After seeing the display of gold ornaments I could well understand how Balboa collected such large quantities of gold as he describes, in his expeditions through the country. I estimate that the women I saw on this occasion averaged in their rings and bracelets ten or fifteen ounces of gold apiece. The conquistadors, no doubt, when they entered a town seized all this gold.
The Indians, as I have said, received us very cordially, and brought to us all their sick, and apparently wanted us to give some medicine to everyone in the village. This we cheerfully did, giving them the best advice we could, but when evening came, they politely notified us of their national custom with regard to white men spending a night on shore. We took the hint and returned aboard our steamer.
This disease from which they were suffering we found to be not yellow fever, but pneumonia. While ashore, we had noticed a Jamaican negro paddling around in a dugout. Upon inquiry, we were told that he was our professional rival prescribing various patent medicines for the Indians. A short time after our return to Colon I was told that the custom among the San Blas Indians was to execute the doctor whenever his patient died, and that our unfortunate rival, the Jamaican negro, had been executed for this cause a few days after we left. We had prescribed for one or two patients in the last stages of consumption who evidently had not many days to live. We have, therefore, been very chary about returning to the San Blas country, and strongly suspect that we are marked in the national archives for execution under the San Blas law for the practice of medicine.
The San Blas Indian was very independent in all his ideas, and considered his government as the political equal of the Canal Government, the United States, or any other government.
In looking about for a place in which to get sand to make concrete for the Gatun locks, Colonel Sibert, with a party of engineers, visited this same Chief. They found here what they considered suitable sand, and tried to purchase from the old Chief the right to use it. He was, however, very short with them; told them that the San Blas Indians had need of all the sand the Almighty had given them and hinted very broadly that it would be healthy for Colonel Sibert and his party to return to their boats and leave the country.
CHAPTER XIII
NOMBRE DE DIOS
Another sanitary district had to be established about twenty miles east of Porto Bello, at Nombre de Dios. Here we had a force of some two hundred men who dredged the sand that was used in making concrete for the locks at Gatun. The conditions were very much the same as at Porto Bello. There was a small native town of not more than one hundred people, on the old site of Nombre de Dios, and we found that to protect our own force we had to take charge of these natives, just as we did at Porto Bello.
Nombre de Dios has even a more romantic history than Porto Bello, and the name of Nombre de Dios is even better known in the wild history of the Spanish Main than is that of Porto Bello. It was founded about 1520, soon after the settlement of old Panama, and became the northern terminus of the paved royal highway leading from Panama. Afterwards, when Porto Bello was built, the highway forked about thirty miles south of Nombre de Dios, one branch leading to Porto Bello, and the other to Nombre de Dios.
The roadstead at Nombre de Dios was entirely open and exposed to the full force of the north wind, locally known as the “norther,” so troublesome along this coast during the winter months. It was so exposed that it was difficult for the Spaniards to fortify it. The fabulous amount of treasure which the Spaniards were bringing up from Peru rapidly became known throughout the world. The Spaniards, during their earlier colonial period, collected their treasure from time to time during the year, in preparation of the sailing of the fleet. For this reason, Nombre de Dios was constantly being threatened by adventurers of all nationalities, who frequented the seas washing the shores of the Spanish Main.
Drake, in his expedition of 1572, made a most romantic attack upon Nombre de Dios. With one hundred men in small boats he attacked the town and took the garrison entirely by surprise. They were driven in every direction and many captured. The Governor, with a handful of men, defended the palace where the gold and more valuable treasures were stored, with desperate valor, but the town and all other public buildings were in the hands of the English, and there seemed very little chance for the Governor and his few brave followers. The silver bullion, the accumulations of a year from the countries tributary to Spain in this part of the world, was in one of the buildings already in the hands of the English. Drake describes it as being piled in bars of solid silver, and states that the pile was some eighty feet long, twenty feet broad and ten feet high. The old Governor and his companions were still bravely holding the palace, and Drake led a charge in person. While they were battering in the main gate, Drake received a bullet wound in the head and fell to the ground unconscious. His men became demoralized, thinking that he had been killed, and though they had the prize entirely within their grasp, they fled to their boats, carrying with them the insensible form of Drake, and left to the defeated Spaniards the treasure which the English had gone through so much suffering and privation to possess.