236 THE PIZARRO ROAD. [1826. 



at once most comfortably saturated with Andean tears. — I thought of 

 the negro on the rock at Porto Bello. The evident wretchedness, and 

 the equally apparent happiness of the natives we encountered — pardon 

 the paradox — I will not attempt to describe. Every thing was so per- 

 fectly novel that I should run into inconsistent prolixity. 



" Cruces, where we finally landed, is about seventy miles from 

 Chagres, and at the head of navigation. It is only about twenty miles 

 from Panama, comprising the whole distance of portage which exists 

 between the two oceans.* It is distinguished by no features that will 

 warrant a description. The mules were immediately ordered, and after 

 two or three John Gilpin capers, to the delight of the assembled town, 

 which was unaccustomed to be witched by such 4 noble horsemanship,' 

 anglice, muleship, I gained the Panama Road. Once entered, there was 

 no diverging, and, as I had nothing to do but to let the mule pick his 

 way, I displayed great mastery in my management. 



" I was on the road made by Pizarro, when the unoffending Incas 

 were to be made his victims. What will not ambition and the lust of 

 gold accomplish ! It is now in a state of great dilapidation, owing to 

 the heavy rains, which, rushing in torrents from the mountains, have, in 

 the lapse of years, piled up the pavement, and formed defiles which 

 are almost impassable except by a mule or a negro. In the neighbour- 

 hood of some of the savannas, however, abundant evidence exists to 

 show that it was a work of great labour and finish, worthy of the per- 

 severance and enterprise of that rapacious chief. 



" We were conducted, I can hardly say accompanied, by a guide, 

 who bore a wallet containing our refreshments. The journey was 

 more than half-completed — (we could not average more than three miles 

 an hour) — and I had seen our guide but once. Poor Sancho Panza 

 never felt a more serious yearning of the bowels than I now expe- 

 rienced ; nor was he accompanied by a more indifferent, phlegmatic, 

 anti-sensual Quixote than my friend the captain. He attempted to 

 comfort and encourage me, by stating that we should not see the guide 

 again until we reached our place of destination. I was famished, and 

 thirsty, and despairing, and thinking of the cold fowls I had seen eaten 

 upon the stage, and the hot ones I had helped demolish at Niblo's, when 

 we broke upon quite an extensive savanna. 



"Judge of my delight on beholding our darkey quietly seated beside 

 a limping, gurgling, purling (I was so enraptured that I could lavish 

 every aqueous epithet upon it) brook. Our meal was not a la four- 

 chette, though our carving was summary. Of a nicely roasted chicken 

 I merely took a leg and a wing in my digits ; the captain ditto. Then 

 came the tug of war. A moment, and it was decided ; neither party 

 was vanquished, but all eagerly revelled in the spoils. Never before 

 could I fully comprehend the term luxury ; but as the last libation of 

 claret closed the marooning repast, I felt that it must have been the 

 nectar of Jove. 



* We learn from the Encyclopaedia Americana, that it has been ascertained that "high-water- 

 mark in the Pacific is about thirteen feet higher than in the Atlantic ; but that at half-tide the level 

 of the Pacific is the same with that of the Atlantic, and at low tide is several feet lower. These 

 circumstances induced the Colombian government to conceive the plan of a canal from Panama to 

 Puerto Velo, on the Atlantic side, which has a large and secure harbour, and is distant 43 miloa 

 N.N.W. from Panama. A railroad between the two cities is already in progress. 



