A RUN TO NICARAGUA. 339 



able. At all events, it is a mode of colonisation 

 peculiar to the age, and as such, an interesting 

 subject of contemplation. Meantime we were draw- 

 ing near Greytown, and speculations were rife as to 

 whether the coffin-shaped boxes would have to be 

 opened or not. That such a contingency might 

 occur, we were led to expect, from the fact that a 

 report had reached New Orleans before our de- 

 parture, to the effect that Yanderbilt had sent one 

 hundred and fifty men to Omoa, in Honduras, but 

 that in all probability their real destination was 

 Greytown, where they were intended to arrive before 

 us, so as to obtain possession of the Point, upon 

 which the buildings of the Transit Company were 

 situated, and which were a subject of dispute between 

 Vanderbilt and Morgan, the present proprietor of the 

 line. In the event of this occupation having taken 

 place, we were prepared forcibly to eject the in- 

 truders, who probably would not calculate upon our 

 arriving thus thoroughly armed. Great, therefore, 

 was the excitement, as we neared the mouth of the 

 river San Juan, and saw the pilot coming skipping 

 out to us over the bar in his little cockle-shell of a 

 boat, to hear the news, and greater still was our 

 wonderment and dismay to learn that the Point was 

 in the hands, not of the men sent by Vanderbilt 

 from New York, but of the Costa Ricans, led, how- 

 ever, by a Captain Spencer, an agent of this same 

 man, the most indefatigable enemy of Walker and 



