We deposed the steward as a useless vagabond, and appointed three passengers to fill his place, after which we fared a little better—in fact, as well as the provisions at our command would allow. No one grumbled, excepting a few of the lowest class of men in the party, who had very likely never been used to such good living ashore.
When we got into the trade-winds we had delightful weather, very hot, but with a strong breeze at night, rendering it sufficiently cool to sleep in comfort. The all-engrossing subject of conversation, and of meditation, was of course California, and the heaps of gold we were all to find there. As we had secured our passage only as far as Chagres, our progress from that point to San Francisco was also a matter of constant discussion. We all knew that every steamer to leave Panama, for months to come, was already full, and that hundreds of men were waiting there to take advantage of any opportunity that might occur of reaching San Francisco; but among our passengers there were very few who were traveling in company; they were mostly all isolated individuals, each “on his own hook,” and every one was perfectly confident that he at least would have no trouble in getting along, whatever might be the fate of the rest of the crowd.
We added to the delicacies of our bill of fare occasionally by killing dolphins. They are very good eating, and afford capital sport. They come in small shoals of a dozen or so, and amuse themselves by playing about before the bows of the vessel, when, getting down into the martingale under the bowsprit, one takes the opportunity to let drive at them with the “grains,” a small five-pronged harpoon.
The dolphin, by the way, is most outrageously and systematically libeled. Instead of being the horrid, big-headed, crooked-backed monster which it is generally represented, it is the most elegant and highly-finished fish that swims.
For three or four days before reaching Chagres, all hands were busy packing up, and firing off and reloading pistols; for a revolver and a bowie-knife were considered the first items in a California outfit. We soon assumed a warlike appearance, and though many of the party had probably never handled a pistol in their lives before, they tried to wear their weapons in a negligé style, as if they never had been used to go without them.
There were now also great consultations as to what sort of hats, coats, and boots, should be worn in crossing the Isthmus. Wondrous accounts constantly appeared in the New York papers of the dangers and difficulties of these few miles of land-and-river travel, and most of the passengers, before leaving New York, had been humbugged into buying all manner of absurd and useless articles, many of them made of india-rubber, which they had been assured, and consequently believed, were absolutely necessary. But how to carry them all, or even how to use them, was the main difficulty, and would indeed have puzzled much cleverer men.
Some were equipped with pots, pans, kettles, drinking-cups, knives and forks, spoons, pocket-filters (for they had been told that the water on the Isthmus was very dirty), india-rubber contrivances, which an ingenious man, with a powerful imagination and strong lungs, could blow up and convert into a bed, a boat, or a tent—bottles of “cholera preventive,” boxes of pills for curing every disease to which human nature is liable; and some men, in addition to all this, determined to be prepared to combat danger in every shape, bade defiance to the waters of the Chagres river by buckling on india-rubber life-preservers.
Others of the party, who were older travelers, and who held all such accoutrements in utter contempt, had merely a small valise with a few necessary articles of clothing, an oil-skin coat, and, very probably, a pistol stowed away on some part of their person, which would be pretty sure to go off when occasion required, but not before.
At last, after twenty days’ passage from New York, we made Chagres, and got up to the anchorage towards evening. The scenery was very beautiful. We lay about three-quarters of a mile from shore, in a small bay enclosed by high bluffs, completely covered with dense foliage of every shade of green.
We had but little time, however, to enjoy the scenery that evening, as we had scarcely anchored when the rain began to come down in true tropical style; every drop was a bucketful. The thunder and lightning were terrific, and in good keeping with the rain, which is one of the things for which Chagres is celebrated. Its character as a sickly wretched place was so well known that none of us went ashore that night; we all preferred sleeping aboard ship.