Explore "A First Sight of the Sea" by Frank R. Stockton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
If you have ever seen the ocean, you will understand what a grand thing it is to look for the first time upon its mighty waters, stretching away into the distance, and losing themselves in the clouds and sky. We know it is thousands of miles over to the other shore, but for all that we have a pretty good idea of that shore. We know its name, and have read about the people who live there.
But when, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, Vasco Nunez de Balboa stood upon the shore of the Pacific, and gazed over its boundless waters, the sight to him was both grand and mysterious. He saw that a vast sea lay beneath and before him -- but that was all he knew. Europeans had not visited it before, and the Indians, who had acted as his guides, knew but little about it. If he had desired to sail across those vast blue waters, Balboa would have had no idea upon what shores he would land or what wonderful countries and continents he would discover.