166 THE ISTHMUS OF PANAMA. 



volume of unpublished adventures, which had occur- 

 red during the many years he had spent upon 

 the seas, in which time he had made more than 

 twenty voyages from the port of New York to the 

 coast of South America. The topic had turned to 

 the recent burning of the steam propeller La Fayette, 

 at Chagres, which he had endeavored to tow into 

 shoal water while her hull was but one great chal- 

 dron, from which streamed forth the livid flame, 

 casting its lurid glare upon all surrounding objects ; 

 but in this he was unsuccessful, and she went dowm 

 with all that was valuable in her beyond the hopes 

 of wreckers. This led to the wrecking by him of a 

 vessel up the coast, a few years since, on which he 

 found, as part of the cargo, a large number of cases 

 of tropical birds, beautifully prepared, and shipped 

 for England by a gentleman at Bogota. The orni- 

 thological specimens, although beautiful, he did not 

 deem convertible into cash, nor good to eat, so he 

 consigned them to the deep, in his search for more 

 valuable salvage ; in which, however, he was not 

 very successful, and therefore left the vessel to go 

 to pieces on the reef, not much richer than w 7 hen he 

 found her, to learn afterwards, that the birds he had 

 thrown overboard were worth the moderate sum of 

 thirty thousand dollars. 



On arriving at Chagres, as I was passing through 

 one of the public houses, I observed on a settee a 

 miserable wreck of humanity, whom I discovered, as 

 he accosted me, to be one of the hands that w r as on 

 the Swan at the time of going up the river, and w T ho 





