NEW YORK TO PANAMA. 



distant rumblings warned us of an approaching storm. Our crew being already stripped, they 

 had no preparation to make ; but to render ourselves more secure, a large India-rubber cloth 

 was spread over the thatched roof. Here, nature commands the attention of the uninitiated to 

 her atmospheric phenomena, as well as to her vegetable productions. For about three quarters 

 of an hour the rain descended vertically in drops that raised bubbles on the water as large as 

 half a walnut, and so rapidly that the cocoa-nuts in the bottom of the canoe were covered in 

 less than half that time. I have witnessed as vivid lightning elsewhere^, but the crash of the 

 thunder among those old hills actually made my ears ache. Though more moderately, rain 

 continued falling until near four o'clock, at which time we stopped for a few moments to obtain 

 spring-water, and give the men something* to eat. Adding a little grog and a cigar to their 

 ample rations of salt-beef and bread (great luxuries to them), at the end of fifteen minutes they 

 dashed at their work seemingly as fresh as ever. 



The evening wore on most beautifully. Myriads of fire-flies, and also the audible chirps of 

 other novel insects flitting among the foliage on shore, aiforded interest to us. But the river 

 was rising rapidly, and its waters fairly roared through the branches of fallen trees. Since 

 dinner our men had laid aside their paddles for slender but elastic and tough poles ten feet 

 long, and by midnight we had reached within nine miles of Gorgona. Three different trials did 

 they make to reach the eddy of the opposite shore, only to be swept half a mile down stream by 

 the furious current. The river had risen ten feet since the rain, the moon had gone down, we 

 were left in pitchy darkness, and out of the eddies the strength of our men was exerted in vain. 

 After the third failure, they told us frankly, that to persevere in attempts until daylight returned, 

 or the river subsided, would greatly peril all our lives, and they were unwilling to ineur such 

 risks. "The merciful man is merciful to his beast." We had no right to constitute ourselves 

 judges of danger in navigating a strange river. There was no adequate return for the enormous 

 expenditure of muscular exertion we had witnessed during an hour ; and so, releasing them from 

 the forfeit for non-arrival within twenty-eight hours, we turned back a few rods to obtain shelter 

 under the bluff on which stands a single house, called San Pablo. How these poor fellows could 

 have labored twenty-two and a half hours of the twenty-four preceding, apparently straining 

 every muscle of their shoulders, arms, and thighs, and then, as soon as the canoe was secure, 

 spring ashore with alacrity, ready for a frolic, is a phenomenon in physical endurance utterly 

 beyond my comprehension. 



August 29. Mr. B. and myself were roused at daybreak by the chattering of flocks of parrots 

 and parroquets just leaving their nests. There were several canoes in-shore of us, and these 

 the fall of the river had left high and dry. The violent rains often raise the surface of the 

 river twenty feet within a few hours, the flood subsiding as quickly after they have ceased. No 

 doubt new channels originate in the overflowings of the banks at such times, and the velocity 

 of the current is proportionately increased. Making a lavatory of the running-stream, we 

 roused our faithful workers, and went to the house on the bluff to purchase a cup of coffee. 

 Although this belongs to the padre (priest) of the parish, as everybody does a little trade since 

 the Yankees began to cross the Isthmus, the piloto assured us el clerigo always kept an ample 

 supply of the berry. His solitary house is quite elevated above the ground, and occupies the 

 top of the hill, about -which the scene is really sylvan. There- are clusters of tropical trees 

 around it, and goodly numbers of the several farm-yard denizens. Away to the west, the emi- 

 nence slopes into a broad and grassy plateau, over which a herd of sleek, fawn-colored cattle 

 were feeding close to the serpentine river. 



The padre was not at home, but his sobrina was, a comely colored damsel some 17 to 20 years 

 of age. She soon put on an iron oven and boiled a gallon or two of the desired beverage, scarcely 

 removing the cigar from her lips even to answer the joking questions of our boatmen. . It is 

 quite a common occurrence to find sobrinas (nieces) in the houses of country curates, the world 

 being sufficiently ungenerous to say that the asserted consanguinity is only a cloak for more 



