416 THE CITY OP PANAMA. 



large recompense, they will not go to their trades. Apparently, the women are more inclined 

 to he industrious ; hut, under the influence of an enervating climate, a very large numher of 

 them fully appreciate the " dolcefar nienle." With a tunic of some white or fancy colored mus- 

 lin, having a hroad fringed ruffle extending from the neck half to the elbows, a skirt of similar 

 though different colored material, with wide flounces from the knees downward, and their toes 

 stuck in slippers, they lounge all day about the doors or balconies in hammocks or deep-seated 

 chairs. Like all Spanish women, they arrange their hair with taste,, and when walking in the 

 sun wear Guayaquil hats very jauntily. Until six or seven years of age nature supplies all the 

 clothing of both sexes. 



These remarks must not be understood to include citizens of the better classes. They pro- 

 bably possess greater energy and self-respect ; but it was not my good fortune to be associated 

 with them, and I have only their dignified deportment as they passed through the streets to 

 sustain me in the belief. Such had been the conduct of emigrants, that ladies have been com- 

 pelled to withdraw wholly from the streets, and in a great measure from their churches ; and I 

 could not but feel mortified in acknowledging as countrymen the drunken vagabonds daily en- 

 countered. Their behavior, of course, influences the reception of all Americans ; and so 

 strong had already become the aversion of some Panamenos to us, that the name of the nation 

 to which we belonged was quite sufficient to exclude one from rooms the proprietor would gladly 

 have rented. And there is no remedy for this. They are (soi-disanf) free and independent 

 citizens of the United States a fact which they conceive gives them the right to trample on 

 any weaker unresisting creature ; and when about to leave, may, if they please, commit nuis- 

 ances of every description in the rented apartments of unsuspecting people ; because, forsooth, 

 the agents of the New York steamboat company fail to despatch them to the (accursed) golden 

 country on the appointed day ! However disgraceful, these traits are not the only tokens of 

 brutalization generated by the unhallowed thirst, as the following will show. 



On the third day after our arrival, and when some forty or fifty of the passengers by the 

 Empire City had got over, a report was current that a man wrapped in an American blanket, 

 and lying within twenty feet of the road, had been passed by two or three of the parties. Only 

 one of them went near enough to satisfy himself that the body before him was that of a dead 

 American : no one had dismounted ! Who or whence he was, it mattered not to them no'r 

 whether he should be food for buzzards or worms. They feared he might have died suddenly 

 of cholera or other infectious disease, and left him unknown and unsepultured, without exam- 

 ining for a word which would have served to relieve the agonizing suspense of loving kindred in 

 his distant home ! As soon as we had obtained facts that would enable us to find the body, Mr. 

 R. and myself at once made arrangements to go and bury him ; but just as we were without 

 the city other passengers came in who had seen a newly made grave at the very spot, and we 

 found the man who had started from Cruces with him some fifteen days previously. The 

 natives had shown more humanity than his fellow-countrymen ! Shocking accounts have been 

 given me, by those returning from California, of the utterly brutalized wretches who compose a 

 large number of the gold-diggers. They assure me that there are many who would not 

 turn aside to give a dying brother a drink of water ; and as to burying dead men, it was re- 

 garded as waste of time. 



The only wild animals seen were a species of catamount and several wild boars, all of which 

 had been shot in the woods just without the city. It is not very uncommon to destroy the 

 former in some of the gardens within the walls, and the latter are never difficult to find by 

 hunters. The domestic horned-cattle are small, and, though well conditioned, the meat is 

 neither tender nor juicy. They are inclined to be of a uniform dun color. For the number of 

 cows to be seen without the enclosures, milk is scarce, and, indeed, that of the cow is of so little 

 repute that the main reliance is on goats. It is offered with tea and coffee at most gentlemen's 

 houses, but its bluish appearance is not very. inviting. One of the vilest-looking animals en- 

 countered is a hairless dog, belonging (they tell me) to a Chinese breed. The beasts are as 



