"We drank the chichi, which was most refreshing, and then were shown through what is left of the city. Here and there we found portions of paved streets, and it was only by following the lines of the streets that we were able to get around at all. Then there were two or three groves with very little undergrowth, which are thought to have been public squares; evidently they were not paved, but macadamized, and trodden so hard that the undergrowth has obtained no hold, though the trees have not been so easily restrained. Our guide showed us a bridge over a stream in the southern part of the city; it is called the Punta de Embarcadero, and is said to have been the point where boats came to discharge or receive their cargoes, and the stream it crosses is about thirty feet wide. It is full only at high tide, and is more an arm of the sea than a flowing river. The bridge is of hewn stone, and was constructed with a single arch.
"When we had finished our wanderings among the ruins we went back to the hut, drank some more chichi, then mounted our horses, and returned to modern Panama by the way we went. We were thoroughly tired, but we voted unanimously that the day was well spent."
The excursion to Old Panama naturally roused the curiosity of the youths to know something of Morgan the buccaneer, and his exploits. The readers of this narrative may have a similar interest in the events of two hundred years ago, and we will briefly give them.
The rumors of the abundance of gold in the New World, which reached Spain after the discovery of America by Columbus, led to the conquest and settlement of the islands of the West Indies, and also of the mainland for a considerable distance north and south of the Isthmus. Within the fifty years following the first voyage of Columbus many colonies were planted, forts were built, soldiers were brought out in great numbers, and many ships laden with treasure were sent home from the New World. The stories grew with each repetition, and in a little while it was currently believed that there was sufficient gold in the cities of Mexico, Peru, and the other countries of South and Central America to enrich the entire population of Europe.
SLAUGHTER OF PRIESTS BY BUCCANEERS.
The Spanish conquerors were relentlessly cruel, and subjected the rulers and people of the conquered countries to all manner of tortures, in order to obtain their gold. The rumors of the vast treasures of the New World passed beyond Spain and reached England and France. Piracy was fashionable in those times, and it was not long after the Spanish treasure-ships began to traverse the ocean that the waters of the Caribbean Sea were thronged with piratical craft. Their crews were known as buccaneers, freebooters, pirates, or sea-robbers, and one name is as good as another. We will follow the example of the old historians and call them buccaneers, out of respect for their descendants, who dislike the word "pirate."