vince of Peru from Las Charcas to Quito, to
forward the King's revenues for shipment to Panama. Within less than a
fortnight all was in readiness. The Armada, carrying a considerable
treasure, sailed from Callao and, touching at Payta, was joined by the
Navio del Oro (golden ship), which carried the gold from the province of
Quito and adjacent districts. While the galleons were approaching Porto
Bello the South Sea fleet arrived before Panama, and the merchants of
Chili and Peru began to transfer their merchandise on mules across the
high back of the isthmus.[18]

Then began the famous fair of Porto Bello.[19] The town, whose permanent
population was very small and composed mostly of negroes and mulattos,
was suddenly called upon to accommodate an enormous crowd of merchants,
soldiers and seamen. Food and shelter were to be had only at
extraordinary prices. When Thomas Gage was in Porto Bello in 1637 he was
compelled to pay 120 crowns for a very small, meanly-furnished room for
a fortnight. Merchants gave as much as 1000 crowns for a moderate-sized
shop in which to sell their commodities. Owing to overcrowding, bad
sanitation, and an extremely unhealthy climate, the place became an open
grave, ready to swallow all who resorted there. In 1637, during the
fifteen days that the galleons remained at Porto Bello, 500 men died of
sickness. Meanwhile, day by day, the mule-trains from Panama were
winding their way into the town. Gage in one day counted 200 mules laden
with wedges of silver, which were unloaded in the market-place and
permitted to lie about like heaps of stones in the streets, without
causing any fear or suspicion of being lost.[20] While the treasure of
the King of Spain was being transferred to the galleons in the harbour,
the merchants were making their trade. There was little liberty,
however, in commercial transactions, for the prices were fixed and
published beforehand, and when negotiations began exchange was purely
mechanical. The fair, which was supposed to be open for forty days, was,
in later times, generally completed in ten or twelve. At the beginning
of the eighteenth century the volume of business transacted was
estimated to amount to thirty or forty million pounds sterling.[21]

In view of the prevailing east wind in these regions, and the maze of
reefs, cays and shoals extending far out to sea from the Mosquito Coast,
the galleons, in making their course from Porto Bello to Havana, first
sailed