The vast superiority of the Spaniards over the savages consisted in their armor, for protected as most of them were, by helmet, corselet, gauntlets, cuishes for the thighs and greaves for the legs--arrows, spears, and even war-clubs glanced harmlessly from their panoply of steel. They were often wounded, some of them killed outright, in their desperate encounters with the Indians; but the greater number of their casualties were the result of carelessness or neglect to properly encase themselves in defensive armor. Heavy and cumbersome as it was, few men could support the weight of metal it was necessary for the armed soldier to carry, and especially in the tropics was the burden found intolerable. So it happened frequently that the soldiers were surprised by the savages without their armor, which they may have doffed for temporary relief, or have delivered over to a slave to carry for them. At such times there was found to be little difference between savage and civilized soldier, and the former fought his opponent on nearly equal terms. Balboa may have taken with him a few falconets, or light field-pieces, but if so they were not used in conflict with the Indians on this enterprise, and the prestige which the white men had derived from their fire-arms was maintained by the arquebusiers, or musketeers, who frightened the Indians with the loud reports of their guns and volumes of sulphurous powder-smoke, but did little execution. The commander himself carried as his only weapon his invincible sword, the blade of which had been forged at Toledo, and brought to an exquisite temper in the waters of the Tagus. For defence he relied upon the armor in which he was encased, and the Saracenic shield, or buckler, which hung from his shoulders or was carried on his left arm, the right wielding the basket-hilted sword.