The week after the fall of San Lorenzo, Morgan with his full force appeared at the mouth of the Chagres River. Before leaving St. Catherine he had dismantled the forts and burned all the houses for no particular reason except the seemingly instinctive desire of a buccaneer to destroy all that he could not steal. At once he began his preparations for the ascent of the Chagres to its head of navigation, where, disembarking, he would take the trail for Old Panama. Cruces, which was the point of debarkation, had grown to a considerable town at this time, being the point of transshipment of goods destined for Nombre de Dios, or Porto Bello, from the mules that had brought them thus far, to the boats that would float them down to tide water. The town, an inconsiderable hamlet of thatched huts, remained in 1913, but the rise of Gatun Lake was expected to practically blot it out of existence. Old Panama, for which Morgan was preparing the grim experience of a battle and a sack, had been founded in 1519 by that Pedrarias of whom we have told as the executioner of Balboa. It had grown rapidly, built up by the trade resulting from the invasion of Peru. At the time of Morgan’s raid Esquemeling writes of the city: [Illustration: NEAR A CONVENT AT OLD PANAMA] “There belonged to this city (which is also the head of a bishopric) eight monasteries, whereof seven were for men and one for women; two stately churches and one hospital. The churches and monasteries were all richly adorned with altar-pieces and paintings, huge quantity of gold and silver, with other precious things.... Besides which ornaments, here were to be seen two thousand houses of magnificent and prodigious building, being all of the greatest part inhabited by merchants of that country, who are vastly rich. For the rest of the inhabitants of lesser quality and tradesmen, this city contained five thousand houses more. Here were also great numbers of stables, which served for the horses and mules, that carry all the plate, belonging as well unto the King of Spain as to private men, towards the coast of the North Sea. The neighboring fields belonging to this city are all cultivated and fertile plantations, and pleasant gardens, which afford delicious prospects unto the inhabitants the whole year long.” Correal fixes the number of private houses as between seven and eight thousand. The pious Thomas Gage whom we have seen haggling for rooms at Porto Bello visited Panama about 1538 and even then credits it with five thousand inhabitants, and at least eight cloisters of nuns and friars. Unfortunately the good evangelist found that “the Spaniards are in this city much given to sinne, looseness and venery,” for which reason, or perhaps because he “feared much the heats,” he made haste to leave the town and left us none of those graphic descriptions of which his pen was capable. [Illustration: CASA REALE OR KING’S HOUSE