VOYAGE FROM NEW YORK TO ASPINWALL.

23

not be envied by the just and noble, who finds his resemblance in the voracious dolphin, or in the mean and ungenerous seahawk.

The lofty headlands of the Province of Porto Bello, in the Republic of New Granada, are in sight. The lifting up, or flitting by of clouds in the distance, revealing hills and valleys beneath or beyond, clad in verdure and constantly developing some new and lovely combination of light and shade, is so fair to look on, so refreshing to the water-wearied eye, so typical of the brief and changeful visions of happiness sometimes coming to us in dreams, when the darker curtain of care is drawn aside, and the liberated imagination looks out on the beautiful scenes of its own creation, that I must cheat you of these moments, and regale the eye and cheer the spirit with these exquisite dissolving views of nature. Such they seem; for, as we flit past them, so rapid is the change of the picture, that ere we can say “look, look, how beautiful!—'tis gone."

Aspinwall was reached in a little over eight days from New York-distance two thousand miles-and too late to make the railroad connection with Panama; hence we must stay all night in this miserable abortion of a town, which is destitute of comfortable accommodations, but affords an undoubted chance of our imbibing a sufficient quantity of malarious poison to produce yellow fever, a malignant type of which has been prevailing here for some weeks. The voyage was formerly made in less time, and could be now in perfect safety, and with great economy of time to travellers, but for the parsimony of the monopolist of this end of the California steamer route.

Aspinwall cannot be surpassed for filth, nuisance, and noxious effluvia. The houses-mostly shanties of deal boards-are built on piles in the midst of a marsh, with the railroad similarly *supported, and filled between the cross-ties with earth brought from a distance, forming the main street, a few alleys crossing these at right angles, being nothing but bog pathways, with logs or planks to keep the pedestrian from premature interment, or submersion. The water-lots (there are no yards) are covered with green, offensive, and poisonous scum, oozing up between the flooring of the lower stories; and every where, in and around,

the premises are surcharged with animal and vegetable matter, in all stages of putrefaction and decomposition. With the exception of the employés of the Panama Railroad Company, the inhabitants are of the inferior races, from the Jamaica negro through all grades of cross and hue, up to the Chiriqui Indian; and having the filthiest and vilest habits, knowing no restraints of appetite or passion, is it surprising that this seething cauldron of physical abomination and moral degradation is a pest-house of the Isthmus? Many of a population of seven hundred to eight hundred are now down with malarious fever, of the fatal types Chagres and yellow. It is dangerous for a native of the North to tarry at Aspinwall in summer; and the natives are by no means exempt from these climate diseases, owing to their uncleanliness, debauchery, general vices, and consequent impairment of vital energies. A physician of the town informed me that "more than half of the population changed hands every year." I did not inquire into whose hands they had gone; the specimens left removed any doubt.

CHAPTER II.

RAILROAD TRIP ACROSS THE ISTHMUS OF PANAMA.

FROM Aspinwall to Panama the trip is made by railroad fortyseven miles long; the time varies from three to four hours. This road, commenced in 1850, had its conception in the remarkable forecast of the trade and travel destined to demand facilities of travel between the two great oceans, and was commenced and prosecuted to completion under circumstances of peril, privation, and difficulty, unparalleled in the annals of similar improvements, and constituting it an imperishable monument of the skill, enterprise, and energy of Messrs. George M. Totten and John C. Trautwine, engineers; and in the finality of its construction, and subsequent management, of the administrative ability of David Hoadley, Esq., the present President. In the building of this great national highway, laborers were gathered from the various countries to be benefited by it; and especially did thousands of Irish, Germans, and Coolies suffer, sicken, and die, in their efforts to bring into closer commercial relations distant countries of the globe. Such, indeed, was the terrible mortality attendant on the employment of unacclimated foreigners, that it was, after much and sad experience, found necessary to employ the natives of neighboring provinces and of Jamaica, with whose labor the road was finally completed in 1855.

