Golden Dreams and Leaden Realities

by George Payson

It seemed for a time as if these agitators would succeed in accomplishing their purpose. A broken-down steamship belonging to the American consul was lying in the harbour, and it was natural to suppose that he would do all in his power to detain the Carolina, in order to obtain passengers for his own vessel. The first step was to order a survey to be made of the ship. The survey was made as a mere matter of form by three dignified officials within the steamer, and by as many naked Indians without. The divers, who seemed to understand their business much better than their superiors, reported that two strips of copper had been detached from the ship's bottom, and the seams were also open, thus causing the leak which had occasioned us so much uneasiness. On making this discovery the authorities delayed giving us a permit to go to sea, and the commandant of the fort above the town received orders to blow us out of water if we attempted to force a passage. Our captain declared he would go to sea in spite of them. The passengers entered into the dispute with ardour, and began to furbish up their revolvers and argue the feasibility of carrying the citadel by a coup-de-main.

In this state of affairs, when the doughty little town of Acapulco and the spiteful little steamer Carolina seemed about to come to loggerheads with each other, a compromise was proposed that satisfied the dignity of both the contending parties, and prevented that dreadful bloodshed that must otherwise have inevitably followed. The Indians, who had discovered the leak, were commissioned to stop it. For this purpose two strips of copper were provided to take the place of those that were lost, and lowered down to the divers, who instantly sunk with them beneath the surface, the white soles of their feet glancing curiously amid the dark water. What they did with the copper afterwards I cannot say. It did not rise again to the surface. But whether they really succeeded in nailing it on to its proper place, or whether it is now quietly reposing in the soft mud at the bottom of the little harbour, is a question about which I must decline giving an opinion.

This arrangement, however, had the desired effect; it healed the breach, if it did not stop the leak. Our captain received his permit, and in a few hours we were ready for sea. About one hundred of our company remained behind, unwilling to risk their lives further in the Carolina. Part of them went across the country on mules to the city of Mexico, and thence by wagons to Vera Cruz, and the remainder took passage in the worn-out steamer belonging to the consul, thus jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire. If any one wonders that we did not all follow the example of the first, an explanation is easily given. The land journey to Vera Cruz was long and toilsome—the rivers were already swollen by the winter rains, and it was doubtful if we should succeed in crossing them; and after reaching that city we might still have to wait a long time before we could obtain a passage to any port in the United States. Besides, the chief-engineer thought he had now succeeded in repairing the engine, so that we should have no further trouble on that score; but, more than all, the sun shone brightly, the touch of the earth had given us all new strength and spirits, and we no longer retained any very lively apprehensions of the dangers we had so recently encountered.

Behold us, then, four days after we entered the harbour of Acapulco, once more stealing out to sea. The caution with which we moved soon convinced us that, whatever repairs had been made during our stay, the engine was still in a very precarious condition. Slowly and painfully, like one just recovering from sickness, we crept along the smooth surface of the Pacific. We watched with the most intense solicitude all the signs of the weather, fearing lest some storm hovering near should spy us out and swoop down upon our feeble craft. What we feared was at length partially accomplished. A storm that swept across the ocean many miles from our course just brushed us, in passing, with its cloud-broad wings. The effect of this trifling blow showed us what we should have had to expect if we had encountered the main body of the tempest. The leak gained upon us with frightful rapidity, and we were obliged once more to have recourse to the buckets. We divided into several companies, that succeeded each other in this fatiguing labour, and were thus enabled to continue at work nearly the whole night. About three in the morning I left my station on the ladder for the last time, my clothes completely saturated with coal and water, and altogether my appearance so deplorable that a decent chimney-sweep would have been ashamed to be seen in my society. But the heat of the smoke-pipe round which I huddled soon dried my clothes, and as to my appearance, I consoled myself with the reflection that, bad as it was, our situation was ten times worse.

The result of this night's experience was to induce Captain W. to give up his design of reaching Panama, and turn the ship's head towards Realejo. The passengers had already strongly urged this change, but, with that jealousy natural to sea-captains and cookmaids, he had hitherto preserved the most impenetrable mystery as to his intentions.

Having after some difficulty found the entrance, we sailed up the river about a mile, and made the ship fast at a wharf where the steamers of Vanderbilt's line take on board their coal, and we were now at liberty to take a view of the surrounding country.

The town of Realejo was eight miles further up the river, and the only buildings near the wharf were two or three miserable shanties inhabited by an old Indian and half a dozen melancholy fowl. On the opposite side of the river, or perhaps I should rather say arm of the sea, here about a mile in width, a single house was visible peeping through the snarled and matted forest. An American bark and brig lay dozing over their anchors half a mile from our ship, seeming, so thick was the silence in which they were encrusted, to be stuck fast in that enchanted sea, like flies in a hogshead of molasses.

With these exceptions every thing still remained in apparently the same state as when, six thousand years before, evening and morning were the fifth day. The "great horologe divine" of this lower creation was all complete—there were the springs, the weights, the wheels, but the maker's fingers had not yet put them in motion, and they still seemed waiting for that powerful touch. It was almost like sacrilege to venture into those sublimely silent waters, and arouse them from their long slumbers by our noisy and impertinent life.

The sea here seemed to have gained upon the land—the trees stood like the herds on a sultry summer's afternoon knee deep in the cooling flood. Beneath the low arching roof the shadows lay thickly woven and felted together. Birds of unknown plumage glided along the glassy pavement, among the slender stems, or unfolded their crimson and gold to the sun as they floated carelessly over our heads. Each little leaf hung silent on its perch—there was not even that whispering hum that, like the drone of a beehive or a country school-house, is forever heard from a waking forest.

But suddenly an almost imperceptible ripple came creeping round a distant headland, and the next moment a rude canoe shot out into the river. Others continually made their appearance in different directions, and in a few hours fifteen or twenty were drawn up on the beach. They contained large baskets of eggs, oranges of a finer flavour than any we had yet tasted, and a strange fruit resembling the quince in size and shape, but as yellow and almost as tasteless as a pumpkin. Parrots, macaws, and paroquets were also offered for sale, and some of them, we were told, talked the purest Castilian, but no one seemed disposed to try that method of instruction.