The next day, the 28th of January, we left Lima at 8 a.m., and had an hour or so in Callao to get a few newspapers and books for use on the voyage to Panamá. The Oroya started about mid-day, but once outside the harbour we got into a thick fog, which is said to hang about these coasts at this time of the year. This fog accompanied us all the day, and the early part of the next, when we passed H.M.S. Repulse, flying Admiral Cochrane’s flag, and on the 30th we arrived at Payta at mid-day. This is a small town in the usual Peruvian tumble-down style, and not worth landing to see. We had to take in some sugar as cargo, and were detained till evening. The next three days passed without anything worthy of note, save, perhaps, that though the weather was fine, the ocean was anything but “Pacific,” the breezes being strong from the north and west.
On the 3rd of February, the seventh day out from Callao, we arrived off Panamá about mid-day. The approach is exceedingly pretty, as the steamer passes several islands clothed with bush to the water’s edge, and forming a pleasant contrast to the arid coasts of Peru. On one of these islands, Taboga, the Pacific Steam Navigation Company have a station and pier, and there is a good-sized village with fields of maize and plantains, looking fresh and green. The ocean steamers stop at an island about a mile and a half from the town, and from thence a smaller steamer conveys passengers, mails, and specie up to Panamá. From this island the town looks pretty, but on arriving one sees that it is old and somewhat dirty. The wharves are large, but have been patched up and enlarged from time to time.
Two severe fires, that occurred in the city within eighteen months, had destroyed many large houses; the central hotel and adjoining buildings in the plaza being in ruins. The insurance companies, Imperial and Sun, of London, lost large sums of money; the agent in Panamá, a Monsieur de Roux, telling me he had sent in claims for more than a million dollars, and now the companies wisely decline any further risks. The cathedral is a plain old-fashioned edifice, the towers of which are spotted with pearl-oyster shells, probably to put one in mind of the pest of small-pox, which is at times very bad in the town, although on the whole it seems to have a very fair climate, and not to deserve the bad reputation that is universally attributed to it. The Grand Central Hotel, at which we stayed, is well managed, and the prices charged are reasonable. Before leaving Panamá we paid a visit to the prison, where the criminals are kept in large rooms, having barred windows opening to the ground, through which the prisoners are allowed to converse freely with all comers. They may also divert themselves with the manufacture of small curiosities, the best being engraved cocoa-nuts and gourds, on which they carve very pretty designs, and for which they ask about a dollar apiece.
The royal mail steamer Tasmanian being announced to leave Aspinwall at 5 p.m. on the 5th, we decided to go there by the early morning train, leaving Panamá at 7 a.m. in order to have a few hours to look round the town of Aspinwall, or Colon, as it is called in the country. The transit by railway across the Isthmus of Panamá is so well known by travellers that very little description is now needed. The notorious incivility of the employés and the discomfort of the carriages, coupled with the exorbitant tariff of £6 for about fifty miles distance, render this part of the journey so unpleasant in every way that no one would use this railway were there any other means available of passing the Isthmus; but as the Panamá Railway Company have at present a monopoly of the inter-oceanic traffic, they probably think that civility and reasonable treatment of passengers is quite an unnecessary item of management, their trade not being likely to be driven away until they have had a lifetime of their profits.
The country on the Pacific side of the hills that run through the Isthmus, and on the upper parts of the Chagres River which flows into the Atlantic, is pretty enough, there being several small villages through which the line passes, at each of which the clearings made in the bush show the usual luxuriant tropical growth of maize, plantains, and other products; but the flat country nearer Aspinwall is one vast swamp. The completion of the line through this is one of the most notable feats of engineering, and the passage over it recalls vividly to the mind the dismal story of the numerous deaths that occurred during the construction, the number being so great that it is said, the laying of each sleeper cost a life. Aspinwall is also built amongst the swamps, and were it not that the miasma rising round the town is blown inland by the fresh sea breezes, it would certainly be a most unhealthy place.
The city is small and uninteresting, and the less one stays in it the better. We found the Tasmanian in the agonies of coaling, and who shall describe the grim state of dust and dirt that afflicts mail steamers when this unfortunately necessary operation is being carried on. Although all doors and windows between the saloons and the hold are carefully closed, the dust permeates everywhere; whilst the noises, foul odours, and still fouler language, that rise from the crowd of negroes following one another in quick succession up and down the planks leading from the vessel to the shore, are so unbearable, that to remain on deck is absolutely impossible; a stroll even along the hot and uninteresting streets of Aspinwall therefore becomes preferable to going on board before the hour of departure. The longest day has, however, its ending, and what with buying a few shells and other simple curiosities in the market-place, inspecting the statue of Columbus, and breakfasting at one of the very second-rate restaurants, we managed to pass away the time until the coaling of the Tasmanian was completed, and the bell rang to warn passengers to go on board.
The voyage home from Aspinwall commenced on the evening of the 5th; on the 10th we were at Jamaica, on the 14th at St. Thomas’, and on the 1st of March I landed at Plymouth, well pleased to be home again in Old England after so long and varied a journey by river, land, and sea.