510. It received its name from a remark the
founder made on his first setting foot ashore: "Here we will found a
settlement in the name of God." It was never a large place, for the bay
lay exposed to the prevalent winds, being open to the north and
north-east. There was fair holding ground; but the bay was shallow and
full of rocks, and a northerly gale always raised such a sea that a ship
was hardly safe with six anchors out. The district was very unhealthy,
and the water found there was bad and in little quantity. There was,
however, a spring of good water on an island at the mouth of the
harbour. To the shoreward there were wooded hills, with marshy ground on
their lower slopes, feeding a little river emptying to the north of the
town. The houses came right down to the sea, and the trees right down to
the houses, so that "tigers [_i.e._ jaguars] often came into the town,"
to carry away dogs, fowls, and children. Few ships lay there without
burying a third of their hands; for the fever raged there, as it rages
in some of the Brazilian ports at the present time. The place was also
supposed to favour the spread of leprosy. The road to Panama entered the
town at the south-east; and there was a gate at this point, though the
town was never walled about. The city seems to have been built about a
great central square, with straight streets crossing at right angles.
Like Cartagena and Porto Bello, it was as dull as a city of the dead
until the galleons came thither from Cartagena to take on board "the
chests of gold and silver" received from the Governor of Panama and the
golden lands to the south. When the galleons anchored, the merchants
went ashore with their goods, and pitched sailcloth booths for them in
the central square, and held a gallant fair till they were sold--most of
the bartering being done by torchlight, in the cool of the night. Panama
was distant some fifty-five miles; and the road thither was extremely
bad, owing to the frequent heavy rains and the consequent flooding of
the trackway. At the time of Drake's raid, there were in all some sixty
wooden houses in the place, inhabited in the _tiempo muerto_, or dead
time, by about thirty people. "The rest," we read, "doe goe to Panama
after the fleet is gone." Those who stayed must have had a weary life of
it, for there could have been nothing for them to do save to go
a-fishing. The fever never left the place, and there was always the
dread of the Cimmeroons. Out