4 



238 PANAMA CITY. [1826. 



let him go where hospitality is proverbial ; let him wander where Arca- 

 dian beauties rivet him, and where good faith is invariably extended to 

 the wayfaring ; — and then let him pause, and ask this question : — ' Did 

 aught in my wanderings ever inspire me with so much confidence of 

 security as a simple village spire, rising in the dim distance of the 

 lonely, and perhaps otherwise cheerful landscape !* The answer is 

 anticipated. No ! 



" What must have been the sensations of those intrepid and enter- 

 prising men, when from the mountains of the isthmus they for the 

 first time beheld the waters of the immense Pacific ! Fancy and 

 imagination are fettered — in vain would they portray them. It would 

 immortalize any painter who could convey even a glimmering of the 

 expression of the subdued features of him who for the first time 

 gazed upon it, after being wrapt in wonder from exploring a vast and 

 newly discovered continent. We can cast our eyes to the firmament 

 when the bright stars are coquettishly winking ; we can behold the 

 rising and setting glory of the great luminary, amid its gorgeous and 

 unrivalled drapery ; we can contemplate the orb of night in its chas- 

 tened loveliness — and feel our nothingness, and humbly bow ourselves, 

 as the creation in its immensity bursts upon our bewildered imagina- 

 tion. But powerful as are these emotions, they shrink into compar- 

 ative insignificance compared to the feelings of him who for the first 

 time gazes upon the waters of this immense ocean. To the former 

 objects we have been accustomed from infancy, and it is only in mo- 

 ments of occasional abstraction and meditation that their sublimity 

 affects us. But the ocean ever enkindles the feeling. In its apparent 

 boundless extent, there is, if I may so express it, a palpability, a tan- 

 gibility, which takes the senses captive. 



" My first movement, after dismounting from my unruly and truly 

 obstinate mule, was to seek the quay. In twenty-four days after leav- 

 ing Dover-street wharf, in the city of New-York, I was laving in the 

 Pacific ; and am, for aught I know to the contrary, the first New- 

 Yorker that ever made so short a cut to reach it. I leave you to con- 

 ceive of my feelings, and imaginings, and romancing, • and all that 

 sort of thing.' I have some recollection of a vivid description you 

 gave me of the sensations you experienced on finding yourself for the 

 first time afloat on the vast ocean, after playing the Crusoe, and running 

 away from your paternal home ; of your anticipations of discovering 

 new worlds at the south pole ; of your first smelling gunpowder at the 

 siege of Cadiz ; 



' Of being taken by the insolent foe, 

 And sold to slavery ; of your redemption thence, 

 And portance in your travel's history.' 



I say, recollecting all this, I do not hesitate to let you have a peep at 

 the romantic workings of my own youthful imagination, as you know 

 how to appreciate such kind of feelings. 



u Panama is a walled city, and its parapet presents a front formi- 

 dable in the extreme. The ordnance here mounted exceeds in caliber 

 any thing I have ever seen ; and, ere the intensely darting beams of the 

 morning sun burst forth, a stroll around its barricade is interesting to 

 the mind, and invigorating to the body. I have frequently paused in 



