[“That makes it right. I’m just a dollar ahead.”]
The game now broke up, the sermon, for lack of variety, began to lose its interest, and I returned to the cabin much edified by the preaching and that scientifically played game of “seven-up.”
I will not attempt to give a full account of the incidents of the voyage from New York to Aspinwall—a distance of nineteen hundred and eighty three nautical miles—but will conclude this chapter by mentioning the death of a middle-aged lady, who died the day before our arrival in port. She had been ill of pneumonia for some days, and early on the morning in question she breathed her last, leaving a sorrow-stricken husband and eight children to continue the voyage and life’s cheerless journey, without the light of a wife’s and mother’s smile.
The children were all small—the oldest not more than ten years old—and were not able to realize their loss and their desolate condition; but that heart-broken man, whose haggard face and dark sunken eyes I can never forget, mourned enough for all. Every innocent prattle of the motherless ones was a thrust into his stricken heart, and if they did not weep he wept for them.
I have seen many horrible sights, such as the mangling of men in battle; but I never saw any thing so calculated to make the heart weep as the sorrow of that lone-hearted father of motherless children. Never can I forget how I saw him, just after a dull splash aft of the leeward wheel announced that the corpse had been committed to the deep, come languidly out of his stateroom, surrounded by his wondering little ones, sit down on the deck under the shadow of a companion-way, bury his face in his hands, and weep like a lone and friendless child!
It is sad to see a woman weep; but when a strong man sheds tears they must be wrung out by an anguish of soul too poignant for the simple name of grief!
CHAPTER XLVI.
On the Isthmus.
EARLY on the morning of the ninth day from New York we landed at Aspinwall, New Granada, United States of Columbia. The eastern shores of this country, which is a portion of Central America, are washed by the Caribbean Sea. Aspinwall is composed of a score of substantial buildings, such as we see in our own country, and a few hundred thatched huts.
A few Americans and Europeans are engaged in business there; but it might be suggested that the natives are the chief feature in the population.
These natives are a remarkable people—a true type of a mongrel race. We see among them every shade of complexion, from the hue of midnight in a coal-pit to that of wood ashes mixed with lime. Having stated that they are a mongrel people, it is but proper to say what races they are composed of, as nearly as I can guess, and I will do so in a tabular manner, thus: