422 FROM PANAMA TO LIMA. 



keep watch over the latter, ready to devour all divers who may seek their gems. At least such 

 is the story told on hoard. Twenty-five leagues farther south is the less inviting island of 

 Gallo, where Pizarro made his famous stand, bidding all who sought Peru, fame, fortune, and 

 pleasure, to follow him across a line traced in the sand with the point of his sword ; those who 

 preferred Panama, disgrace, and poverty, to remain beyond it. The thirteen from whom 

 famine, disease, and perpetual rains, had not driven every spark of enterprise, have been 

 immortalized in history. Shortly after their decision, Pizarro removed with his little band to 

 Gorgona, where they were able to obtain something of shelter beneath the trees, and a scanty 

 supply of food from the game found on the island. During the latter part of the day the wind 

 gradually decreased and the weather brightened, so as to give us an occasional gleam of sun- 

 shine. Night pleasant, and without rain. 



October 1. Towards daylight the S.S.W. wind sprang up again, bringing with it a heavy 

 ground-swell, and weather so thick that the coast could not be seen, though only thirty miles 

 distant. During the morning, grampuses, flying-fish of large size, and many varieties of sea- 

 birds, were quite numerous. Latitude at noon 1 north. 



October 2. The frequent and violent rains to which we had been subject between Panama and 

 2 north latitude have ceased ; and though there are dense masses of cumulo-stratus constantly 

 over portions of the neighboring coast, no rain fell on our decks south of G-allo island. Not 

 less striking was the change in the appearance of the land in these few hundred miles. On 

 Gorgona at noon of September 30, there was dense tropical vegetation. When the sun rose 

 brightly, October 2, we were near yellowish and rocky cliffs, on which there were but a few 

 half-burnt plants. At noon we were within less than a mile of Cape San Lorenzo, to the south- 

 ward of which a little village lies sheltered in a secluded valley. Off" the cape there are two 

 rocks, each of them somewhat remarkable one for its regular obelisk form of great elevation ; 

 the other for its flat summit and trees, and sides striped alternately white and brown. The 

 former color is probably due to the sea-birds that make its crags their homestead. Doubling 

 San Lorenzo, the Andes become a more prominent feature of the landscape. Monte Cristo, the 

 most northern summit visible, rears its dark head above the arid cliffs ; the distant ranges to 

 the southward lose their peaks amid the clouds ; and solitary detached, intermediate elevations 

 j^ive a graceful finish to the picture. 



The barometer at last rose above 30 inches, and the extraordinarily saturated atmosphere of 

 the region near Panama seemed to have been passed through. Overhead there were light cirro- 

 cumuli, betokening fair weather ; and a fall of the thermometric column below summer-heat 

 was an event just south of the equator most gratefully chronicled. And so in the calm and 

 silent watches of the night we slept from autumn to spring without knowledge of the storms of 

 winter. 



October 3. A dark, hazy morning, and the atmosphere unusually calm. At 7 o'clock the 

 ship was just within Point St. Elena, on the north shore of the Gulf of Guayaquil. This last 

 is low and possesses little variety of outline. Here and there, evergreens may be seen; but most 

 of the vegetation seems burnt, and gives to the land an arid and especially uninteresting look. 

 We found many small whales and black-fish (grampus) playing about the mouth of the gulf, 

 and multitudes of dark-backed pelicans floating near the lazy monsters. Occasionally some of 

 the birds, flying at considerable elevation above the water, would press their wings close to their 

 sides and dive after their finny food beneath the surface with the velocity of an arrow. 



Thirty miles from the ocean we were hailed by the commander of a small government steamer, 

 .sent there to await our arrival and forbid a nearer approach to the city. Fear that we might in- 

 troduce the cholera had thus seriously infected the authorities of this noisome and pestilential 

 town. Besides the mail, there were nearly a dozen passengers and some freight on board for 

 Ecuador all of which, except the letters, we were commanded to keep on board. Among the 

 passengers was a United States Charge d' Affaires accredited to the government'of Ecuador, in 

 whose behalf remonstrance was earnestly made by the captain of our steamer ; but he was 



