HOMEWARD BOUND — NORTHWARD. 293 



fro in imitation of the motion of the " Orizaba," besides, several 

 of the sleepers around me, who lacked sentiment and nervous- 

 ness, snored outrageously. So I had a good chance to reflect 

 on the deeds of my past life before sleep came. 



Although we had paid for our breakfast in advance, many 

 of us got none through the landlord's rascality, as the train 

 left before half could get to the table, but as it did not look fit 

 to eat, it made little matter. We had been told the night be- 

 fore the cars left at 9 o'clock, when 6 was the hour. Our way 

 to the terminus was through the eastern gate, and then amid 

 the suburbs of thatched huts which lay along the margin of 

 the bay. The half-wild denizens were all ready for us, and 

 with pernicious activity waylaid us with fruits, corals, sea- 

 shells, whisky, cigars, monkeys, squirrels, parrots and similar 

 goods, dead and alive. We were much amused at a monkey- 

 merchant, whose wares had been captured in the neighboring 

 forest. In his efibrts to show the tameness of one of his half- 

 human specimens, that he might the easier sell it, it got away 

 from him and struck a bee-line for its former home. The last 

 we saw of the twain their speed was so nearly matched that we 

 were in doubt as to the result of the race. 



The starting of the train rid us of these mercantile pests, 

 and we were soon rolling over the fever-breeding swamp 

 which marks the first section of the Isthmian crossing. The 

 lives lost in building this road were fearfully numerous ; but 

 thirty years since they are being more than duplicated in 

 digging the canal. When we came to the ridge we used two 

 locomotives to ascend it, and from its slope we took our last 

 view of the Pacific near where Balboa had his first, and also 

 of the ruined old city on its shore. 



Nothing could exceed the denseness, luxuriance and gigan- 

 tic proportions of the vegetation through which we rode. The 

 surface of the fever-breeding slope was covered with a matting 

 of creeping vines above which rose a growth of mammoth 



