418 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



entire. This feeding habit accounts for their constant presence with the 

 schools of Myctophum. 



Noon position: Lat. 6° 10' N: Long. 81° 33' W. 



June 20th. Caught a two-foot Coryphaena on spoon from boom- 

 walk while ship was going at full speed. 



Arrived Balboa late at night, to be met by customs launch down the 

 harbor and boarded by new recruits. 



Noon position: Lat. 7° 52' N: Long. 79° 43' W. 



June 21st to 26th. Ship undergoing necessary overhauling for con- 

 denser and so on, and re-coaling. OflScial calls and dinners, and a day's 

 excursion to Taboga Island, where we swam, walked, ate and tried the 

 diving helmet but found the water so murky compared to the places 

 we had been going down that it was not much use. 



Sailed early on the morning of the 26th, but anchored in the Bay 

 to wait for a delinquent fireman. Firemen always seem to exert a 

 maleficent influence on our sailing days. At last got under way for 

 Puerto Bello, entering the harbor and anchoring about 2:30 p. m. 



Most interesting place, the ruins of the forts, that have been stormed 

 so many times, in a surprisingly good state of preservation, with battle- 

 ments, sentry-boxes and belfries, sloping ramps by which to drag the 

 cannon to the walls, dungeons and barracks, and many cannon, all 

 spiked. 



The present town has about three hundred inhabitants, living in 

 shaky houses that are mostly built on the fine solid foundations of the 

 old buildings. The old barracks or customs house is quite a palatial 

 structure, of several stories built in successive arches, roofless now and 

 overgrown inside and out with natural window-boxes of bushes and 

 flowers. San Bias Indians paddled alongside the Arcturus in dug-outs 

 to inspect the ship at close range, and the people of the town proved 

 to be a melange of Panamanians, Indians, French half-breeds and a 

 Finn who is a sergeant in the American army. 



Aboard at 5 p. m. and out into the Caribbean. 



Noon position: Lat. 9° 37' N: Long. 79° 42' W. 



June 27th. Plowing through a grey sea, with a head wind, foul ship's 

 bottom and everything combined to make it look as though we might 

 ^pend the rest of the summer crossing the Caribbean. Now on our way 

 to have another look for the Sargasso Sea, hoping to find a calmer 

 Atlantic than we encountered in February. 



Noon position: Lat. 10° 40' N: Long. 78° 56' W. 



June 28th. Bright day, with the ship doing some fairly good nose- 

 dives into big seas. From a mile oflF the Panama coast we have been 

 passing weed in thousands of small pieces, little of it fresh, but mostly 

 dark and discolored. The only signs of life aside from that sheltered 

 in the weed are hundreds and thousands of flyingfish, almost all medium 

 or srdall, and clear-winged. 



Noon position: Lat. 12° 24' N: Long. 77° 33' W. 



