_______________
We were so densely crowded on board the Ariel that I cannot conscientiously say we were altogether happy. And sea-voyages at best are a little stupid. On the whole I should prefer a voyage on the Erie Canal, where there isn't any danger, and where you can carry picturesque scenery along with you—so to speak.
_______________
THE ISTHMUS.
On the ninth day we reach Aspinwall in the Republic of Granada. The President of New Granada is a Central American named Mosquero. I was told that he derived quite a portion of his income by carrying passengers' valises and things from the steamer to the hotels in Aspinwall. It was an infamous falsehood. Fancy A. Lincoln carrying carpet-bags and things! and indeed I should rather trust him with them than Mosquero, because the former gentleman, as I think some one has before observed, is "honest."
I intrust my bag to a speckled native, who confidentially gives me to understand that he is the only strictly honest person in Aspinwall. The rest, he says, are niggers—which the colored people of the Isthmus regard as about as scathing a thing as they can say of one another.
I examine the New Grenadian flag, which waves from the chamber-window of the refreshment saloon. It is of simple design. You can make one.
Take half of a cotton shirt, that has been worn two months, and dip it in molasses of the Day & Martin brand. Then let the flies gambol over it for a few days, and you have it. It is an emblem of Sweet Liberty.
At the Howard House the man of sin rubbeth the hair of the horse to the bowels of the cat, and our girls are waving their lily-white hoofs in the dazzling waltz.