“ACIREMA FO SETATS DETINU. LOD EVIF.”
CHAPTER XLIX.
A Startling Bundle.
EARLY one Monday morning in August, after a sojourn of about three months in San Francisco, in the course of which I had been, on the whole, rather prosperous than otherwise, I was sitting in the office of the “Golden City,” when I suddenly, without knowing why, conceived the idea of returning to “the States.” The steamer Nevada, of the “Opposition Line,” was to leave for Panama on the ensuing Wednesday; and I walked down to the office of the company and bought a ticket—being just in time to secure the last stateroom.
The astonishment and sadness of my numerous friends—for by this time there were two full semicircles of them in San Francisco—on learning of this rash act, were a source of mingled amusement and pain to me. I half regretted what I had done, and if I had not already purchased my ticket, I should have relinquished the idea of going. But the die was cast, and, concealing from them the regret I felt, I lightly reminded them that they too well knew that “When I took a notion to go to any place,” I was moderately certain to go.
Not till the steamer floated away from the pier amid the cheers and blessings of several thousand spectators, and I saw the waving hands, hats, and handkerchiefs, and heard the friendly farewells of a score who had come to see me off, and of hundreds who had come to bid other passengers adieu, did I fully realize that I was leaving the city I had so soon learned to love—again starting on a long journey of more than five thousand geographic miles. When I did realize it, it was with a depth of sadness I cannot describe: and had I not been a man, I think I should hardly have subdued that moisture of the eyes that is looked upon as an evidence of weakness—though it is sometimes a noble and heavenly weakness!
The voyage to Panama, in the course of which we put in at Manzanillo, Mexico, for coal, occupied fourteen days. Much space might be absorbed with a full description of it; but it would be scarcely pertinent. Let us close our eyes on the voyage, imagine a lapse of two weeks, and we find the good steamer Nevada quietly anchored at early morn in the picturesque harbor of Panama, New Granada. There are no piers for the accommodation of large vessels at Panama, so that ocean steamers must anchor three miles from shore, in the deep water, and be relieved of their cargoes and passengers, or loaded therewith, by means of lighters and small steamboats.
We rose from our berths on the morning the Nevada anchored in the harbor of Panama, elated with the prospect of crossing the Isthmus and taking another steamer at Aspinwall for New York. It was, therefore, somewhat to our chagrin that we learned that an accident had happened to the connecting steamer, Dakotah, that although due at Aspinwall five or six days previously, she had barely arrived, and that we must lie at Panama and wait till she should have discharged her cargo. The prospective delay was variously estimated by the officers at from “a few days,” to “some little time.”
The natives learned that we were to lie in the harbor for some days, and soon flocked about the steamer in small boats, offering to convey to shore all who wished to visit the rusty old city. The price they asked was cuarto rialos per head—which means half-a-dollar.
Many of us took advantage of this means of escaping from the confinement of the vessel, and in an hour or two the greater portion of the steamer Nevada’s “population” might have been seen intermingled with the inhabitants of benighted Panama. Prominent among those who visited the city might have been seen the owner of a certain crutch.
It was now the “rainy season,” but the heat, between the showers that visited us daily, was intense and oppressive. To counteract its effects, the thirsty Caucasians resorted to certain iced drinks, containing stimulants, which were to be had at the saloons at twenty-five cents (coin) each. I regret to chronicle the fact that many of them used these beverages to an extent rather calculated to engender thirst (next morning) than to allay it.