An American characteristic is a weakness for quack medicines and specifics, and numbers of men here fell victims to the national mania, chiefly Yankees and Western men. Persons coming from a northern climate to such a place as Panama, are naturally apt at first to experience some slight derangement of their general health, which, with proper treatment, is easily rectified; but these fellows were all provided with cholera preventive, fever preventive, and boxes of pills for the prevention and the cure of every known disease. The moment they imagined that there was anything wrong with them, they became alarmed, and dosed themselves with all the medicines they could get hold of, so that when they really were taken ill, they were already half poisoned with the stuff they had been swallowing. Many killed themselves by excessive drinking of the wretched liquor which was sold under the name of brandy, and others, by eating ravenously of fruit, green or ripe, at all hours of the day, or by living, for the sake of economy, on gingerbread and spruce-beer, which are also American weaknesses, and of which there were several enterprising Yankee manufacturers.
The sickness was no doubt much increased by the outrageously filthy state of the town. There seemed to be absolutely no arrangement for cleanliness whatever, and the heavy rains which fell, and washed down the streets, were all that saved the town from being swallowed up in the accumulation of its own corruption.
Among the Americans en route for California were men of all classes—professional men, merchants, laborers, sailors, farmers, mechanics, and numbers of long gaunt Western men, with rifles as long as themselves. The hotels were too crowded to allow of any distinction of persons, and they were accordingly conducted on ultra-democratic principles. Some faint idea of the style of thing might be formed from a notice which was posted up in the bar-room of the most fashionable hotel. It ran as follows: “Gentlemen are requested to wear their coats at table, if they have them handy.” This intimation, of course, in effect amounted to nothing at all, but at the same time there was a great deal in it. It showed that the landlord, being above vulgar prejudices himself, saw the necessity, in order to please all his guests, of overcoming the mutual prejudices existing between broadcloth and fine linen, and red flannel with no linen,—sanctioning the wearing of coats at table on the part of the former, by making a public request that they would do so, while, of the shirt-sleeve gentlemen, those who had coats, and refused to wear them, could still glory in the knowledge that they were defying all interference with their individual rights; and in behalf of the really coatless, those who could not call a coat their own, the idea was kindly suggested that that garment was only absent, because it was not “handy.”
As may be supposed, such a large and motley population of foreigners, confined in such a place as Panama, without any occupation, were not remarkably quiet or orderly. Gambling, drinking, and cockfighting were the principal amusements; and drunken rows and fights, in which pistols and knives were freely used, were of frequent occurrence.
The 4th of July was celebrated by the Americans in great style. The proceedings were conducted as is customary on such occasions in the United States. A procession was formed, which, headed by a number of fiddles, drums, bugles, and other instruments, all playing “Yankee Doodle” in a very free and independent manner, marched to the place of celebration, a circular canvas structure, where a circus company had been giving performances. When all were assembled, the Declaration of Independence was read, and the orator of the day made a flaming speech on the subject of George III. and the Universal Yankee nation. A gentleman then got up, and, speaking in Spanish, explained to the native portion of the assembly what all the row was about; after which the meeting dispersed, and the further celebration of the day was continued at the bars of the different hotels.
I met with an accident here which laid me up for several weeks. I suffered a good deal, and passed a most weary time. All the books I could get hold of did not last me more than a few days, and I had then no other pastime than to watch the humming-birds buzzing about the flowers which grew around my window.
As soon as I was able to walk, I took passage in a barque about to sail for San Francisco. She carried about forty passengers; and as she had ample cabin accommodation, we were so far comfortable enough. The company was, as might be expected, very miscellaneous. Some were respectable men, and others were precious vagabonds. When we had been out but a few days, a fever broke out on board, which was not, however, of a very serious character. I got a touch of it, and could have cured myself very easily, but there was a man on board who passed for a doctor, having shipped as such: he had been physicking the others, and I reluctantly consented to allow him to doctor me also. He began by giving me some horrible emetic, which, however, had no effect; so he continued to repeat it, dose after dose, each dose half a tumblerful, with still no effect, till, at last, he had given me so much of it, that he began to be alarmed for the consequences. I was a little alarmed myself, and putting my finger down my throat, I very soon relieved myself of all his villainous compounds. I think I fainted after it. I know I felt as if I were going to faint, and shortly afterwards was sensible of a lapse of time which I could not account for; but on inquiring of some of my fellow-passengers, I could find no one who had so far interested himself on my account as to be able to give me any information on the subject.
I took my own case in hand after that, and very soon got rid of the fever, although the emetic treatment had so used me up that for a fortnight I was hardly able to stand. We afterwards discovered that this man was only now making his début as a physician. He had graduated, however, as a shoemaker, a farmer, and I don’t know what else besides; latterly he had practised as a horse-dealer, and I have no doubt it was some horse-medicine which he administered to me so freely.
We had only two deaths on board, and in justice to the doctor, I must say he was not considered to have been the cause of either of them. One case was that of a young man, who, while the doctor was treating him for fever, was at the same time privately treating himself to large doses, taken frequently, of bad brandy, of which he had an ample stock stowed away under his bed. About a day and a half settled him. The other was a much more melancholy case. He was a young Swede—such a delicate, effeminate fellow that he seemed quite out of place among the rough and noisy characters who formed the rest of the party. A few days before we left Panama, a steamer had arrived from San Francisco with a great many cases of cholera on board. Numerous deaths had occurred in Panama, and considerable alarm prevailed there in consequence. The Swede was attacked with fever like the rest of us, but he had no force in him, either mental or bodily, to bear up against sickness under such circumstances; and the fear of cholera had taken such possession of him, that he insisted upon it that he had cholera, and that he would die of it that night. His lamentations were most piteous, but all attempts to reassure him were in vain. He very soon became delirious, and died raving before morning. None of us were doctors enough to know exactly what he died of, but the general belief was that he frightened himself to death. The church-service was read over him by the supercargo, many of the passengers merely leaving their cards to be present at the ceremony, and as soon as he was launched over the side, resuming their game where they had been interrupted; and this, moreover, was on a Sunday morning. In future the captain prohibited all card-playing on Sundays, but throughout the voyage nearly one-half of the passengers spent the whole day, and half the night, in playing the favorite game of poker, which is something like brag, and at which they cheated each other in the most barefaced manner, so causing perpetual quarrels, which, however, never ended in a fight—for the reason, as it seemed to me, that as every one wore his bowie-knife, the prospect of getting his opponent’s knife between his ribs deterred each man from drawing his own, or offering any violence whatever.
The poor Swede had no friends on board; nobody knew who he was, where he came from, or anything at all about him; and so his effects were, a few days after his death, sold at auction by order of the captain, one of the passengers, who had been an auctioneer in the States, officiating on the occasion.