granary. Many of them, in their starving condition, devoured this grain
raw. Others roasted it wrapped in banana leaves. The supply was soon
exhausted, but for a time it gave new vigor to the famished men.

On the following day all the food they found was a sack of bread and some
cats and dogs, all of which were greedily devoured; and farther on, at the
town of Cruces, the head of navigation on the Chagres, a number of vessels
of wine were discovered. This they hastily drank, with the result that all
the drinkers fell ill and fancied they were poisoned. Their illness,
however, was merely the natural effect of hasty drinking in their
exhausted state, and soon left them.

At this point a number of the men were sent back with the boats to where
the ships had been left, the force that continued the march amounting to
eleven hundred. With these the journey proceeded, the principal adventure
being an attack by a large body of Indians, who opposed the invaders with
much valor, only retreating when their chief was killed.

About noon of the ninth day a steep hill was ascended, from whose summit,
to their delight, the buccaneers beheld the distant Pacific. But what gave
them much livelier joy was to see, in a valley below them, a great herd of
bulls, cows, horses, and asses, under the care of some Spaniards, who took
to flight the moment they saw the formidable force of invaders. Only an
utter lack of judgment, or the wildness of panic in the Spaniards, could
have induced them to leave this prey to their nearly starved foes. It was
an oversight which was to prove fatal to them. Then was the time to attack
instead of to feed their ruthless enemies.

The freebooters, faint with famine and fatigue, gained new strength at the
sight of the welcome herd of food animals. They rushed hastily down and
killed a large number of them, devouring the raw flesh with such a fury of
hunger that the blood ran in streams from their lips. What could not be
eaten was taken away to serve for a future supply. As yet Panama had not
been seen, but soon, from a hill-top, they discerned its distant towers.
The vision was hailed with the blare of trumpets and shouts of "victory!"
and the buccaneers encamped on the spot, resolved to attack the city the
next day.

The Spaniards, meanwhile, were not at rest. A troop of fifty horsemen was
sent to reconnoitre, and a second detachment occupied the passes, to
prevent the escape of the enemy in case of defeat