burning.

[Illustration: NEW PANAMA]

What old Panama was like we do not know, for we can trace no picture of
it. It was said to be the peer of Venice, "the painted city," at a time
when Venice was yet the "incomparable Queene." It could hardly have been
a second Venice, though its situation on that beautiful blue bay, with
the Andes snowy in the distance, and the islands, like great green gems,
to seaward, is lovely beyond words. It was filled with glorious houses,
carved and scented, and beautiful with costly things. The merchants
lived a languorous, luxurious life there, waited on by slaves, whom they
could burn or torture at their pleasure. It was "the greatest mart for
gold and silver in the whole world." There were pearl fisheries up and
down the bay, yielding the finest of pearls; and "golden Potosi"--the
tangible Eldorado, was not far off. The merchants of old Panama were,
perhaps, as stately fellows and as sumptuous in their ways of life as
any "on the Rialto." Their city is now a tangle of weeds and a heap of
sun-cracked limestone; their market-place is a swamp; their haven is a
stretch of surf-shaken mud, over which the pelicans go quarrelling for
the bodies of fish.

_Authorities._--Exquemeling's "History"; "The Bucaniers of America."
Don Guzman's Account, printed in the "Voyages and Adventures of
Captain Bartholomew Sharp." Cal. State Papers: West Indies and
Colonial Series. "Present State of Jamaica," 1683. "New History of
Jamaica," 1740.

For my account of Chagres I am indebted to friends long resident on
the isthmus, and to Dampier's and Wafer's Voyages.

CHAPTER XII

THE SACK OF PANAMA

The burning of the city--Buccaneer excesses--An abortive
mutiny--Home--Morgan's defection

"On the tenth day, betimes in the morning," while the black and white
monkeys were at their dawn song, or early screaming, the pirates fell in
for the march, with their red flags flying and the drums and trumpets
making a battle music. They set out gallantly towards the city by the
road they had followed from Venta Cruz. Before they came under fire, one
of the guides advised Morgan to attack from another point. The
Spaniards, he said, had placed their heavy guns in position along the
probable line of their advance. Every clump of trees near the trackway
would be filled with Spanish sharpshooters, while they might expect
earth-works or trenches nearer to the city. He advised Morg