where he collected two hundred followers, and made preparations for his expedition down the coast. His new government was to extend along the Pacific coast from the gulf of San Miguel on the isthmus to the river of San Juan; but, unfortunately, its inland boundary was not defined. The geography of the vast regions of South America was little understood in Spain, and grants of the government of territories were often made which overlapped each other, and created disputes that could only be settled by the strongest arm and most unscrupulous head. So it was that the honest but weak Andagoya found himself opposed to a rough and determined antagonist, the famous Sebastian de Belalcazar, and, as was inevitable, came off second best in the encounter.
Belalcazar was an adventurer who had come to the new world in the train of Pedrarias, and had afterwards followed the fortunes of Pizarro. The conqueror of Peru despatched him with a hundred and forty men to occupy Quito in 1533, and he afterwards marched north, conquering Pasto and Popayan, and reaching Bogota in 1538.[1] He then proceeded to the Spanish court, to petition for a grant of the government of Popayan and the surrounding provinces, leaving small Spanish colonies in the towns he had founded at Cali, Pasto, Popayan, and a few other places.
Andagoya says that Belalcazar set out for Spain, because he heard that Espinosa had been appointed governor of the territory which he had discovered. As Andagoya had been appointed to succeed Espinosa, he
- ↑ For an account of Belalcazar, see my translation of Cieza de Leon, p. 110 (note).
