Balboa escaped his creditors on Hispaniola by hiding in a barrel aboard an expedition ship, and within a few years he was master of the colony of Darien. Ober follows him through mutinies, alliances and quarrels with the caciques of the isthmus, the capture of a native princess, the hunt for a golden temple and the first rumours of a great sea to the south.
A brisk biography of one of the most dramatic figures of the Spanish conquest. Download the free EPUB.