Sunday, Jan. 17, 1849.
James Gordon Bennett: This being a very interesting locality of the globe, at this time, I will strive to transmit daguerreotype views of what transpires. I stopped at Cruces one night, where several died, whose graves were dug by the natives (just below the earth’s surface,) with little sticks and earthern bowls, which is the custom of the country. In one case, the grave was not dug long enough, and the neck was broken by turning the head over on the breast. I found several American officers at Cruces, under the command of General Persifer F. Smith, who had proceeded to Panama. Finding no mules in Cruces, I wandered alone in the swamps in pursuit of one, amid rain, lightning and thunder that shook the deep foundations of the earth, and made the alligators show their hideous jaws. Through a flash of lightning, I discovered a muletteer in the dark and deep perspective, with whom, by signs and grim contortions, I contracted for a mule. The tempest twilight passed, and the mild equator stars emerged from their mysterious depths, and guided myself and muletteer from the dismal swamp. I learn from a passenger who has just entered my apartment at the Americano, that three emigrants were buried last night in the mountains. Two more are supposed to be dying at the French hotel. God only knows where all this will end. An aged passenger entered the gate of the city about three hours since, whose locks were as white as the untrodden snow, crying, with uplifted arms: “My children! my children! O God! restore my beloved children.” He looked and enacted the character of Lear more perfectly than I had ever seen it. The snow that fell on Grandfather Whitehead and poor old Lear, were only wanting to make it the most harrowing scene I ever witnessed. But unfortunately, it has not snowed on the equator, since the advent of creation. The old man’s children arrived about an hour since, and I had the pleasure of bathing the father of the flock with brandy, which revived and exhilarated him, and made him dance before me quite a reel. The old fellow really danced wonderfully; I think I never saw a man of his years step round so lively, alter I washed his exterior, and especially his interior, with sparkling brandy. The old man has just told me that a person went from his canoe into a thicket on the Chagres, and shot a monkey, when all his tribe began to chatter wildly, and drop from the trees upon him, and stole his hat, and scratched, and hit him severely, and finally, about 400 monkeys chased him into the Chagres, where he had to swim for his life until he was rescued by his comrades. Although my brandy has made the old man extremely loquacious and facetious, yet I believe his monkey story is as reliable as my snake and alligator narratives.
(To be continued.)
Stephen H. Branch’s Alligator.
NEW YORK, SATURDAY APRIL 24 1858.
Like Adam and Eve at the hymeneal altar, contemplating the interminable generations of sinners; like Noah surveying the horrors of the deluge; like Julius Cæsar projecting the passage of the Rubicon; like the Christians braving the persecutions of the Jews; like William Tell, with his bow and quiver, hurling defiance at Gesler in the mountain gorges of Switzerland; like the great Columbus going into a midnight storm in untraversed latitudes; like the supernatural Washington going into battle, on whose consummation the liberty of the human race impends; like Napoleon at Helena reviewing his wondrous reign; like Andre and poor Orsini going to the scaffold, amid the tears of their countrymen; and like the cheerful moon, in her ramble with romantic lovers through summer skies and groves of perfume, we calmly survey the horizon in our virgin advent of to-day, although we discern a snowy cloud that resembles the terrific monsoon. But as the impetuous sun darts through infinitude, we shall soon dash among the adversaries of integrity and patriotism, and be as merciless as Jackson to the robbers of the toiling masses, or to the cruel Indians, or to British tyrants.