At daybreak Morgan ordered them to march "while the fresh air of the morning lasted"; for they were now in open country, on the green savannah, where they would have no treetops to screen them from the terrible sun. During their morning march they saw a troop of Spanish horse, armed with spears, watching the advance at a safe distance, and retiring as the pirates drew nearer. Shortly after this they topped a steep rise, and lo! the smoke of Panama, and the blue Pacific, with her sky-line trembling gently, and a ship under sail, with five boats, going towards some emerald specks of islands. The clouds were being blown across the sky. The sun was glorious over all that glorious picture, over all the pasture, so green and fresh from the rain. There were the snowy Andes in the distance, their peaks sharply notched on the clear sky. Directly below them, in all her beauty, was the royal city of Panama, only hidden from sight by a roll of green savannah. Just at the foot of the rise, in a wealth of fat pasture, were numbers of grazing cattle, horses, and asses--the droves of the citizens. The pirates crept down, and shot a number of these, "chiefly asses," which they promptly flayed, while some of their number gathered firewood. As soon as the fires were lit the meat was blackened in the flame, and then greedily swallowed in "convenient pieces or gobbets." "They more resembled cannibals than Europeans at this banquet," for the blood ran down the beards of many, so hungry were they for meat after the long agony of the march. What they could not eat they packed in their satchels. After a long midday rest they fell in again for the march, sending fifty men ahead to take prisoners "if possibly they could," for in all the nine days' tramp they had taken no one to give them information of the Spaniards' strength. Towards sunset they saw a troop of Spaniards spying on them, who hallooed at them, but at such a distance that they could not distinguish what was said. As the sun set "they came the first time within sight of the highest steeple of Panama."