haul their craft bodily over the obstructions, and, being separated from their comrades, they began to fear the Indians intended to cut them off and betray them to the Spaniards. On April 13th they reached the junction of the Tuira and Chukunaque Rivers, and in the afternoon of the same day they were overjoyed to see their missing companions who had come through the jungle in safety. Throughout this awful trip, Dampier had preserved his writings in his ‘joyente of bamboo,’ carefully jotting down, despite all difficulties, his observations of bird and animal life, notes on plants and descriptions of the Indians and their lives. But the difficulties of the crossing were practically over. In sixty-eight canoes the three hundred and twenty-seven men embarked with fifty Indians and swept swiftly down stream towards unsuspecting El Real. Camping a scant half mile above the town, the buccaneers prepared to attack at dawn and were awakened by the drums of the garrison. Priming their pistols and muskets, the buccaneers marched on the village, which was surrounded by a twelve-foot palisade, but the corsairs made short work of this and took the town with a loss of but two men wounded. Within were two hundred and sixty men, but the buccaneers soon learned, to their chagrin, why no resistance had been made. The gold, brought from the mines, and, which they had hoped to gain, had been taken the day before to Panama—a treasure of three hundred pounds of bullion—and there was utterly nothing worth taking in the place, which was a mere outpost of straw and palm-thatched huts. Unlike Morgan and his fellows, Sharp and his men treated the Dons humanely and even prevented their Indian allies from butchering the captives, a diversion they had started the moment they had entered the place. Disappointed at their ill luck, the buccaneers were more than ever determined to attack Panama, and, choosing Captain Coxon as commander, the buccaneers, deserted by all but three Indians, prepared for the most hazardous venture ever attempted. Cut off, as they were, from retreat by the long journey through the jungle, in a hostile country, without provisions or ships, yet these fearless, indomitable men were about to hurl themselves upon the most strongly fortified town on the Pacific, and attack a city of thousands with less than three hundred and twenty men, for twelve of their number had left and had gone back with the Indians after taking El Real.