et to
work to drive in new palisadoes in the place of those burnt in the
attack. The huts were rethatched and the whole place reordered. There
were some Spanish ships in the port whose crews had been pressed into
the Spanish garrison at the time of the storm. They were comparatively
small, of the kind known as chatas, or chatten, a sort of coast boat of
slight draught, used for river work and for the conveyance of goods from
the Chagres to the cities on the Main. They had iron and brass guns
aboard them, which were hoisted out, and mounted in the fort. Captain
Morgan then picked a garrison of 500 buccaneers to hold the fort, under
a buccaneer named Norman. He placed 150 more in the ships in the
anchorage, and embarked the remainder in flat-bottomed boats for the
voyage up the Chagres.

It was the dry season, so that the river, at times so turbulent, was
dwindled to a tenth of its volume. In order that the hard work of
hauling boats over shallows might not be made still harder, Morgan gave
orders that the men should take but scanty stock of provisions. A few
maize cobs and a strip or two of charqui was all the travelling store in
the scrips his pilgrims carried. They hoped that they would find fresh
food in the Spanish strongholds, or ambuscades, which guarded the
passage over the isthmus.

[Illustration: THE ISTHMUS
SHOWING MORGAN'S LINE OF ADVANCE]

The company set sail from San Lorenzo on the morning of the 12th (one
says the 18th) of January 1671. They numbered in all 1200 men, packed
into thirty-two canoas and the five chatas they had taken in the port.
His guides went on ahead in one of the chatas, with her guns aboard her
and the matches lit, and one Robert Delander, a buccaneer captain, in
command. The first day's sailing against a gentle current was pleasant
enough. In spite of the heat and the overcrowding of the boats, they
made six leagues between dawn and sunset, and anchored at a place called
De los Bracos. Here a number of the pirates went ashore to sleep "and
stretch their limbs, they being almost crippled with lying too much
crowded in the boats." They also foraged up and down for food in the
plantations; but the Spaniards had fled with all their stores. It was
the first day of the journey over the isthmus, yet many of the men had
already come to an end of their provisions. "The greatest part of them"
ate nothing all day, nor enjoyed "any other refreshment" than a pipe of
tobacco. The next day, "