While Drake was employed in taking care of the sick men, the Symerons, who ranged the country for intelligence, brought him an account, that the Spanish fleet was arrived at Nombre de Dios; the truth of which was confirmed by a pinnace, which he sent out to make observations.

This, therefore, was the time for their journey, when the treasures of the American mines were to be transported from Panama over land to Nombre de Dios.  He, therefore, by the direction of the Symerons, furnished himself with all things necessary, and, on February 3, set out from port Diego.

Having lost, already, twenty-eight of his company, and being under the necessity of leaving some to guard his ship, he took with him only eighteen English, and thirty Symerons, who not only served as guides to show the way, but as purveyors to procure provisions.

They carried not only arrows for war, but for hunting and fowling; the heads of which are proportioned in size to the game which they are pursuing:  for oxen, stags, or wild boars, they have arrows or javelins, with heads weighing a pound and half, which they discharge near hand, and which scarcely ever fail of being mortal.  The second sort are about half as heavy as the other, and are generally shot from their bows; these are intended for smaller beasts.  With the third sort, of which the heads are an ounce in weight, they kill birds.  As this nation is in a state that does not set them above continual cares for the immediate necessaries of life, he that can temper iron best, is, among them, most esteemed; and, perhaps, it would be happy for every nation, if honours and applauses were as justly distributed, and he were most distinguished whose abilities were most useful to society.  How many chimerical titles to precedence, how many false pretences to respect, would this rule bring to the ground!

Every day, by sunrising, they began to march, and, having travelled till ten, rested near some river till twelve, then travelling again till four, they reposed all night in houses, which the Symerons had either left standing in their former marches, or very readily erected for them, by setting up three or four posts in the ground, and laying poles from one to another in form of a roof, which they thatched with palmetto boughs and plantain leaves.  In the valleys, where they were sheltered from the winds, they left three or four feet below open; but on the hills, where they were more exposed to the chill blasts of the night, they thatched them close to the ground, leaving only a door for entrance, and a vent in the middle of the room for the smoke of three fires, which they made in every house.