Peru, and how he could best attack it. It is said that Drake even lived for a while in disguise at Nombre de Dios, which had been resettled and made the Atlantic port in 1519, the same year as the founding of Old Panama. A roughly paved way, called the Royal Road, had been built between the two cities by the forced labor of captive Indians, and over this in the dry season long trains of pack-mules carried the gold and silver that was brought up by sea from Peru to Panama, across the Isthmus to Nombre de Dios. During the nine months of the rainy season the route was over a better road from Panama to the little town of Venta Cruz, now called Cruces, at the head of navigation on the Chagres River, and down this river in flat-boats and canoes to the sea. Once a year a fleet of galleons came from Spain, bringing European goods for the colonists and carrying away the treasure that had been accumulating since the last trip in the King's treasure-house at Nombre de Dios. The English called this the "Plate Fleet," from the Spanish word plata, or silver.
Nombre de Dios was a ragged little town mostly bamboo huts and board shacks, except for the King's treasure-house, which was "very strongly built of lime and stone." The place was so unhealthy that it was known as "The Grave of the Spaniard," and most of the citizens spent the rainy season at Panama or Cruces, and only returned to Nombre de Dios to do business when the plate-fleet was in.
Drake learned all these things after two years' prowling up and down the coast, so in 1572 he made a third voyage to the Isthmus to put this knowledge to practical
