Panama and the Canal in Picture and Prose

by Willis J. Abbot

CAMINA REALE, OR ROYAL ROAD NEAR PORTO BELLO

The plan was simplicity itself and was defeated by an equally simple mischance. The drinks of the Isthmus which, as we have seen, the Spaniards commended mightily when they drank, were treacherous in their workings upon the human mind—a quality which has not passed away with the buccaneers and cimmaroons, but still persists. One of Drake’s jolly cutthroats, being over fortified with native rum for his nocturnal vigil, heard the tinkle of mule bells and rose to his feet. The leading muleteer turned his animal and fled, crying to the saints to protect him from the sheeted specter in the path. The captain in charge of the caravan was dubious about ghosts, but, there being a number of mules loaded with grain at hand, concluded to send them on to see if there were anything about the ghosts which a proper prayer to the saint of the day would exorcise. So the Englishmen again heard the tinkling mule bells, waited this time in low breathing silence to let the rich prize pass, then with shouts of triumph dashed from the jungle, cut down or shot the luckless muleteers, and swarmed about the caravan eager to cut the bags and get at the booty—and were rewarded with sundry bushels of grain intended to feed the crowds at Nombre de Dios.

A LADY OF THE SAVANNA

The disaster was irreparable. The true treasure train at the first uproar had fled back to the walls of Panama. Nothing was left to Drake and his men but to plod back empty handed to Cruces, where they had left their boats. Of course they raided the town before leaving but the season was off and the warehouses barren. Back they went to the coast and relieved their feelings by ransacking a few coastwise towns and hurling taunts at the governor of Cartagena. Shortly thereafter they renewed their enterprise and did this time capture the treasure train, getting perhaps $100,000 worth of plunder, with but little loss. Some French pirates under Captain Tetu, who had joined in the adventure, suffered more severely and their captain, wounded and abandoned in the forest, was put to death by the Spaniards with certain of their favorite methods of torture.

NATIVE CHILDREN, PANAMA PROVINCE

After a time in England Drake returned to the Caribbean with a considerable naval force, harried the coast, burned and sacked some towns, including Nombre de Dios, and obtained heavy ransom from others. He put into the harbor of Porto Bello, with the intent of taking it also, but while hesitating before the formidable fortresses of the place was struck down by death. His body, encased in lead, was sunk in the bay near perhaps to the ancient ships which our dredges have brought to light. The English long revered him as a great sailor and commander, which he was, though a reckless adventurer. His most permanent influence on the history of the Isthmus was his demonstration that Nombre de Dios was incapable of defense, and its consequent disappearance from the map.

Such greatness as had pertained to Nombre de Dios was soon assumed by Porto Bello, which soon grew far beyond the size attained by its predecessor. It became indeed a substantially built town, and its fortresses on the towering heights on either side of the beautiful bay seemed fit to repel any invader—notwithstanding which the town was repeatedly taken by the English. Even today the ruins of town and forts are impressive, more so than any ruins readily accessible on the continent, though to see them at their best you must be there when the jungle has been newly cut away, else all is lost in a canopy of green. Across the bay from the town, about a mile and a half, stand still the remnants of the “Iron Castle” on a towering bluff, Castle Gloria and Fort Geronimo. These defensive works were built of stone, cut from reefs under the water found all along the coast. Almost as light as pumice stone and soft and easily worked when first cut, this stone hardens on exposure so that it will stop a ball without splitting or chipping. When Admiral Vernon, of the British navy, had captured the town in 1739, he tried to demolish the fort and found trouble enough. “The walls of the lower battery,” he recorded, “consisting of 22 guns, were nine foot thick and of a hard stone cemented with such fine mortar that it was a long work to make any impression in it, to come to mine at all, so that the blowing up took sixteen or eighteen days.” Even today the relics of the Iron Fort present an air of bygone power and the rusty cannon still lying by the embrasures bring back vividly the days of the buccaneers.

Inheriting the greatness and prosperity of Nombre de Dios, Porto Bello inherited also its unpleasant prominence as a target for the sea rover. French filibusters and various buccaneers raided it at their fancy, while the black Cimmaroons of the mainland lay in wait for caravans entering or leaving its gates. To describe, or even to enumerate, all the raids upon the town would be wearisome to the reader. Most savage, however, of the pests that attacked the place was Sir Henry Morgan, the Welsh buccaneer, whose exploits are so fully and admiringly related by Esquemeling that we may follow his narrative, both of the sack of Porto Bello, and the later destruction of the Castle of San Lorenzo.