2 



PERSONAL ACCOUNT. 



steamers just established by the government. In this we were disappointcc!; and were kept in 



Panama^ at great expense, until the middle of Maj. 



Soon after the organization of the commission in Washington^ and on the eve of departure, 

 the news came of the discovery of fields of gold in California. This report set all ^' the wide 

 awake*' and unemployed men in the country in motion towards the new Eldorado, and it was 

 with the greatest difficulty that passage to Chagres could be procured in the meanest craft. 

 Every steamer and sailing vessel, without regard to sea-going qualities, that could be drawn 

 from the regular channels of commerce, were put in requisition, and it was with considerable 

 trouble that I procured a passage in the steamer Northerner, which sailed from New York. 



Simultaneously with our arrival on the Isthmus, there was a precipitation upon it of all the 

 odds and ends of the inhabitants of the Atlantic coast of North America and Europe. The 

 state of Panama, with its mongrel race of Indians, . negroes and Spaniards, with their 

 intellects obfuscated by bigotry, and their bodies enervated by a tropical climate, was wholly 

 unequal to the task of receiving and entertaining, in an orderly manner, such an influx of 

 strangers. Fortunately, the mass of them was of the self-governing race of the whites of 

 North America, and when disorder and confusion seemed inevitable, propriety resumed the 

 sway^ and a germ of civil liberty and self-government was planted for the first time in that 

 mis-called republic, the fruits of which are now beginning to be made apparent in the new code 

 of laws, and the extended and liberal views of some of her citizens ; among whom stands con- 



spicuously Seiior Arosemena, to whose good offices we were indebted for a roof over our heads 

 during our long delay in Panama. 



It was estimated that as many as four thousand people were collected in Panama, awaiting 

 transportation to California. The price of passage-tickets in the expected steamers rose to an 



Each person seemed to think that there was a limited supply of gold, and 

 ' getting any portion of it depended upon his early arrival in the field. Panama, 



sum 



name 



many 



was out of the highway of ships. Boats, something in shape and awkwardness like the ^^ dug- 

 outs '' of the Mississippi, in use among the natives to transport fruit from the neighboring 

 island of Toboga, were the only description of vessels that could then be obtained. The largest 

 of them did not exceed ten or fifteen tons in capacity. Yet 

 navigate the ocean over a space of three thousand miles, ex 

 swept for a considerable portion of the way by adverse north winds. Many of the bold adven- 

 turers were wrecked, and few, if any, reached their destination in their frail barks^ but were 

 obliged to put in at Acapulco and other ports along the coast. 



Seeing that tliere was little probability of our obtaining passage to San Diego before the 

 middle of Mav, I unnacked tbe instruments, and snt tbpm im fnr tViA (lmi"h1p -nuniAoo nf nmn- 



my assistants and mak 



iillUVAV, JilCVii 



dip and intensity, and other phenomena, the results of which will be found elsewhere. The 



light on the geographical position and the climate of 



much 



those tropical regions ; but as the observations upon which they were founded were published 

 in the fifth volume of the proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, at 



em 



March, the summer 



very healthy; but towards the latter end of April the rainy season set in, and with it came fever 

 and cholera. Rejecting the sanitary precautions of abstemiousness usually resorted to in such 



