in the bay there was the steaming water,
with a few rotten hulks waiting to be cast ashore, and two or three
rocky islets sticking up for the sea to break against. There was nothing
for an inhabitant to do except to fish, and nothing for him to see
except the water, with the dripping green trees beside it, and, perhaps,
an advice boat slipping past for Cartagena. Once a year an express came
to the bay from Panama to say that the Peru fleet had arrived at that
port. A letter was then sent to Cartagena or to San Juan d'Ulloa to
order the great galleons there anchored to come to collect the treasure,
and convey it into Spain. Before they dropped anchor in the Nombre de
Dios bay that city was filled to overflowing by soldiers and merchants
from Panama and the adjacent cities. Waggons of maize and cassava were
dragged into the streets, with numbers of fowls and hogs. Lodgings rose
in value, until a "middle chamber" could not be had for less than 1000
crowns. Desperate efforts were made to collect ballast for the supply
ships. Then the treasure trains from Panama began to arrive. Soldiers
marched in, escorting strings of mules carrying chests of gold and
silver, goatskins filled with bezoar stones, and bales of vicuna wool.
The town became musical with the bells of the mules' harness. Llamas
spat and hissed at the street corners. The Plaza became a scene of
gaiety and bustle. Folk arrived hourly by the muddy track from Panama.
Ships dropped anchor hourly, ringing their bells and firing salutes of
cannon. The grand fair then began, and the city would be populous and
stirring till the galleons had cleared the harbour on the voyage to
Spain. As soon as the fleet was gone the city emptied as rapidly as it
had filled. The merchants and merry-makers vanished back to Panama, and
the thirty odd wretched souls who stayed, began their dreary vigil until
the next year, when the galleons returned. In 1584, on the report of
Antonio Baptista, surveyor to the King of Spain, the trade was removed
to Porto Bello, a beautiful bay, discovered and named by Columbus, lying
some twenty miles farther to the west. It is a good harbour for all
winds, and offers every convenience for the careening of vessels. The
surveyor thought it in every way a superior harbour. "Neither," he
writes, "will so many die there as there daily doe in Nombre de
Dios." By the middle of the seventeenth century the ruins of the old
town were barely discernible; but all trace