The objective point was to get to Panama to secure a ticket, so I made an arrangement with four others; three were to take charge of the baggage of the five, and take it leisurely, and Lieutenant M., of South Carolina, and myself were selected to run an express across the Isthmus and get there ahead of the other passengers and secure tickets for the five, and try and be the first to land at Chagres. We came to anchor in the bay. The captain announced that no passengers would be permitted to go ashore until the government officials had inspected the vessel. A boat came from shore with the officials. After a short stay the officials went down the side of the steamer to their boat to return to the shore. There was a guard to keep all but the proper persons from getting into the boat. I had a small carpet bag in my hand, passed the guard, slipped a $5 gold piece in his hands, and took my seat in the boat, and, of course, passed as one of the officials, and was the first passenger to land from the steamer. The first point to be made was to secure a boat for passage up the Chagres river. I was recommended to Colonel P., who was the head man in that business there. He was a colonel in the Granadian army. I found him a full-blooded African, but an active business man in his way. I got his price for a boat and two of his best men, and then offered double the price if they would row night and day, and an extra present to the men if they made good time, for every thing seemed to depend on securing those tickets on the Pacific side. By the time I had all my arrangements made, Lieutenant M. made his appearance. He said he was the second passenger that landed from the steamer. Then behold us in what they called a dug-out, a boat somewhat similar to a canoe, with a little canopy over the center that you could crawl under to lay down with the two naked natives, with the exception of a cloth around their loins, neither understanding each other's language, to whom we could only communicate by signs. At 4 P.M., starting for Gorgona, fifty-five miles up the river, where we were to land and take mules for Panama. Eight miles was the first stopping place. We felt elated that we had got so good a start of all the other passengers. The denseness of the vegetation first attracted our attention on the banks of the river. The trees, the vines, the shrubbery, the vines clinging to the trees, hanging in all fantastic shapes, it seemed to be impenetrable, an ocean of green, unlike any thing we had ever seen before.
Early in the evening we arrived at the first stopping place, eight miles on our way up the river, where we both made ourselves at home, excited at the strangeness of the scene, surrounded by the thatched huts of the natives, who were having a dance on the square in the village. After we had been there an hour, we thought our men had their rest, and it was time to go on according to our contract, to be rowed night and day.
In the meantime it seems the natives had taken some offense at Lieutenant M.'s familiarity, and they appeared with handles of long knives projecting back of their necks in a threatening manner. We likewise learned that that was the home of one of our men, and that he proposed to stay there all night in violation of the contract. So we had a consultation to decide what to do to get away. It was pitch dark; we laid our plan. Lieutenant M. beckoned one of the men away from the dance as if he wanted to give him something, and drew his pistol on him and marched him down to the boat, while I, with a pistol, kept him there while he went for the other man.
After a while he came with him and we got them both in the boat and started. About this time there was a storm came up with the rain, and thunder and lightning, as the elements can only perform in that way in the tropics, surrounded by impenetrable darkness, and to us an unknown river, with its serpents and alligators, with our two naked savages, that we only got in the boat by force, and, of course, could not feel very friendly toward us. Expecting to be fired on from the shore, if they could see us through the darkness, we took our departure from our first landing place on the Chagres river, surrounded by romance enough to satisfy the most romantic imagination in that line. Our men kept steadily to work. After a while the clouds broke away, the moon showed itself, and we made good progress that night. We had no trouble with our men after that. The colonel at Chagres had evidently given us his best man. They found that we were masters of the situation and it was for their interest to submit. We treated them kindly after that, and all went well, for we passed every boat we came to. I shall never forget the look of despair at two Frenchmen, evidently gentlemen, as we went by them, and they informed us the length of time they had been coming up the river, and that they could do nothing with their men. That afternoon we came in sight of a thatched hut on the banks, evidently a ranch. We thought it for our interest to rest. We saw a man whom we took for the proprietor, entirely naked, rubbing his back against a post. On landing and approaching him he excused himself for a short time, and returned dressed, walking with the air of a lord of a manor, which dress consisted of a coarse bagging shirt, coming down to his knees. We arrived the next day at 11 A.M., at Gorgona, and took our dinner at the hotel kept by the Alcalde of the place, and bargained with him for a guide and three mules to continue our journey to Panama. As soon as our guides and mules were ready, about 1 P.M., we started for Panama. We soon got enough of our mules by being thrown a number of times over their heads. They did not understand our language. "Get up and go along," was Greek to them, but when the guide said "mula vamous" they knew what it meant. On reaching the place where we were to stay all night, we arose in the morning refreshed, but concluded to leave our mules and make the rest of the way a-foot, as we considered them a nuisance, and as we had no baggage but my little satchel previously referred to, in which I had bills of lading of my houses, they being consigned to me, the specifications of my carpenter's schedule, my letters and a gold chronometer watch, worth $250, belonging to H., a broker in New York, a friend, and a bottle of the best brandy, which he presented to me to keep off the fever in crossing the Isthmus. This bag I handed to the guide boy, about seventeen years of age, taking out the brandy bottle. The watch I was to sell, for he had two nephews who had gone to California, and if they were in need, to supply their wants. I did not meet them; sold the watch for $500 to Mr. Haight, one of the owners of the Miners' Bank in San Francisco, and remitted the money to my friend, so I shall not refer to the watch again.
