The main street is composed almost entirely of hotels, eating-houses, and “hells.� The old ruined houses have been patched up with whitewash and paint, and nothing remains unaltered but the cathedral. This building is in what I believe is called the “early Spanish style,� which in the Colonies is more remarkable for the tenacity with which mud bricks hold together, than for any architectural advantages. The principal features in connection with these ancient churches are the brass bells they contain, many of which are of handsome design; and these bells are forced on the notice of the visitor to Panama, inasmuch as being now all cracked, they emit a sound like that of a concert of tin-pots and saucepans. At the corner of every street is a little turretted tower, from the top of which a small boy commences at sunrise to batter one of these discordant instruments, whilst from the belfries of the cathedral there issues a peal, to which, comparatively speaking, the din of a boiler manufactory is a treat. If those bells fail to bring the people to church, at all events they allow them no peace out of it. The streets are crowded day and night, for there are several thousand emigrants, waiting a passage to California. Most of these people are of the lower class, and are not prepossessing under their present aspect; and many of them, having exhausted their means in the expenses of their detention, are leading a precarious life, which neither improves their manners or their personal appearance. Long gaunt fellows, armed to the teeth, line the streets on either side, or lounge about the drinking bars and gambling saloons; and among these there is quarrelling and stabbing, and probably murder, before the night is out. The more peaceably disposed are encamped outside the town, and avoid these ruffians as they would the plague; but the end of this, to the evil-disposed, is delirium tremens, fever, and a dog’s burial. With a good tent and canteen, an abundant market close at hand, and plenty of books, the time passed pleasantly enough, until I had arranged for my conveyance to California, which I shortly succeeded in doing, in a small English barque.
It is nothing new to say that the Central Americans are an inert race, and that the inhabitants of New Grenada, of Spanish blood, seem to assimilate in habits with the famous military garrison of Port Mahon, the members of which were too lazy to eat;—for these people are too indolent to make money when it can be done with great rapidity and very little trouble, consequently, the advantages of the Californian emigration are entirely reaped by foreigners. Not a permanent improvement has been added to the town, and if this route was abandoned altogether, the city would be little the richer for the millions of dollars that have been left there during the last few years. The sole exception, almost, is that of a native firm, which has amassed much wealth by contracting for mules for transportation. The projected railroad will be undoubtedly carried out, and will give a vast importance to the isthmus: but it is built with American money and for American purposes. The new town of Aspinwall, in Navy Bay, is American; it is in its infancy at present, and likely always to remain rather “thin,â€� for the reason that the marshes that surround it render it unhealthy. I cannot see what the New Grenadians are to gain by all this exercise of energy and capital; some day or other, perhaps, the brass guns on the ramparts of Panama may be remounted, and the breaches in the walls will be repaired, but by the time these events occur, I think the flag that will float from the citadel will not be that of New Grenada.
* * * *
I must confess I felt great delight when we made the mountains at the entrance of San Francisco Bay; I had been cooped up for forty-five days on board a small barque, in company with one hundred and seventy-five passengers, of whom one hundred and sixty were noisy, quarrelsome, discontented, and dirty in the extreme. I had secured, in company with two or three gentlemen, the after-cabin, and so far I was fortunate. We had also bargained for the poop as a promenade, but those fellows would not go off it; so there would some of them sit all day, spitting tobacco juice, and picking their teeth with their knives. Occasionally they became mutinous, and complained of the provisions, or insisted upon having more water to drink; but the captain knew his men, and on these occasions would hoist out of the hold a small cask of sugar, and knocking off the head, place it in the middle of the deck, and immediately the mutinous symptoms would subside, and the jack-knives would cease to pick teeth, and diving into the sugar cask would convey the sweetness thereof to their owners’ mouths!
Quarrels were of daily occurrence; there was a great deal of knife-drawing and threatening, but no bloodshed, and this was probably attributable to the fact that there was no spirit on board.
It requires a dram or two even for these ferocious gentry to conquer their natural repugnance to a contest with cold steel; and I may remark here that on first finding himself amongst a swaggering set of bullies armed to the teeth, the traveller is apt to imagine that he is surrounded by those who acknowledge no law, have no fear of personal danger, and who will resent all interference; but a closer acquaintance dispels this illusion, and the observing voyager soon finds that he can resent a man’s treading on his toes none the less that the aggressor carries a jack-knife and revolver. One Sunday during our voyage we were addressed spiritually by a minister who dissented from every known doctrine, and whose discourses were of that nature that rob sacred subjects of their gravity.
He shed tears on these occasions with remarkable facility; but under ordinary circumstances, I should imagine him not to have been sensitive in this respect, as I overheard him during the voyage threaten to “rip up the ship’s cook’s guts,â€� and he carried a knife with him in every way adapted for the contemplated operation. Under all circumstances I was very glad when the land about San Francisco Bay appeared in sight. The morning was lovely; and it needs, by the way, a little sunshine to give a cheerful look to the rugged cliffs and round gravelly grassless hills that extend on either side of the bay;—in foggy weather their appearance is quite disheartening to the stranger, and causes him to sail up to the anchorage with misgivings in general respecting the country. Quarrels were now forgotten, and each heart beat high with expectation, for now was in sight that for which many had left wives and children, farms and homesteads, in hopes of course of something better in a land so favoured as undoubtedly was this before us. But hope as we will our best, fear and doubt will creep in; and who knows what blanches the cheek of yonder man! Is it the exhilaration consequent on reaching a goal where certain reward awaits him? or is it a lurking fear that all may prove illusion?
It is a more intense feeling, perhaps, than that of the man who sees before him the card which carries on its downward side his ruin or his fortune; for the gambler cannot if he would find any stake against which to risk the happiness of wife and children, the affections of a well-loved home, and the chance of misery and speedy death in an unknown land. Such the emigrant knows to have been the lot of thousands who have gone before him; but he has also heard of rich “pocketsâ€� and “great strikes,â€� of fortunes made in a month—a week—a day: who shall then say which of these emotions blanches his cheek, as we now fly rapidly past the “Golden Gateâ€� rocks that guard the harbour’s mouth?
As we open the bay, we observe dense masses of smoke rolling to leeward; the town and shipping are almost undistinguishable, for we have arrived at the moment of the great June Fire of 1850, and San Francisco is again in ashes!