160 THE ISTHMUS OF PANAMA. 



As I count the months which have already passed 

 since I have been a dweller in this land, I sometimes 

 unconsciously wonder why they do not come — the 

 cool breezes of Autumn — but it is of no use, for they 

 will never come. We are in the dominions of old 

 "Sol, who holds a fiery sceptre, and looks clown upon 

 us daily with a burning rage, which makes poor 

 mortals covet a place beneath a screen from his fierco 

 eye. So has it been since Adam was placed in Pai- 

 adise, and it may yet have been but the beginning 

 of this long summer, for who knows when it will 

 end ? 



In my last letter I gave you a sketch of a day on 

 the Chagres, " going down," and now I must com- 

 plete the account of my trip by another day, coming 

 up. On leaving Navy Bay, we came around the 

 point on the coast, and entered the mouth of the 

 river at Chagres, in the R. R. Co.'s steamer Gorgo- 

 na, to the station at Gatun. At 3 o'clock, P. M., I 

 embarked on board the steamer Swan, bound up the 

 river to Bujio Saldado, where I was first stationed. 

 This little craft is the smallest on the river propelled 

 by steam, and I found her manned by three boys. 

 I was a solitary passenger, and being provided with 

 a blanket, was prepared to make a night of it. But 

 in this I was disappointed. We had gone but a 

 mile, when the tiller chain broke, and the command 

 to " stop her," was cried out by the Captain, at the 

 wheel, to prevent running into the bank, or on a 

 snag. Not having an anchor aboard, we were of 

 course at the mercy of the current, which, like the 



