Panama and the Canal in Picture and Prose

by Willis J. Abbot

The Spanish plan of battle savored largely of the theatrical. As the circus opens its performance with a grand entry of mounted performers, so the Spaniards ushered in the fight with a grand charge of cavalry. Admirable cavalrymen, they are said to have been, well mounted on trained cattle ponies and in all about 400 strong. Unhappily there appeared to have been no preliminary study of the English position, and a morass impenetrable by horsemen guarded its flanks. Only in front could the English line be reached and there the trained marksmen of the buccaneers, or cattle hunters, dropping on one knee, picked off the Spanish horsemen before they could close. The cavalry hardly reached the buccaneers’ first line though they charged twice with the utmost gallantry. An infantry charge that followed was beaten back with like slaughter. Seeing this the Spaniards are said to have resorted to a device as ridiculous in its outcome as it was in its conception. This was the driving against the buccaneers’ lines of a herd of a thousand bulls driven by fifty vaqueros. With great shouting and cracking of whips the herd was urged against the invaders. But the Central American bull as a ferocious beast is a disappointment—which perhaps explains the placidity with which Panama agreed to the request of the United States that it abolish bull fighting. If not vicious, however, they can be obstinate, and about as many bulls charged into the already shattered Spanish lines as upon the buccaneers. Morgan showed quick wit by ordering his men to let the bulls pass, but kill the vaqueros, and so, with the exception of a few bovines who lingered to rend the British flags, being enraged by their scarlet hue, the greater part of the herd trotted off to a quieter part of the savanna where they might placidly graze while the foolish men who had sought to drag them into the quarrel went on killing each other. This virtually ended the Spanish defense. After another charge the defenders of the city gave up any effort at organized opposition to the invaders and fled into the city, or to the shelter of the neighboring jungle. The English, exhausted with their long march and the shock of the battle, did not immediately follow up their advantage but rested for some hours. There is much conflict of authority on the question of loss in the battle. Morgan claimed to have lost only five men killed and ten wounded, and fixed the Spanish loss at about 400. Esquemeling says there were 600 Spaniards dead upon the field beside the wounded and prisoners. Whatever the comparative losses the Spanish defeat was decisive, nor did the survivors regain sufficient morale to offer any effective opposition to the buccaneers as they moved upon the city.

IN THE CRYPT OF OLD SAN AUGUSTINE

A WOMAN OF OLD PANAMA

One would think that the final defense would have been dogged and desperate in the extreme. The Spaniards knew what to expect in the way of murder, rapine, plunder and enslavement. They had the story of Porto Bello fresh in their memories, and, for that matter, they had enjoyed such fruits of victory themselves too often to hug the delusion that these victors would forego them. Nor even after the decisive thrashing they had sustained on the plain need they have despaired. On three sides Panama was defended by the sea and its inlets, and on the fourth could only be approached along a single road and over an arched bridge, the sturdy masonry of which still stands, and forms a favorite background for photographic groups of tourists. Though not walled, as was its successor, Old Panama had a great plenty of heavy masonry buildings, the ruins of which show them to have been constructed with a view to defense. The churches, the eight convents, the official buildings and many of the private residences were built of stone with heavy barred windows and, if stoutly defended in conjunction with barricades in the streets, might well have balked the invaders of their prey. But the Spanish spirit seemed crushed by the defeat of their choice cavalry on the savanna, and three hours sufficed for the English to make themselves masters of the whole city. During the fighting flames broke out in several quarters of the town, some think set purposely by the assailants, which was denied by Morgan. However caused, the fires raged for days, were still smoldering when the buccaneers left three weeks later, and consumed nearly all except the masonry edifices in the city.

Imagination balks at the effort to conceive the wretched plight of the 30,000 people of this city, subjected for three weeks to the cruelty, cupidity and lust of the “experienced and ancient pyrates” and the cutthroats of all nationalities that made up the command of Morgan. Little more than a thousand of the raiders could have remained alive, but all the fighting men of the city were slain, wounded or cowed into unmanly subjection. After the first riotous orgy of drunkenness and rapine—though indeed Morgan shrewdly strove to keep his men sober by spreading the report that all the wine had been poisoned—the business of looting was taken up seriously. First the churches and government houses had to be ransacked for precious ornaments and treasure, and herein the robbers met with their first serious disappointment, for on the news of their coming much of the plate had been put on ships and sent out to sea. A brig aground in the harbor was seized by Morgan and sent in pursuit, but the delights of the Island of Taboga, then as now a pleasure resort, proved superior even to the avariciousness of the Spaniards, and they lingered there over wine cups until the treasure ships had vanished. Rumors still linger that much of the treasure had been buried at Taboga, and that one richly freighted ship had been sunk some place nearby. But frequent treasure-hunting expeditions have come home empty handed.

WASH DAY AT TABOGA

After raking the government buildings from garret to vaults the pirates turned to the private houses. From ceremonial plate to the seamstress’s thimble; from the glittering necklace to the wedding ring, everything was raked together into the great common store of plunder. What was easily found was not enough. Wells were searched, floors torn up, walls ripped open and, after all other devices had been employed, prisoners were put to the torture to make them reveal the hiding places of their own and others’ valuables. Capt. Morgan led in this activity, as indeed he appears to have been the most villainous of all his crew in the mistreatment of women. After all that could be gathered by these devices had been taken the several thousand prisoners were informed that if they wanted to retain their lives and regain their liberty they must pay ransom, fixed in amount according to the standing in the community and the wealth of the captive. Of course the community was gone and the buccaneers had taken all of the wealth, but the luckless prisoner was expected to pay nevertheless and a surprising number of them did so. With all these expedients for the extraction of wealth from a subjugated town, the buccaneers were fain to be satisfied, and, weak from wounds and revelry, according to Esquemeling: