He had the glory of accompanying this
gallant cavalier in his terrible march across the mountains, and
of being among the first Europeans, therefore, whose eyes were
greeted with the long-promised vision of the Southern Ocean.
After the untimely death of his commander, Pizarro attached
himself to the fortunes of Pedrarias, and was employed by that
governor in several military expeditions, which, if they afforded
nothing else, gave him the requisite training for the perils and
privations that lay in the path of the future Conqueror of Peru.
In 1515, he was selected, with another cavalier named Morales, to
cross the Isthmus and traffic with the natives on the shores of
the Pacific. And there, while engaged in collecting his booty of
gold and pearls from the neighbouring islands, as his eye ranged
along the shadowy line of coast till it faded in the distance,
his imagination may have been first fired with the idea of, one
day, attempting the conquest of the mysterious regions beyond the
mountains. On the removal of the seat of government across the
Isthmus to Panama, Pizarro accompanied Pedrarias, and his name
became conspicuous among the cavaliers who extended the line of
conquest to the north over the martial tribes of Veragua. But
all these expeditions, whatever glory they may have brought him,
were productive of very little gold, and, at the age of fifty,
the captain Pizarro found himself in possession only of a tract
of unhealthy land in the neigbourhood of the capital, and of such
repartimientos of the natives as were deemed suited to his
military services.
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