0XENHAM. 
167 
Chap. XI.—B. S.] 
only seventy men. Hearing that since the attempt of 
Drake the treasure of the Spaniards was strongly 
guarded, he devised a scheme of action equally hold 
and original. Drawing the ship on shore, he covered 
her with houghs of trees, buried the guns, except two 
small pieces, and leaving one man as a watch, he 
marched with the rest into the interior. He soon 
arrived at a river flowing towards the south. Here 
he built a pinnace forty-five feet in length, and in her 
went down stream into the South Sea. Directing his 
course to the Pearl Islands, he captured a bark-con¬ 
taining 60,000 pesos of gold, and another from Lima 
with 100,000 pesos of silver. Hot satisfied yet, he 
proceeded to the islands where pearls are mostly 
found. Having collected a small quantity, he set off 
with his pinnace and his prizes to the mouth of the 
river which he had descended, and having dismissed 
the two captured vessels, began to ascend it. The 
delay of fifteen days on the Pearl Islands proved fatal 
to him. The very night that he left those islands the 
negroes set off for Panama to give information of what 
had happened. Pour barks, each with twenty-five 
armed men, besides negroes to row them, under the 
command of Juan de Ortega, were immediately sent 
in search of Oxenham. They fell in with the prizes 
which Oxenham had dismissed, and learnt from them 
the course which the pirates had taken. After row¬ 
ing several days against the stream, they arrived at 
the place where the treasure had been provisionally 
buried. This they hastened to carry off, well satisfied 
with their success. The English, returning to the 
