This bay was the scene of one of the most remarkable naval battles of history. About ten years after Sir Henry Morgan’s sacking of Panama, another buccaneering expedition crossed the Isthmus. They struck the South Sea about opposite the Pearl Islands, camping on the bay of San Miguel. Here they collected enough Indian dugouts to carry their force of three hundred men. This Indian dugout is very much like the one made by our Indians in the southern states, an exceedingly unstable and easily capsized boat, as anyone knows who has ever attempted to navigate one. It is much better adapted to the smooth inland waters than to the rough open sea. The Pearl Islands are about forty miles south of Taboga, and Sharp, with the bulk of his men, undertook a foraging expedition to these islands. Hawkins with sixty men went northward along the coast toward the city of Panama. When they reached the island of Chepo, they heard that the Spanish fleet was anchored at Taboga. Chepo is easily visible from Taboga. The Spanish fleet consisted of the flagship, the _Santa Maria_, whose armament was twenty guns, and whose crew consisted of one hundred men. She was accompanied by two tenders of a couple of guns each, and crews of about thirty men. Hawkins, having accurate information of the armament and strength of the Spaniards, wished to be reënforced by the main body before going any further. After waiting several days, he thought it unwise to delay any longer, and determined to attack the Spaniards with the force he then had—sixty men. So he started his canoes paddling toward Taboga, some fifteen miles off. When the Spaniards discovered the buccaneering fleet approaching, they got under sail, expecting to have no difficulty in running down and sinking in the open sea the canoes of the buccaneers. Now the buccaneer, like our frontiersman, was dependent upon his gun for his food. Most of them had spent many years hunting wild cattle in Haiti, and the cured beef of cattle killed in this way was their principal support, and also their principal article of export and commerce, under the name of “buccan.” And this is how they got their generic title of buccaneer, a person who produces buccan. This wild life on the coast caused them to become equally expert in handling the dugout. Ring Rose commanded the leading division of six canoes, and described the fight most graphically. As the large Spanish vessel bore down upon the canoes of the buccaneers, under full sail, the latter found no difficulty in avoiding the big vessel by a few strokes of the paddles. As the great ship passed, the expert marksman in the canoe shot down the man at the wheel. This caused the big ship to yaw, lose headway and become stationary.