THE CITY OF PANAMA, AND ENVIRONS. 39 common mother, desire to pluck the "fruit of the tree of knowledge,” must at great cost employ private teachers to show them how-a dangerous experiment oftentimes, for the knowledge "of good" and the knowledge "of evil" are so apt to become confounded under the tuition of a modern Apollo, that many a young Hebe learns that there is a serpent's sting in the arts of her teacher, only when she has realized the earliest sorrow of Eden. The American traveller destined for the west coast of America, on arriving at Panama, must amiably lay aside home habits and conform himself to customs as he finds them. He cannot reasonably expect to change the usages of the countries he proposes to visit, and therefore must change his own. This ready adaptation will invite freedom of communication, a desirable means of information to a stranger; and although he may be required to breakfast at ten, and dine at five to seven, going supperless to bed, he will soon find nature under physiological laws accommodatingly inclined; and even if he be required to live, as he assuredly will, in an atmosphere of tobacco smoke, he may philosophically yield to its soporific influence, and become unconscious of actual annoyance in dreams of bliss. Servant he must be to himself where all are on an equality, and where the negro, having been restored to his original privilege of indolence, would rather suffer want than perform a servile office, or labor in any form. As to the ceaseless pounding of bell-metal, giving clamorous expression to religious fervor, which would thus arrest the attention of heaven and commend itself to divine approval, forgetful that the unuttered prayer of the truly penitent pierceth beyond the din of the self-righteous, one need not consider this a reflection on his less demonstrative notions of what is right and acceptable, but rather let the "sounding brass and tinkling cymbal" remind him of the "charity" that "endureth all things and hopeth all things," and thus while it teaches him to bear, it will serve also to encourage his hope of the future. For recollecting as he will the "fire worshippers" of his own country who once gloried in the grandeur of the wild element, and their achievements in staying its career, the echo even of whose discordant clamor is lost in the scarcely heard pulsations of the great agent which has revolutionized the system of protection against the terrible destroyer, he will be led to think that this senseless clatter may also cease, with other usages of an ignorant and bigoted people, under the plastic touch which has linked two oceans in commercial union across this isthmus, and is now slowly and imperceptibly moulding its destinies. The tout ensemble of Panama and its surroundings, exquisitely beautiful as these are, when, in the case of the former, "distance lends enchantment to the view," should be seen from some adjacent eminence. All Americans who visit Panama are indebted to A. B. Corwine, Esq., United States Consul, and his accomplished lady, for hospitalities and attentions. For these I cannot be sufficiently grateful. Accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. C., we left the city by the Cruces road, and at the distance of a mile and a half, alighting at a now unoccupied country seat of a former British Consul, we walked along one of several winding paths, pleasantly shaded, up a gradual ascent, which terminated in a summit known as "Cerro de los Buccaneros; which, for the accommodation of the weary, is found a tasteful rustic arbor. Clad in luxuriant vegetation of rich and varying green, rarely is so beautiful a spot seen even in the tropics; nor was I surprised to learn that its former owner, for whom the social life of Panama could have no attractions, yet lingered many years in the balmy air of its shadowy groves. The queen of the Adriatic, on whose waveless canals he now floats, knows not the abounding loveliness of this retreat. "In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, States fall, arts fade-but Nature doth not die." on In this tropical paradise gracefully the palm waves its plumed leaf in the southern breeze, to fan the golden pine-apples nestling beneath in their green couches that border the shaded paths, and peep forth to breathe their fragrance, and tell the intruder how happily life may pass in this sweet solitude. Here also hang THE CITY OF PANAMA, AND ENVIRONS. 41 the clustering plantain and banana, while the gay orange and blushing mango give their brighter tints to enliven the graver hues of the luscious granadilla, nespero, and mamei de cartajena. Tradition says, that from this hill of the Buccaneers, the notorious English freebooter, Sir Henry Morgan, on his way from the mouth of the Chagres River across the Isthmus, first gazed on the spires of old Panama, when, in 1669, he executed his long-meditated and deliberately-prepared foray in the British Island of Jamaica, against a Spanish possession. Our national cousins pretend a holy horror of fillibustering a word of modern coinage implying a practice, as they profess, of modern origin, and which in its application to aggression and intermeddling, they and others have contrived, with persisting effrontery, to fasten on Americans as a special national propensity. Thus they would divert attention from like deeds of their past history, and acts of the present, dignified by grandiloquent diplomacy as "balance of power," "release of commerce from the shackles of selfish exclusiveness," "protection of Christians from infidel intolerance," "cause of the oppressed," "natural rights of man," “necessities of civilization,” and so on ad nauseam. The authentic narratives of events which have transpired on this coast, have recorded enduringly the international outrages of Sir Henry Morgan and Sir Francis Drake; and to these might be added the violations of neutrality of Lord Cochrane, to show how shallow is the artifice that would for selfish and ungenerous purposes, assail the character of another and kindred nation. While the British tattoo boastfully encircles the earth with its continuous echo, telling a tale of astounding aggression and annexation; and France, just freed from the intermeddling of combined Europe, has appropriated to herself Algeria, Tahiti, and, Savoy, and is now recalling her forces from China and Syria, to instruct Mexico in the duties of good government, or to establish her "natural boundary" of the Rhine; with such examples of fillibustering before them, Americans may smile at a foreign diplomacy so ignoble, and a popular jealousy so unworthy as that which would stigmatize as the special offence of others, acts signally illustrative of their own history. A From the summit of Cerro de los Buccaneros we gazed upon the scene below and beyond, with different emotions from those which the titled fillibuster, Morgan, may be supposed to have experienced; when, intent on plunder, the devoted city, the depository of countless treasures, lay revealed before him. Away to the west and north rolled verdure clad hills of exquisite outline; while loftier heights, faintly seen in the distance, showed where the snowy Cordillera of the Southern Continent was extending its lower spurs, like the taper fingers of a polished arm, to receive the hard grasp of its rocky neighbors of the north. Valleys of virgin soil lay about their feet, mantled in fadeless green, reposing in unbroken silence, save by the shrill whistle and rumbling clamor of the locomotive, as hastening along the iron way which winds among these solitudes, it awakens their sleeping echoes, and teaches them the exultant notes of progress and civilization. Off to the east four or five miles, close down on the sea-shore, was seen the lone tower which marks the spot where all that remains of proud Panama of old lies buried., A sad memorial of vanity and departed grandeur, it stands, like many others, deserted, neglected, and forgotten, without a hand to renew its mournful graces but that of nature, which, year by year, hangs garlands about its shattered summit, twines a green mantle around its body as if to shelter it from sunshine and storm, and wraps its foot with clustering and imperishable verdure. To the southwest rises the bold "Cerro Ancon," with the long line of quaint huts at its eastern base, picturesque in the distance, however repulsive when near, extending to the city, seen further on stretching into the beautiful bay, with its towers and turrets reflecting the setting sun, and its buttressed wall looking darkly upon the ocean whose waves break ceaselessly at its base, flinging at times their snowy spray even on its frowning battlements. And still further beyond, reposing tranquilly as if on the bosom of the sea, are seen the islands of Taboga, Taboguilla, Flamenco, Perico, Islando, and Calebra, forming a beautiful archipelago of ocean gems. The first named, about nine miles from the city, is cultivated in fruits and vegetables for the Panama market, and having upon it the extensive machine shops of the British Pacific Steam Navigation Company; and the last |