We were walking on at a free pace, our guide boy following behind. Looking back after awhile we could not see him. We stopped and waited some time, but he did not come, so we thought we would go on and he would follow. The result was we lost our way and craved for a sight of the Pacific ocean with all the ardor that Gilboa could have done, the first Spanish discoverer of it, and on the same route, after our wanderings all day, almost without hope, until four in the afternoon, we came to a stream of water; oppressed with the heat of the tropics and fatigued I threw myself in the water. Lieutenant M. exclaimed: "Do not give up in that way." "I am not giving up," I replied; "only refreshing myself." In a short time he did the same thing. As we lay there we thought we heard voices. In looking back who should we see but one of our countrymen, the most gladdening sight to us. We felt saved at once. We asked him if he had any provision. He said he thought not. Then he said one of his companions might have a little piece of ham left and some crackers. He said there were three of them, and they would soon be there, and when they came one of them had some bacon and a few crackers, which he gave to us. The eating of it soon refreshed us. As I had some of the brandy left in the bottle, I extended it to them, which they were very glad to receive. Explanations ensued. We, by chance, had struck the Crusos road, and were but ten miles from Panama. They had come from Philadelphia in a brig, and had started across from Crusos, the head of boating on the Chagres river, and had been from two to three weeks getting so far across the Isthmus, and were perfectly astonished at the rapidity with which we had come. So we joined them and arrived in Panama that evening. Lieutenant M. and myself were the first of the one thousand passengers of the Georgia to enter the city. The office of the agents of the Pacific steamers was closed. I went, the first thing in the morning, to purchase the five tickets for our party. Alas for human expectation! I was informed it would be several weeks before the steamer would sail. She had not yet returned from the first trip to San Francisco. They said there were but sixty tickets for sale, and they would not be offered until a few days before the departure of the steamer. Of course, all we could do was to abide our chances of getting them. The city was walled around and dyked like those of the Middle Ages. Toward the bay the wall was one hundred feet high by twenty broad. The city had been on the decline for most a hundred years. We could see the ruins of what it once had been. At one time Spain owned all South America, Mexico, California, Louisiana and Florida. Panama was the only port of entry on the Pacific coast, and controlled its commerce. As you enter the gates of the walled city there is a chapel just inside, where the lights are always burning on its altars. The first thing on entering all good Catholics enter, kneel and make their devotions, seeking the protection of the patron saint of the city. The head alcalder of the city was a Castilian Spaniard, a venerable-looking gentleman, white as any Northern man, evidently of Scandinavian descent, who ages back conquered Spain and divided the land up among themselves and became its nobility, from whom the present rulers of Spain are descendants. It is said that when conquered, the original inhabitants of Spain, to a great extent, fled to their vessels, put to sea, and found the island of Ireland, from which the present inhabitants are descendants. The second alcalder was a negro as black as I have ever seen.
In the city of Panama in its days of prosperity, when under Spain, the higher classes must have lived in great luxuries, the negroes their slaves. The natives the peons were in a condition similar to slavery, they could not leave the land as long as they owed any thing. But the despotism of old Spain became so great that when they struck for freedom, all classes united. They gave freedom to the negroes and the peons, and even the priests of the Catholic church had been so tyrannized over by the mother church in Spain that they joined the revolutionists and all classes are represented in the government. I called at a watchmaker's to have a crystal put in my watch. Two brothers had furnished rooms like a parlor. I could not speak Spanish, nor they English. I could speak a little French. I found they could speak it fluently. I asked them where they learned it. They said, "At the Jesuit college at Granada." Then one, of them, when he learned that I was from the United States, went to the piano and played Hail Columbia as a compliment to my country, which would trouble most of us to do the same for their country.
