THE VOYAGE. 17 



from the French and English markets, beef, 

 pork, hard bread, cheese from the States, and 

 silks from China. 



The town of Colon, as everybody perhaps does 

 not know, stands on a small island called Man- 

 zanilla, cut off from the mainland by a nar- 

 row frith ; the entire island being about one 

 square mile in extent, composed of coral reefs, 

 and only raised a few feet above highwater- 

 level. It has no supply of fresh water but 

 what is obtained during the heavy rains ; this, 

 collected in immense iron tanks, that hold over 

 four thousand gallons, supplies the inhabitants 

 during the dry seasons. 



The most conspicuous objects one meets with 

 in this dismal place are flocks of turkey-buz- 

 zards (useful inspectors or nuisances, as they 

 do their own work of removal), pigs, naked dirty 

 little children in legions, blear-eyed mangy curs 

 that do nothing but growl and sleep ; together 

 with peddling darkies, bummers, and loafers 

 (I know no other names so expressive of this 

 species of idler as these Transatlantic ones), that 

 employ their time much in the same fashion as 

 the curs. A line of shops faces the sea, and at 

 a little distance is the ' mingillo,' or native mar- 



VOL. i. C 



