26 THEISTHMUS 



the feamen ere£l in the fquare a large tent with the fails, where they depo- 

 lite the cargoes. Thefe bales are drawn on fledges by the crews of the feveral 

 fhips, and the money paid for their labour is equally divided among them 

 ail. While the feamen and European traders are thus employed, the roads are 

 covered with droves of mules from Panama loaded with chefts of gold and fil- 

 ver, on account of the merchants of Peru ; but notwithftanding the hurry 

 and eonfuflon attending fuch prodigious crouds, no lofs or difturbance is ever 

 known. He who has feen Porto Velo at other times, folitary and poor, the 

 harbour without (hips, and every place wearing a melancholy afpedt, muft 

 be filled with aftonifhment at this fudden change, to fee every houfe crouded, 

 the fquares and ftreets full of bales and chefts of gold and filver, the harbour 

 of fliips and vefTels ; in lliort, a fpot at other times detefted for its deleterious 

 qualities, become the ftaple of riches for the old and new world, and the fcene 

 of one of the moft confiderable branches of commerce in the whole earth. 

 The fhips being unloaded, and the merchants of Peruy together with the 

 preHdent of Panama^ arrived, the fair comes under deliberation : and for 

 this purpofe the df^uties of the feveral parties repair on board the fhip be- 

 longing to the commodore of the galleons, where, in prefence of that com- 

 mander, and the prefldent of Panama^ the former as patron of the Europeans, 

 and the latter of the Peruvians, the prices of the feveral kinds of merchan- 

 dize are fettled, and the contradls are figned and made publick, that every 

 one may by them regulate the fale of his efFedls j and by this means all fraud 

 is precluded. The purchafes and fales as well as the exchanges of money, 

 are tranfadied by brokers from Spain and Peru. After this, every merchant 

 begins to difpofe of his own goods ; the Spanijh brokers embark their chefts 

 of money, and thofe of Peru fend away the goods they have purchafed, by 

 veflels up the river Chagre ; and thus the fair oi Porto Velo ends. After all, 

 it is no very confiderable place, exclufive of the trade carried on there during 

 the fair, for it is an open town, without either wall or fortification, all the 

 caftles and forts being intended to prote6l the harbour only. The air is as 

 unwholefome as that of Nombre de Diosy though there are not fo many 

 marfhes about it. The fea, when it ebbs, leaves a vaft quantity of black 



ftinking 



