quently reach
the houses and enter those on that side of the town." The roadstead
afforded safe anchorage for the great ships coming up from Lima. Loading
and unloading was performed by launches, at high water, on days when the
surf was moderate. Small ships sailed close in at high tide, and beached
themselves.

To landward there were many gardens and farms, where the Spaniards had
"planted many trees from Spain"--such as oranges, lemons, and figs.
There were also plantain walks, and a great plenty of pines, guavas,
onions, lettuces, and "alligator pears." Over the savannah roamed herds
of fat cattle. On the seashore, "close to the houses of the city," were
"quantities of very small mussels." The presence of these mussel beds
determined the site of the town, "because the Spaniards felt themselves
safe from hunger on account of these mussels."

The town is all gone now, saving the cathedral tower, where the sweet
Spanish bells once chimed, and the little stone bridge, worn by so many
mules' hoofs. There is dense tropical forest over the site of it, though
the foundations of several houses may be traced, and two or three walls
still stand, with brilliant creepers covering up the carved work. It is
not an easy place to reach, for it is some six miles from new Panama,
and the way lies through such a tangle of creepers, over such swampy
ground, poisonous with so many snakes, that it is little visited. It can
be reached by sea on a fine day at high tide if the surf be not too
boisterous. To landward of the present Panama there is a fine hill,
called Mount Ancon. A little to the east of this there is a roll of high
land, now a fruitful market-garden, or farm of orchards. This high land,
some five or six miles from the ruins, is known as Buccaneers' Hill. It
was from the summit of this high land that the pirates first saw the
city steeple. Local tradition points out a few old Spanish guns of small
size, brass and iron, at the near-by village of El Moro, as having been
left by Morgan's men. At the island of Taboga, in the bay of Panama,
they point with pride to a cave, the haunt of squid and crabs, as the
hiding-place of Spanish treasure. In the blackness there, they say, are
the golden sacramental vessels and jewelled vestments of the great
church of St Anastasius. They were hidden there at the time of the raid,
so effectually that they could never be recovered. We can learn of no
other local tradition concerning the sack and