10 THE VOYAGE. 
men, of small stature, are lithe, sinewy, and eX- 
tremely active ; the women have a decided ten- 
dency to become fat; one or two of them had 
attained to such a state of obesity, that walking 
was next to an impossibility. The children are 
the most singular little frights imaginable ; 
guiltless of garments, they seemed all eyes and 
stomach, arms and legs being merely trifling 
unessential appendages; a singularity of form 
that may, I presume, be traced to the habit of 
consuming such vast quantities of innutritious 
vegetable food. 
We reached Colon (or Aspinwall, as the 
Americans have named it) in due course, and 
landed about midday. The outfit being enor- 
mously heavy, some time had necessarily to 
be occupied in landing; and as the afternoon 
train was about to start, it was deemed the 
wiser course to send the men and _ officers 
at once to Panama, where Her Majesty’s ship 
‘Havannah’ was waiting to take us to Vancouver 
Island—the Commissioner and myself remain- 
ing at Colon, with a sergeant and small working- 
party, to bring on the baggage. All the 
attendant miseries of unshipping such a hetero- 
geneous medley of packages as we had on board 
was finished at last, and our equipment safely 