Leaving Aspinwall on the east side of Navy Bay, the road soon crosses the narrow channel that separates the marshy island of Manzanilla, on which the town is built, from the mainland. Rounding the head of the bay the road then stretches across the peninsula between it and Chagres River, occasionally following the windings of the stream, while at other times it makes the

chord of its curves, and reaching Barbacoas, twenty-five miles from Aspinwall, crosses by a magnificent wrought-iron bridge, six hundred and twenty-five feet in length, from the right to the left bank of the Chagres, along which it runs to the mouth of the Obispo River, thirty-one miles from the Atlantic terminus. The river scenery is picturesque, and pleasing to look upon, considering that we were journeying in a few hours over a distance that formerly required several days to make by boating. The Chagres has made itself memorable in the annals of death. Every mile of its turbid and sluggish stream can tell sad tales of suffering and dissolution produced by its poisonous waters, and the no less fatal malaria resulting from rank luxuriance and rapid decay of vegetation along its banks.

Abundant rain, uninterrupted heat, and a virgin soil, give an unsurpassed richness of coloring to nature's foliage and flowers in the valley of the Chagres. Crimson, purple, orange, blue, pink, and white, flit across the eye in such continued and rapid succession, as to seem an ever-varying and endless kaleidoscope; and green throws in and around its sombre and its brilliant shades, to heighten the general charm. So emulous of continuous life is this region, that it conceals the proofs of death and decay; clothing the sapless trunk of the giant cedro and other trees, branchless and toppling to their fall, with parasitic vines; twining their fibrils and clustering leaves around, and even at times weaving for their heads coronets of flowers that cheat the gaze. The representative tree of all sketches and engravings of tropical scenery, is seen along the line of the route in great variety and luxuriance; and no one can contemplate the uses to which it is put by the natives, from the posts of their rude huts, and its thatch roof of broad leaves, to their food, beverage, and domestic utensils, without considering the palm as great a blessing, as it is a beauty, in this tropical region. The superstitious native may be excused for believing the soil favored of heaven, which produces so great a boon; and especially when thereto is added the spontaneous bread-fruit, plantain, yam, banana, pine-apple, orange, mango, papaya, alligator-pear. Nor would it be a libel on his simplicity of character and credulity to suppose, that he regarded as an unquestioned proof of

that favor, the growth here of that "Flor del Espiritu Santo". the flower of the Holy Ghost; its graceful blossom, of alabaster whiteness and delicious perfume, enclosing the image of a dove, perfectly proportioned, subdued, and meek, the emblem of innocence and celestial purity.

But few of the richly-feathered tropical birds are seen by the passenger as he speeds his way along the railroad; perhaps, because of the noisy and startling encroachment upon their domain. Parrots, black and yellow turpiales, and a few scarlet breasted toucans with huge bills, having a less body of a bird attached to them, embraced the only ornithological specimens observed.

It was a great relief to have this beautiful nature without, to attract attention from that less pleasing within. "Black spirits and white," with brown, yellow, and copper, had posses sion of the cars, and mingled their interminable shadings as if envious of nature's surrounding varieties. And the representatives of these closely-approximative tints, free and familiar as their near relationship of mongrelism authorized, ignorant or reckless of the comities of life, were, both men and women, busily puffing the vilest weed known to the vegetable kingdom, raising clouds of smoky stench to offend eyes, nose, and lungs; accompanied by such extravagant gesticulations, and vociferous jargon of spurious Spanish, as revived the scene of the weird witches.

Seated before me in one of the cars of the accommodation train were two negroes, with their arms tied behind them by strong ropes, and near them four others unpinioned, but all under military guard. I took them for convicts, but was informed by the conductor that they were impressed soldiers, part of a contingent called for by the Executive of New Granada, to meet the exigencies of an existing revolution. The two guards were of like color, uniformed with extraordinary simplicity, a striped cotton shirt and pants hiding so much of their natural ebony as a paucity of material would allow ; while belt, bayonet, and rusty musket, which might probably have been the original of the comprehensive description, "without stock, lock, or barrel," made up the formidable accoutrements of the imposing warriors, under the command of an officer a shade lighter in com