The Panama Isthmus was to Drake a vantage point, from which he viewed a promised land. After his attack on Nombre de Dios, a fugitive slave--a _cimarron_--conducted him and his followers to the summit of the isthmian hills. There lay before Drake the gleaming waters of the vast Pacific, as they had lain before Balboa. Drake fell on his knees. He prayed to sail those waters in an English ship. It was partly his destined work of "Singeing the King of Spain's beard." Back to England he went. The commission which Queen Elizabeth had given him to sail the Spanish Main had been honourably accomplished, even if the Spaniards at Cartagena and elsewhere did not so regard it. The queen must extend the charter to the Pacific. She did it, and Drake's exploits there and return home westwards are among the most thrilling annals of those "spacious days." Hear a tale now of Morgan the buccaneer, and Panama, and the dreadful things that befel that city. Young Morgan, born in Wales, kidnapped for a sailor in the streets of Bristol, also sailed the Spanish Main. Drake was a gentleman; Morgan seems to have been a bloody-minded corsair. At thirty-three years of age he sacked Porto Bello, committing frightful cruelties and excesses. But at Panama he surpassed himself. Yet praise must be given him for his bravery and resource. Ascending the Chagres River from Colon in boats, with a dreadful struggle over the hills, Morgan and his men, like Drake and Balboa, beheld the Pacific beyond. Whether he prayed for success or not history does not record. But there lay the rich city of Panama. It must be taken. It was defended by hundreds of Spaniards. But Morgan had taken Chagres and killed three hundred Spaniards there, and double his own number at Panama did not daunt him. Down they went to Panama. The enterprise was a tough one, but the result may be seen to-day in the massive ruins of the old city, a sight for sightseers, buried in the jungle some miles from the present city. For within a few hours the buccaneers attacked and slew its defenders and burned the place with fire, leaving but an empty shell, having robbed it of its treasure, excepting that which an escaping plate ship bore safely from his clutches. It has been said in extenuation of Morgan's doings here that the place was in reality burned by the Indians and the slaves, who were animated by the most bitter hatred of the Spaniards, and were quite ready to assist the Englishmen. The isthmus resounded for more than a century with the tramp of mules bearing gold and silver from the Pacific plate ships; the treasures of Peru, of Bolivia, the pearls of Nicoya and the isles, the gold and silver stripped from the Inca temples, the silver bars from Potosi, the silver mountain of the Andes. Along that dreadful trail the mule-trains groaned their way. It was a rough road for horsemen.