422 Voyage of the Nomra. 



figured boundless stores of maize yet to be lighted upon and 

 made available, without their having to labour for them ! 



In the course of the afternoon we left Payta, and next 

 day sighted the island of La Plata, distant about 10 miles 

 from the mainland. A tradition, constantly in the mouth of 

 the people, to the effect that the ancient Incas buried here a 

 large amount of treasure, has led to many formal expeditions 

 having been dispatched to this island at various times, every 

 one of which, however, proved abortive. We now began to 

 find the temperature perceptibly rising ; for a few hom's it 

 was as high as Gb"" to 70° Fahr. 



At 6 p. M. of the 20th, we reached the Taboga Islands, a 

 group of lovely islets, about 1 1 miles from Panama, where are 

 the warehouses and wharves of the Pacific Steam Navigation 

 Company. Taboga Island, the most important of the group, 

 is only one mile and a half long by half a mile broad, but 

 with the adjacent islet of Taboquille, forms a very con- 

 venient crescent-shaped harbour, which unites to a secure 

 haven a tolerably healthy climate, so that during the un- 

 healthy season, when the yellow fever sometimes commits 

 fearful ravages in Panama, many of the inhabitants resort 

 to this island, which, up to the year 1858, had remained en- 

 tirely free of the scourge. 



Late in the evening the English and American papers 

 came on board, from which we got the first intelligence of 

 the march of events at the seat of war in Italy, as also of an- 

 other world-wide calamity, — the death of Alexander von 



