174 DOTTINGS ON THE ROADSIDE. [Chap. XI.—B. S. 
boldest character. With a body of seven hundred 
men he took the town of Puerto del Principe in Cuba. 
His next undertaking was directed against Portobelo. 
He had only four hundred and sixty men; but his 
advance was so rapid, that he came on the town by 
surprise and found it unprepared. In storming the 
castle he compelled his prisoners, chiefly religious of 
both sexes, to apply the scaling-ladders to the walls. 
When the garrison surrendered, he shut them up 
in the castle, and, setting fire to the magazine, de¬ 
stroyed the fort and its defenders together. He after¬ 
wards sacked Maracaibo and the neighbouring town 
of Gibraltar; and, emboldened by success, he con¬ 
sulted with his officers which of the three places, Car- 
thagena, Yeracruz, or Panama, he should next attack. 
Panama was believed to be the richest, and on that 
city the lot fell. 
The opinion of the buccaneers was that it would be 
most expeditious to invade the Isthmus by ascending 
the river Chagres as far as Cruces, and thence pro¬ 
ceed by land to Panama. Yet even this plan, the 
most feasible that could be devised, was attended with 
difficulties. The mouth of the river was guarded by 
the castle of San Lorenzo, which stood on a high 
rock, the top of which had been divided by a ditch 
into two parts,—palisades, filled with earth, encircled 
the building; a drawbridge formed its only entrance; 
towards the land it had four bastions, towards the sea 
two; the southern side was rendered inaccessible by 
the steepness of the rock; the northern by the bed of 
the river; while the foot, protected by a battery, com- 
