. A few of these were armed with cross-bows and only thirteen with muskets, while the horses numbered only sixteen. In addition there were ten heavy guns and four lighter ones, with a good supply of ammunition.
Such was the fleet and such the force with which Hernando Cortez set sail to conquer a powerful and warlike nation. Fortunately the expedition had one of the world’s great commanders at its head, or the enterprise would have ended in failure instead of leading, as it did, to a wonderful success.
It was a splendid road to fortune which Columbus opened to the adventurers of Spain, and hundreds of them soon took that promising path. Among these was one Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, a man poor in gold or land, but rich in courage and ambition, and weary enough of trying to live at home like a gentleman with the means of a peasant. In the year 1501 he crossed the seas to Hispaniola, where, like Cortez, he took up land and began to till the soil for a living. But he had not the skill or good luck of Cortez, and after years of labor he found himself poorer than when he commenced. He began to see that nature had not meant him for a farmer, and that if he wanted a fortune he must seek it in other fields.
Balboa was not alone in this. There were others, with better-filled pockets than he, who were ripe for adventure and eager for gold. A famous one of these was Alonso de Ojeda, one of the companions of Columbus and the hero of the adventure with the Carib chief already described, who in 1509 sailed for South America and founded a settlement named by him San Sebastian. He left orders with Enciso, a lawyer of the town of San Domingo, to fit out two more vessels and follow him with provisions for his new settlement.
Enciso sailed in 1510, his vessels well laden with casks of bread and other food-stuffs. There was more in them, indeed, than Enciso dreamed of, for when far from land there crept out of one of these casks a haggard, woe-begone, half-starved stowaway, who looked as if he had not many ounces of life left in him. It was Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, who had taken this way to join the expedition and escape from his creditors, since they would not have permitted him to go openly. The cask in which he snugly lay had been carried from his farm to the ship among others containing provisions.