Panama and the Canal in Picture and Prose

by Willis J. Abbot

Such was the town which Morgan raided. Because of the colossal disaster which befell it, a disaster without parallel since the days when the Goths and Vandals swept down over the pleasant plains of Italy, there has been a tendency to magnify the size, wealth and refinement of Panama at the time of its fall. But studied calmly, with no desire to exaggerate the qualities which made it so rich a prize, Panama may fairly be described as a city of about 30,000 people, with massive churches, convents and official buildings of masonry, with many stately houses of the type esteemed luxurious in the tropics, and peopled largely by pure-blooded Spaniards of the better type. It was too early a date for the amalgamation of races now so much in evidence on the Isthmus to have proceeded far, and the ancient records show that the Spaniards of substance in the town had mainly come thither from Seville.

Morgan started up the river from San Lorenzo, where he left 500 men to serve as a garrison, on the 18th of January, 1761. His force comprised 1200 men in five boats with artillery and thirty-two canoes. The raiders planned to live on the country and hence took small store of provisions—an error which nearly wrecked the expedition. The first day they covered about eighteen miles. This was by nature made the easiest part of their journey, for this stretch of the Chagres is deep, with but a slow current and much of the way they may have been aided by the incoming tide. If the chronicler who fixed their distance covered at eighteen miles was correct, they must have pitched their camp the first night not very far from where Gatun Dam now rears its mighty bulk across the valley and makes of the Chagres a broad lake. Their troubles however came with their first nightfall. Leaving their boats and scattering about the surrounding country they found that the Spaniards had raked it clean of provisions of every sort. The Indian villages were either smoking ruins or clusters of empty huts, the cattle ranches were bare of cattle, and even the banana and yam patches were stripped. By noon on the second day, according to Esquemeling, “they were compelled to leave their boats and canoes by reason the river was very dry for want of rain, and the many trees that were fallen into it.” Henceforth at that point the Chagres River transformed into a lake will be in the neighborhood of forty feet deep the year round. Apparently, however, the abandonment of the boats was only partial, the main body of troops marching through the woods while others waded, pushing the boats over the shallows as is done today. The advance was continued in this fashion, partly by water and partly through the jungle, all with the greatest difficulty, at a snail’s pace and on stomachs daily growing emptier. Twice they came upon signs that the Spaniards had prepared an ambuscade for them, but becoming faint-hearted had fled. Thereat the buccaneers grumbled mightily. They were better at fighting than at chopping paths through the jungle, and were so hungry that if they had slain a few Spaniards they would quite probably have cooked and eaten them. For six days they struggled with the jungle without finding any food whatsoever, then they discovered a granary stored with maize which they ate exultingly. Leather scraps became a much prized article of food, just as in a very different climate Greely’s men in the Arctic circle kept alive on shreds cut from their sealskin boots. Of leather as an article of diet Esquemeling writes:

WAYSIDE SHRINE ON THE SAVANNA ROAD

“Here again he was happy, that had reserved since noon any small piece of leather whereof to make his supper, drinking after it a good draught of water for his greatest comfort. Some persons, who never were out of their mothers’ kitchens, may ask how these pirates could eat, swallow and digest those pieces of leather, so hard and dry. To whom I only answer: That could they once experiment what hunger, or rather famine, is, they would certainly find the manner, by their own necessity, as the pirates did. For these first took the leather and sliced it in pieces. Then did they beat it between two stones, and rub it, often dipping it in the water of the river to render it by these means supple and tender. Lastly they scraped off the hair, and roasted or broiled it upon the fire. And, being thus cooked, they cut it into small morsels, and eat it, helping it down with frequent gulps of water, which by good fortune they had near at hand.”

Once only did they meet with any resistance; that was near Cruces where several hundred Indians ambushed them in the jungle, and while avoiding any direct combat, killed several with arrows. As the Indians fled they cried out in Spanish, “Ho, ye dogs! Go to the savanna; to the savanna,” from which, as from like warnings uttered by stragglers, the invaders concluded that battle was to be given them on the broad plain before the city.

It had taken six days for the expedition to reach Cruces—a trip which could readily be made today by train to Gamboa and thence by cayuca in five or six hours. Arrived there they prepared for the last stage of the journey, for there they finally left their boats and took up the Royal Road. Cruces is eight miles from Panama, and at the moment of Morgan’s descent upon it, was at the period of its greatest prosperity. Of its rise to greatness and its final disappearance under the rising waters of Gatun Lake I shall have more to say in the chapter concerning the Chagres River. The English found the frame houses already ablaze, and the larders swept clean, the Spaniards having followed their invariable custom of leaving no food for the invaders. Some wretched dogs and cats which hung about the deserted dwellings were killed and eaten, and in the storehouses a number of jars of wine were found, upon drinking which the buccaneers became deathly sick. They claimed it was poisoned, but more probably their stomachs, which had been struggling to digest leather scraps, were in no condition for the strong wines of the tropics.

From this point onward the invaders saw many of their enemies, but the Indians only offered active resistance, firing upon the advancing column from ambuscades, and at one or two made a determined stand. As the invaders were strung out in single file along a narrow road (Esquemeling complains that only ten or twelve men could walk in a file) it would have been easy to so impede their progress, and harass them with attacks from the bush, as to defeat their purpose wholly. For it is to be remembered that the English were almost starved, footsore and weary, dragging cannon along the rocky roads and bearing heavy equipment under the scorching sun. But the Spaniards contented themselves with shouting defiance and daring the invaders to meet them “a la savanna.” At the first danger of a fight they ran away.

Gaining on the ninth day of their march the top of a hill, still known as “El Cerro de los Buccaneeros” (The Hill of the Buccaneers), the pirates had the joy of seeing for the first time the Pacific, and thus knowing that Panama must be at hand. Upon the plain below they came upon a great body of cattle. Some historians say that the Spaniards had gathered a great herd of savage bulls to be driven upon the English lines in expectation of putting them to rout. The tradition seems doubtful, and to any one who has seen the mild and docile bulls of the Panama savannas it is merely ridiculous. However the cattle came there it was an ill chance for the Spaniards, for they furnished the hearty food necessary to put fight again into the famished bodies of the buccaneers. Esquemeling’s description of the banquet on the plains is hardly appetizing: