402 NEW YORK TO PANAMA. 



The Spaniards have a proverb, " Viento y ventura poco dura" (wind and good luck never last 

 long) ; and as we drew into the Caribbean sea, fair skies and smooth water awaited us. Its con- 

 tinuance brought out many writers, and the world seemed threatened with a deluge of "First 

 Voyage of a Gold-hunter," "Notes from a Californian," or perhaps "Letters from our Special 

 Correspondent." Such a variety of note-books and journals was scarcely ever before displayed 

 in one apartment, and our steward soon found it difficult to obtain accommodations for the 

 patients to whom he had been administering gruel and weak tea during the preceding week. 

 Eevolvers and bowie-knives also came in for a large share of attention and comparison ; the 

 owner of each doffing the habiliments of city life, to make his appearance in the garb of a hunter 

 (of gold), fully prepared to defend the treasure he expected to extract from the earth. 



By this time it had become evident that we could not arrive at Chagres in time to reach 

 Panama for the Valparaiso steamer. In the estimation of us heretics the passengers the boat 

 was a "slow coach," positively a failure, if speed was to be any criterion ; though the captain 

 and others of the household found reasons "plenty as blackberries" why she did not go faster. 

 The coal was bad, boat too deep, engines too new, boilers leaked last time, &c., &c. On the 

 evening of the 25th, immediately after supper, the steward gave notice that the passengers were 

 desirous to hold a meeting on deck, for the purpose of expressing to the captain and officers 

 their sense of his high qualities as a seaman, gratitude for kind attentions, &c. Supposing my 

 name unknown to all but the captain, I was no little surprised to hear it read out as one of the 

 vice-presidents, and to receive escort to one of the seats provided for us dignitaries of the con- 

 vention. Everything appeared to have been "cut and dried," as is usual; and the meeting was 

 going on famously, with a probability of speedily transacting all its business. But some one, 

 perhaps disappointed that his merits had been overlooked, and convinced that his name ought 

 to appear in the papers to which our proceedings might be sent, had the ill will to suggest a 

 committee to draught proper resolutions instead of those our president extracted from his pocket. 

 This was a poser to the getters up ; but the majority were so unreasonable as to desire addi- 

 tional trouble, and of course they could not object. Thus, as the mal-contents managed to have 

 most of their own party on the committee, the resolutions brought back had very little sem- 

 blance to those read at first. When their report was made, a new faction sprang up. The 

 steerage passengers the real democracy declared that they had had no voice in the committee ; 

 a claim which brought out representatives from the "sunny south," who insisted that each State 

 should have had its delegate. A hot discussion ensued ; and as many had been keeping their 

 "spirits up " all day, from the want of proper restraining centrifugal power in our chief, we pre- 

 siding officers were likely to be smashed up. Perceiving that one of the tropical showers to which 

 we had been subject for two or three days was rapidly approaching, my post was incontinently 

 deserted without warning to my neighbors, and I had scarcely reached the saloon when the 

 drops were pattering thick and fast. Before the mass of our companions could descend the 

 ladders in the dark, most of them were drenched to the skin, the ardor for discussion extinguished 

 as suddenly as the shower had come upon them, and the tumult quenched at a dash. But it 

 had the effect to restore good humor, and set all hands laughing; an object of greater conse- 

 quence than all the resolutions they could have draughted between New York and Chagres, for 

 another half hour would probably have made us witnesses to bloodshed by some of the rougher 

 ones. 



One of the resolutions originally prepared declared that we had found the ship "unsurpassed 

 for speed by any steamer on the ocean," and ended by a disinterested though "earnest recom- 

 mendation of it to government for the transmission of the mails!" Luckily the question was 

 not taken. Owing to the incorrect information given about this very quality, before me was 

 the prospect, amounting almost to a certainty, of a month's detention on the Isthmus; and 

 every moment of that month was needed at a point more than three thousand miles distant. 

 If the rain-squall did not cool my ire, it saved me from proving traitor to the party that placed 

 me in power. 



