A RUN TO NICARAGUA. 343 



the United States. On the 10th of December this 

 force set out, not by the Serapiqui river, as was 

 publicly reported and believed, but by the San 

 Carlos, another tributary of the San Juan which 

 enters that river about half-way between the lake 

 and San Juan del Norte. This was done for the 

 purpose of misleading a detachment of Walker's 

 forces who were posted at Hipp's Point at the mouth 

 of the Serapiqui. 



"As this route is very little if ever used, the 

 Costa Eicans experienced great difficulties in ad- 

 vancing, having to cut their way through the forest 

 along a track where mules could not be used, and 

 along which all the provisions and munitions of war 

 had to be borne on men's shoulders. Six days were 

 spent on the march, during which the rain fell almost 

 incessantly. At last the ' embarcadero ' was reached, 

 and a few canoes were hastily constructed, and rafts 

 made of trunks of trees rudely lashed together with 

 vines and twigs. 



" Thus these enterprising men, most of whom had 

 never before beheld a boat on a navigable river, 

 boldly embarked on the 16th December, to float 

 down an unknown stream, to its confluence with 

 the river San Juan, and thence to Greytown itself. 

 It was indeed a perilous undertaking. Had these frail 

 rafts, upon which 120 men had ventured, met one of 

 Walker's steamers coming up or going down the river, 

 the slightest contact would have been fatal to them. 