There are now great trees growing up in the ruins of what was once its great cathedral. The freebooter Morgan is said to have plundered one of its altars of a million of gold and silver, and massacred many of its inhabitants, perpetrating on them the atrocities that their ancestors had upon the original natives. It is said that when Pizarro captured Peru and took the Inca, their king, prisoner, he issued a decree that if his subjects would fill a room with gold, he would release him, which they did. Instead of doing it, he sentenced him to be burned at the stake, and only commuted it to hanging on condition that he confessed the Christian religion. Madam Roland, when she was about to be guillotined in the French revolution, exclaimed, "O Liberty, what crimes have been committed in thy name." O Christianity, what terrible atrocities have been perpetrated in thy name!
Panama is a healthy city to those acclimated, facing a beautiful bay, unlike Chagres, on this side of the Isthmus of Darien, which is the most unhealthy spot on this continent. Excuse this diversion, I must get back to my subject, the days of the forty-niners.
I stopped at the American Hotel. I was somewhat in a dilapidated condition from the experiences of my trip from Chagres. The waiter in my room at the hotel took the best of care of me. I soon found he was no ordinary waiter. He had resigned a position in Washington of $2,000 a year to go to the gold Eldorado. He had been in Panama several months, and had been taken down with the fever twice, which had exhausted his funds and was working at the hotel for his board, but never thought of turning back. He was bound for California. He was quite enfeebled from the effects of the fever. He got hold of my sympathies and secured my friendship. (More of him anon.) I had been here four or five days without seeing our guide, the boy with my satchel, containing my valuables, particularly the bills of lading of my houses. I was in a quandary and anxiety about it, not knowing what to do, when one day as I was going to dinner, something pulled my coat from behind, and looking around, what should I see to my great joy and satisfaction but the native boy with my satchel, contents there all safe. It was an instance of honesty that would do honor to any nation. I gave some honest Catholic priest credit for it. The boy had evidently been instructed what to do.
The great objective point now was, how to get to San Francisco. There was no hope for a sailing vessel from this place, for we saw one return for water that had been chartered by a party that had been out three weeks, and scarcely got out of sight of the city. There is very little chance for a sailing vessel from there until they get west several hundred miles, and strike the trade winds. The chances were better with the sailing vessel to start from New York and go around Cape Horn. So the only hope seemed to be the steamer with its sixty tickets and with from one thousand to fifteen hundred passengers waiting to buy them, all seeking to bring some influence to bear to secure one. I saw in the office of the steamer agent a young man, the book-keeper, whom I took a fancy to, and sought his acquaintance. I found he was from Hudson, N.Y., and I, from Albany, both from the banks of the Hudson river. It ripened into a warm friendship. I explained my situation to him, and my desire, if it was possible, to get off on the steamer, but did not venture to ask his influence to try and get me a ticket. At this time the cholera and Panama fever was raging in full force. The acclimatednacclimated Americans were dying in every direction. I was conversing at 8 A.M. with a healthy looking man, one of our passengers, from New York. At 5 P.M., the same day, I inquired for him and was informed that he was dead and buried. He had been attacked with the cholera. It was a law of the city that they must be buried within one hour after death from a contagious disease. I was finally myself taken down with the Panama fever, lay unconscious and unnoticed in my room at the hotel for a long time, and then came to and found myself burning with the raging fever, had a doctor sent for, and after a time recovered so I could venture out. In the meantime, the steamer Panama had arrived, and its day of sailing for San Francisco announced. Zackary, Nelson & Co. had issued an order that the sixty tickets would be put up to be drawn for. Those having the winning numbers could have the privilege of purchasing them; that they must register their names on such a day. Probably one thousand names and but sixty tickets. The chances were small, but the only hope. On that day, I went early to register, as I was still very weak from the effects of the fever, and at my best in the morning. As I entered, there was a great number there registering. When my turn came, and I was about to put down my name, I looked behind the desk and saw my friend, the book-keeper. He shook his head for me not to. I knew that meant something favorable. I backed out. I returned at once to the hotel. In the evening, about 8 o'clock, my friend came to my room with a second cabin ticket. The joys of Paradise centered into my possession of that ticket. I asked him how did he obtain it? He said he was about to resign his position, and was going up on the same steamer to California. The night before the drawing he asked Mr. Nelson if his services had been satisfactory to him. He said they had. He then said if he should ask him a favor on leaving him if he would grant it? He replied certainly. He then said that he wanted one of those sixty tickets for a particular friend. Mr. Nelson said, "If I had known what you was going to ask for, I could not have granted it; but since I have pledged my word, I shall give you the ticket."