ut small vessels continually
arrived from different parts of the coast, bringing goods and people,
to increase the hubbub. Here was a cargo of cinchona bark, there
another of cacao, and further on, by no means the least important, were
boat-loads of fresh vegetables and fruits to supply the great assembly.
This went on for forty days, after which the port was deserted and the
town resumed its poverty-stricken air. Then two persons in the streets
formed a crowd and half a dozen a mob. Solitude and silence reigned,
where so lately the bustle and noise had been rampant, and the _tiempo
muerto_ ruled until the following year.

It can be easily understood that the influence of the Porto Bello fair
was not only felt on the Gulf side, but on the shores of the Pacific as
well. Panama was largely dependent on the transport business, which
employed a great number of mules and slaves. Even in the absence of
buccaneers and pirates the road was always difficult, and sometimes even
dangerous. Heavy rains caused great floods, which delayed the traffic
for days, and left the tracks on the hills so slippery that even that
sure-footed animal the mule was often carried over a precipice. Then
there were cannibal Indians and Simarons always lurking in the forest,
ready to cut off stragglers. On the rumour of a buccaneer landing on the
coast--it might be a hundred miles away--the traffic was at once stopped
and the merchants began to "fear and sweat with a cold sweat," as Thomas
Gage very quaintly puts it.

The Spanish merchants no doubt deplored this state of things, and would
have been thankful for a good road instead of such an unutterably
worthless bridle track. There was, however, a side to the question
which probably influenced them--a way that would be easy for them would
also be more accessible to their enemies. Then, again, a good road
should have been the work of the Spanish Government rather than of the
settlers, but it was useless to expect anything from that direction.
Nevertheless, a good road and even a canal were mooted before the end of
the sixteenth century, thus anticipating the Panama railroad and canal
of our own time. But, although the advantages were patent, the
difficulties were so many as to be practically insurmountable, and
nothing whatever was done.

Towards the end of the seventeenth century came a sudden craze for
carrying out gigantic schemes of various kinds, practicable or
impracticable, useful or worthles