Early the next morning the admiral decided to leave the boats, for with his men so faint from hunger he thought it dangerous to tax them with a labour so severe as rowing. He left 160 men to protect the fleet, giving them the strictest orders to remain aboard. "No man," he commanded, "upon any pretext whatsoever, should dare to leave the boats and go ashore." The woods there were so dark and thick that a Spanish garrison might have lain within 100 yards of the fleet, and cut off any stragglers who landed. Having given his orders, he chose out a gang of macheteros, or men carrying the sharp sword-like machetes, to march ahead of the main body, to cut a trackway in the pulpy green stuff. They then set forward through the forest, over their ankles in swampy mud, up to their knees sometimes in rotting leaves, clambering over giant tree trunks, wading through stagnant brooks, staggering and slipping and swearing, faint with famine; a very desperate gang of cut-throats. As they marched, the things called garapatadas, or wood-ticks, of which some six sorts flourish there, dropped down upon them in scores, to add their burning bites to the venom of the mosquitoes. In a moist atmosphere of at least 90 deg., with heavy arms to carry, that march must have been terrible. Even the buccaneers, men hardened to the climate, could not endure it: they straggled back to the boats, and re-embarked. With a great deal of trouble the pirates dragged the boats "to a place farther up the river, called Cedro Bueno," where they halted for the stragglers, who drifted in during the evening. Here they went ashore to a wretched bivouac, to lie about the camp fires, with their belts drawn tight, chewing grass or aromatic leaves to allay their hunger. After Cedro Bueno the river narrowed, so that there was rather more water to float the canoas. The land, too, was less densely wooded, and easier for the men to march upon. On the fourth day "the greatest part of the Pirates marched by land, being led by one of the guides." Another guide led the rest of them in the canoas; two boats going ahead of the main fleet, one on each side of the river, to discover "the ambuscades of the Spaniards." The Spaniards had lined the river-banks at intervals with Indian spies, who were so "very dexterous" that they brought intelligence of the coming of the pirates "six hours at least before they came to any place." About noon on this day, as the boats neared Torna Cavallos, one of the guides cried out that he saw an ambuscade. "His voice caused infinite joy to all the Pirates," who made sure that the fastness would be well provisioned, and that at last they might "afford something to the ferment of their stomachs, which now was grown so sharp that it did gnaw their very bowels." The place was carried with a rush; but the redoubt was empty. The Spaniards had all fled away some hours before, when their spies had come in from down the river. There