In my canoe, on the Chagres, Jan 4, 1849.
Our supper, last night, consisted of rice and a stew of bad meat, with a sprinkling of all the fruits I have yet seen in Grenada. I smelt, but did not eat a particle. My comrades ate freely, and they look blue this morning. The natives poison rats with goat milk and pine apple combined, or with bananas and brandy. Either of these combinations will kill a man in about one hour, so I guess I shall keep a bright guard on what goes into my belly, which is rather loose and gripy to-day. To continue long wet is a matter of death in these latitudes, and if the bowels begin to degenerate, you must say your orisons immediately. A native died one hour before our arrival, during the fifth shake of fever and ague. On reaching the canoe, last evening, to embark, we bailed it out, chopping up and casting overboard some dozen water-snakes, that had got into the canoe while at tea. Last night was the hardest I ever passed. It rained very hard. The monkeys chattered in droves of thousands. Our boatmen sang the most doleful songs all night. Bull frogs rent the air with their discordant sounds; the snakes hissed, and the alligators brought their jaws together so fiercely, as to make even the forest tremble. Amid this frightful scene, with the thermometer at 97°, pent up in the veriest cubby hole you ever saw, where we could not move or turn over without endangering our lives by upsetting the canoe—it was altogether a night of extreme suffering to us all. We stopped at about two this morning, at a hut on the borders of the river, where being very sleepy, we took lodging for two hours, for which, with three cups of coffee, we gave $1 50, and departed at about five o’clock. Our bed was a piece of cloth spread on a bamboo floor, with a pillow about one foot long and six inches wide. It was the funniest pillow I ever saw, and we had hard work to keep our heads upon it. When the natives supposed we were asleep, I heard some of the rascals whispering about our assassination, and I awoke my comrade from a profound snore with a severe pinch and scratch with my long nails, when the glistening of our weapons, and a whisper between ourselves, and a slight movement towards arising amid the total darkness, scattered the cowardly assassins back to their hammocks, when we arose, and descended the ladder stairs, and paid our bill, and went to our canoe. The males and females nearly all smoke, and men, women, and children are nearly in a state of nature. Their apparel costs them very little, and the green earth affords them, without cultivation, every species of vegetable and animal production.
Stephen H. Branch.
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Gorgona, Jan 5, 1849.
[5½ A. M.]
James Gordon Bennett: I thank God that I have arrived at this infernal place, because it is the least odious of all the mud holes between this and Chagres. Ours was the first canoe into Gorgona. Money made our men work for their lives. We are about to take breakfast on the shore, and then pass on to Cruces, and will, doubtless be the first canoe in, and then we will try our luck over the mountains to Panama. We have had a truly awful time. The current ran against us in some places at the rate of eight miles, and we came near upsetting several times. The thermometer is 99 this morning. I must close and run to the canoe. I will write you when I get to Panama, but doubt if you will get my letters, as every thing is uncertain. I have not eaten for twenty-two hours, and have been lying wet in my canoe nearly ever since I left Chagres. My health is good, but irregularity, fatigue, and loss of sleep, affect me adversely, but I shall strive to vanquish all impediments. I have acquired more practical knowledge of animate and inanimate nature, since I left you, than I have attained in all my travels, but I have paid dearly for my information. Poor Columbus, Vespucius, Robinson Crusoe, and Daniel Boon are constantly before my vision, with whom I can truly sympathise, being like them, a pioneer in the exploration of the Western Hemisphere, and its adjacent isles. I could drop a tear to-day, my feelings are so extremely pensive, and yet I wont, but, if necessary, I’ll yet brave tigers in their dens. So, good bye.
Stephen H. Branch.
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Panama, New Grenada,