PANAMA. 



191 



SO little known, or perhaps so much despised 

 in this city, where there are not five resident 

 Europeans, and the markets, moreover, so scan- 

 tily supplied, that I must say I never fared 

 worse in my life. It is some compensation, 

 therefore, for the excessive heat, that it has a 

 decided influence in diminishing the appetite, 

 and in making easy of practice the virtues of 

 temperance, and sometimes of abstinence, which 

 are rendered so eminently useful by other 

 causes. 



May 15th. — Although the man-of-war from 

 Jamaica ought to come to Chagres every 

 month, it is nearly two since she has been 

 due, and I am a prisoner until her arrival. 

 On landing the mail she goes down the coast 

 to San Juan, a river and settlement further to 

 the north-w^est, and returns in eleven days to 



