20 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



made an excursion in the government pit-pan. This 

 is the same fashion of boat in vrhich the Indians navi- 

 gated the rivers of America before the Spaniards dis- 

 covered it. European ingenuity has not contrived a 

 better, though it has, perhaps, beautified the Indian 

 model. Ours was about forty feet long, and six wide 

 in the centre, running to a point at both ends, and 

 made of the trunk of a mahogany-tree. Ten feet from 

 the stern, and running forvrard, v^as a light v^ooden 

 top, supported by fanciful stancheons, w^ith curtains 

 for protection against sun and rain ; it had large cush- 

 ioned seats, and vs^as fitted up almost as neatly as the 

 gondolas of Venice. It v^as manned by eight negro 

 soldiers, v^^ho sat two on a seat, with paddles six feet 

 long, and two stood up behind with paddles as steers- 

 men. A few touches of the paddles gave brisk way to 

 the pit-pan, and we passed rapidly the whole length 

 of the town. It was an unusual thing for his excellen- 

 cy's pit-pan to be upon the water ; citizens stopped to 

 gaze at us, and all the idle negroes hurried to the 

 bridge to cheer us. This excited our African boat- 

 men, who, with a wild chant that reminded us of the 

 songs of the Nubian boatmen on the Nile, swept under 

 the bridge, and hurried us into the still expanse of a 

 majestic river. Before the cheering of the negroes 

 died away we were in as perfect a solitude as if re- 

 moved thousands of miles from human habitations. 

 The Balize River, coming from sources even yet but 

 little known to civilized man, was then in its fulness. 

 On each side was a dense, unbroken forest ; the banks 

 were overflowed ; the trees seemed to grow out of the 

 water, their branches spreading across so as almost to 

 shut out the light of the sun, and reflected in the water 

 as in a mirror. The sources of the river were occu- 



