lOZ RAMBLES AFTER SPORT. 



where you can^fc help yourself, and you^ll get taken 

 in and done for as quickly in England as in Panama. 

 As for the town_, I rather liked it_, and I spent four or 

 five days rambling about very enjoyably. It must have 

 been a very important city once^ and an immensely 

 strong one for those days. Parts of the battlements 

 are standing still, admirably constructed, and of enor- 

 mous thickness ; even some of the watch -towers, with 

 their arrow-slits and harquebuss holes, are still remain- 

 ing almost as perfect as the day they were constructed. 

 I was fond of climbing into one of these, and then 

 I fell to thinking of Morgan and the Buccaneers, and 

 Drake and Nombre de Dios — of the huge galleons 

 that lay riding in the harbour waiting for their precious 

 freight, and the grim English sea-dogs prowling outside 

 like foxes round a hen-roost. They say that formerly 

 there were twenty monasteries in Panama, and I can 

 quite believe it. Some of them must have been 

 enormous; I spent half a day rambling about the 

 ruins of one — I think the Jesuit convent ; it was a 

 very handsome building once, but now it is almost 

 covered with plants and grass, and is a home for 

 countless gallinazos. As I was ferreting about I came 

 upon two underground cellars, the walls of which were, 

 I should say, at least five feet thick. The cells were 

 about ten feet square, and communicated with the 

 council-chamber . above by a movable roof. They were 

 the torture-chambers of the Inquisition. As I entered 

 them, three or four enormous bats fiitted out from their 

 dank and murky depths ; even under that blazing sun I 

 felt a cold shudder run through me, and I fancied I could 

 hear the shrieks of Oxenham and his five companions- 

 ringing in my ears as I fled from the guilty place. 



