From this point onward the invaders saw many of their enemies, but the Indians only offered active resistance, firing upon the advancing column from ambuscades, and at one or two made a determined stand. As the invaders were strung out in single file along a narrow road (Esquemeling complains that only ten or twelve men could walk in a file) it would have been easy to so impede their progress, and harass them with attacks from the bush, as to defeat their purpose wholly. For it is to be remembered that the English were almost starved, footsore and weary, dragging cannon along the rocky roads and bearing heavy equipment under the scorching sun. But the Spaniards contented themselves with shouting defiance and daring the invaders to meet them “a la savanna.” At the first danger of a fight they ran away. Gaining on the ninth day of their march the top of a hill, still known as “El Cerro de los Buccaneeros” (The Hill of the Buccaneers), the pirates had the joy of seeing for the first time the Pacific, and thus knowing that Panama must be at hand. Upon the plain below they came upon a great body of cattle. Some historians say that the Spaniards had gathered a great herd of savage bulls to be driven upon the English lines in expectation of putting them to rout. The tradition seems doubtful, and to any one who has seen the mild and docile bulls of the Panama savannas it is merely ridiculous. However the cattle came there it was an ill chance for the Spaniards, for they furnished the hearty food necessary to put fight again into the famished bodies of the buccaneers. Esquemeling’s description of the banquet on the plains is hardly appetizing: [Illustration: ARCHED BRIDGE AT OLD PANAMA, ALMOST 400 YEARS OLD There was no Horatius to hold this strait path against the invaders] “Here while some were employed in killing and flaying cows, horses, bulls and chiefly asses, of which there was greatest number, others busied themselves in kindling of fires and getting wood wherewith to roast them. Thus cutting the flesh of these animals into pieces, or gobbets, they threw them into the fire, and half carbonadoed or roasted, they devoured them with incredible haste and appetite. For such was their hunger that they more resembled cannibals than Europeans at this banquet, the blood many times running down from their beards to the middle of their bodies.” Gorged to their gullets, the cutthroats lay down to rest. Morgan had a sharp watch kept, and sounded at least one false alarm that the men might not sleep too securely. But the Spaniards on the eve of their crushing disaster left their foes to rest in peace except for a noisy cannonade which did no damage, and shouts of “Corros! Nos Veremos”--“Dogs! We will see you again,” which they certainly did, finding the meeting most unpleasant.