258 DESCENT TO CHAGRES. 



anxious to return to Panama^ and^ as soon as I 

 had lost sight of his mule in the forest^ I left 



the late consul, M'Gregor, he had several times been 

 grossly insulted by him. He not only refused to re- 

 fund the sum, but declared his intention of taking his 

 revenge upon Mr. Russell, for accusing him of embezzle- 

 ment, of which, in point of fact, the man was guilty. Mr. 

 Russell frequently pointed out this individual to me in 

 the street, adding, on one occasion, that before my arrival, 

 as he was walking at night, this person purposely took the 

 wall of him and knocked him almost down into the mid- 

 dle of the kenneL The vice-consul, I think injudiciously, 

 suffered this insult to pass with impunity, merely men- 

 tioning it to some few of his acquaintance who were 

 aware that he did not consider his life free from danger' 

 He told me that he never dared to walk the streets at 

 night, unarmed, from apprehension of outrage. As I was 

 walking with the consul once, I had the opportunity of 

 noticing this man scowl upon him in such a way as to 

 induce me to think that had I not been with him, it was 

 not improbable that he would have been assaulted. I 

 was therefore not much astonished to receive a letter from 

 Mr. Russell last year, saying, that the individual he had 

 pointed out to me had attacked him one night as he 

 was walking home ; that as he carried a weapon of 

 defence, he had the ill-luck to wound the man slightly 

 with it, during the struggle, when another person, a 

 friend of the consul's enemy, mixed himself up in the 

 affray, and cut open the temporal artery of Mr. Russell 

 with a knife, causing him to bleed nearly to death on 

 the spot. He was then handcuffed, dragged by the police 



