Deck and port /

by Walter Colton

On the other side of me sat a middle-aged native, in a white fringed poncho, a large Guyaquil hat, and figured trowsers. An old-fashioned ring was conspicuous on his finger, and the remnants of a gold mounting still lingered on the top of his cane. His features were sharp and prominent; and he had a remarkable strabismus of his eyes, which seemed to be trying to look into each other across the bridge of his nose. On his knees he carried an article of chamber furniture, which, though manufactured of silver, shall be nameless here.

Having occasion to light a cigar, which required the use of both his hands to manage the flint and steel, which he carried in his pocket, he placed the unmentionable, without saying a word, in the lap of the passenger next him, who happened to be the captain of an American merchantman, and who as quickly thrust it back on the knees of its owner, with the ejaculation, “Carry your own teapot.” The eyes of the proprietor flashed fire into each other, but not a word was said. The officer gave his moustache another twist, the fat lady fanned herself as before, but the two other lady passengers seemed to be not a little surprised at the rudeness of the American; neither of them smiled, nor seemed to perceive the least impropriety, or the slightest shade of the ludicrous in the conspicuous position which the unmentionable occupied. With us, two ladies so situated, would have jumped out of the stage, if not through the door, then through a window.

Better at once to fly the sight,

Than stay to perish with affright.

Friday, May 8. We were all again on board, and watching for the appearance of the steamer from Panama. Seven months had elapsed, and we had received no intelligence from home, and could expect none now through any government mail. Indeed, our government has no mail arrangements in the Pacific. Once in two or three months a packet is dispatched to Chagres with a mail, which finds its way over the isthmus to Panama, and there goes soundly to sleep. For matter of reaching its destination, it might as well be in the moon.

Commodore Stockton had dispatched Mr. Beale and Mr. Norris to the United States, with instructions to join him by the nearest practicable route in the Pacific. The line of steamers between the West India islands and Chagres, and between Panama and Callao, had not then been completed, and it was therefore extremely doubtful whether they would attempt to reach us by this route. The probability seemed to be they would take the route by New Orleans, and across the continent to Mazatlan, and thence to California.

In the midst of these doubts, the steamer threw her black mass within the bright line of the horizon. “There she comes!” ran in quick whispers through the ship. As she neared us, the all-absorbing question was, whether the secretary of the commodore was in her. On this depended our last and only hope of letters from home. She passed us at no great distance; but we tried in vain to discover, through our glasses, the individual for whom we were looking. No sign of such a person appeared among the few passengers who paced her deck. I went below; I had seen enough of steamers, and never desired to see another. The third cutter was called away, and directed to proceed to the steamer; but that seemed only blotting out the last ray of possibility.

In twenty minutes, an officer rushed below with the surprising intelligence that the secretary of the commodore was in the boat alongside. I was not long in reaching the deck, and could hardly credit my own eyes when I saw him come over the gangway; and still less when he placed in my hands some twenty letters from my family and friends. Our advices were within about thirty days from the United States. The commodore received a large mail; Capt. Du Pont, and nearly all the officers, got letters from home. For this intelligence, with files of papers from the press, we were indebted to the arrangement of Commodore Stockton, carried through at his private expense. We spent the greater part of the night in reading our letters and penning answers to them, as we were to sail the next day for the Sandwich Islands. These details may not be interesting to some, especially those who have not been absent from home a week without intelligence; but let more than half a year of their brief life circle round without any information, and they will appreciate the significance of such seeming trifles. The surest source of sympathy is found in an experience of the same calamity.

The Incas of Peru, who invested their imperial sway with the mandates and sanctions of a supreme theocracy, are in their graves. Their palaces and temples remain; and in these vast monuments are shrined the evidences of their departed grandeur and power. The solid blocks of porphyry which pave the great public way from Quito to Cuzco, and the table-land of Desaguadero, still invite the footsteps of the moving masses, and still roll back the sunbeams in showering gold.

The dominion of the usurper who entered this peaceful realm with the cross and chain, has at length been broken. It lies in ruins, amid penitent tokens of guilt and sorrow, around the sacred ashes of the Incas. The fiery deluge of revolution which has swept this fair land since, has also passed away. The calm hearts of two millions of freemen remain. They bend the knee to no iron despotism, no consecrated pageant of power. They have rights which they assert in the unrestricted freedom of the elective franchise. Their progress to constitutional freedom and repose has been tumultuous and wild, but they are within sight of their goal, and will reach it as assuredly as the wave of the rolling deep its destined strand.