BOLIVAR^S OFFICERS. 



161 



vere discipline whicli Bolivar has found it so ad- 

 vantageous to establish, was still unrelaxed ; and 

 that drilling parties, and frequent mustering and 

 exercising of the troops, were never intermitted: 

 the town, in short, was kept in a state of military 

 bustle from morning till night. 



Having occasion to send despatches to the Com- 

 mander-in-chief on the Jamaica station, I found 

 no difficulty in procuring means of doing so, as 

 there is a constant communication, both by mer- 

 chant-ships and men-of-war, from Chagres and 

 Porto Bello with the West Indian islands. To 

 such an extent is this carried, and such is the su- 

 perior importance of their West Indian inter- 

 course, that every one at Panama spoke, not as if 

 residing on the shores of the Pacific, but as if he 

 had been actually living on the coast of the Gulf 

 of Mexico. One gentleman said to me, that the 

 Africaine frigate had been here ten days ago ; an 

 assertion which surprised me greatly, as I had 

 reason to know that the ship in question had not 

 doubled Cape Horn. On stating this to him, he 

 laughed, and said he meant to speak of Porto 

 Bello, on the other side of the isthmus ; with the 



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