We were nine days going up the Chagres river in flatboats. This trip,
girl as I was, I can recall perfectly and it was an experience which
has served in after years as an education which I have used in many
ways. We, as children, had access to father's great library and
magazines from which we learned so much of foreign countries and
people. I had artistic tastes and I used to find the tropical pictures
and scenes much to my liking and asked many questions in regard to the
different people among whom the missionaries worked. I had never
thought ever to see or realize such a picture in the tropics as this.
We had a large boat assigned to our family alone. Our belongings were
deposited and two great, black natives were placed at each end of the
boat or scow. They were without clothing, save for a short, full skirt
of white cloth fastened around their waists on a band. Each used a
long pole to propel the scow. We were the only family of women on
board the steamer. There was Mr. Biggar and his wife and a bride and
her husband, besides several colored women and their husbands coming
out to take positions on the Pacific steamers. All the other
passengers were men, coming to hunt their fortunes and go back rich.
There were about eight or nine of these scows. The railroad was not
finished, but it was being built at that time. The surveying was being
done and small cabins were built for the surveyors' use at the
different stations where we camped for the night. The captain had
provided us with food in cans and packages, toasted bread and other
things for our comfort and utensils for cooking, and we had a jolly
picnic for nine long days before we came to the place where we mounted
the burros to take us the rest of the way to Panama.
To describe this journey needs a more romantic pen than mine, but I'll
endeavor to tell you of some of the features and things that we saw
which were so strange and wonderful to me. After we had said our
good-byes to the captain and officers who were so gallant to us and
did all they could for us during the long month on the rough Atlantic,
we climbed into our boat and these natives took charge of it, one at
each end, with a guttural grunt from both. They lightly took their
places and we began our journey up the Chagres river. It was a warm,
bright morning, and a light haze in the atmosphere made it appear
like spring. At first we felt afraid of our boatmen, but soon we were
drinking in all of the panoramic effects of the changing scenes of
trailing vines, tropical flowers and other splendors. The chattering
of monkeys and parrots, the alligators lying upon the opposite shore
like great gray logs, some sleeping, some with their great mouths wide
open to allow the insects to gather on their tongues, were things
never to be forgotten. I observed that when a large number of flies
had gathered the alligators would close their capacious jaws,
satisfied with the sweet morsel, and roll their eyes with apparent
enjoyment. Then they once more slowly opened their ponderous jaws and
quietly waited for another meal. We had gone on our way several hours
without speaking, there was so much to see and it was all so new. The
quaint song of the natives amused us. They never seemed to weary of
the same "Yenze, yenze, _ah_ yenze." At the third "Yenze" the boat
would shoot up the stream twice its length. It was nearing noon and
the sun was getting torrid and the air close and stifling. Without any
warning the rain showered upon us and we were obliged to remain in our
places and let it come down upon us, regardless of results to our
clothing. The rain was of short duration, however, and we rather
enjoyed the cooling effect. Presently the sun shone in all its glory
and in an hour we were once more with dry clothing. This mixed weather
continued the whole ten days of our journey.
At noon of each day we disembarked and prepared our meal, generally
stopping at one of the stations of the railroad. We found quite a
number of white men and Mexicans at each place. They gladly received
us and offered us some of their fare. In exchange we gave them soup,
made in a large kettle, and had several things they were strangers to
in their life in the forest of vines, flowers and fruit of the tropics
where they subsisted on rations of pork, bacon, hardtack, etc. They
gladly accepted our fare and we partook of theirs. Before we started
again the men came to the boat with baskets of fresh cut oranges and
bananas and plantains. They were for us to take on the steamer and we
could enjoy them as they ripened on the way. We received marked
attention from the men at every station. Women coming to California
were a novelty, and when they learned we were all of one family of the
American Padre, they were still more gracious. So we journeyed for ten
days, each day bringing forth some new feature. At night we left the
boats and slept in the bungalows perched high in the air, and to
reach them we climbed steps cut out in a large log placed at the
opening. There was only one large room and we all slept on the floor,
rolled in our blankets. We got but little sleep because of the noise
from below made by Americans and Spaniards playing cards and smoking
cigarettes and Spanish girls dancing as the men thrummed on the
guitars. The Spaniards carried long knives at their sides and pistols
in their belts, wore wide straw hats and red sashes, black trousers
slashed down the side and trimmed with rows of bright buttons.
High-heeled boots and spurs finished the unique garb. The women wore a
white chemise and white petticoat and slippers. Their black hair,
plaited in two braids, and a silk shawl thrown gracefully over their
heads and a fan, which is an indispensable article to a Spanish lady,
completed the toilet. Nothing but troubled sleep came to our relief
during these days. Fear of the Spaniards and the movements of the
lizards on the rafters and walls, with now and then a tarantula, made
rest almost impossible. At last we had only one day more, the tenth
day. We had gotten familiar with the different scenes, the waving
palms, the trailing vines where the monkeys climbed or hung by their
tails and chattered in their own way. The scarlet lingawacha, or
tongue plant, hung in graceful lengths and brightened the varied
colored green in the background. Innumerable families of parrots
talked and screamed from the branches. Bananas and orange trees
everywhere interspersed with tall cocoanut palms, the large and small
alligators basking in the sun on the sand were pictures never to be
forgotten. The natives in their peculiar dress, the fandango at night,
the graceful twirl of the Spanish waltz put the life touch to the
picture that comes to me today at the age of seventy-five as it was in
those days when I experienced, a girl of fifteen, all the discomforts
of travel from Cincinnati to California.
It was about 4 o'clock on the tenth day when we arrived at the small
village where we were to remain for the night and next morning, then
ho! for Panama. We had better accommodations here, a large adobe
house, kept by a Spaniard and wife and daughters, under the
supervision of the steamship company, which also controlled the scows
that we used on the river Chagres. Our goods were transferred from the
scows to the pack mule train. After everything had been safely lashed
upon their backs, our burros were brought and we all mounted astride.
It was well for us we were no strangers to riding. My youngest
brother was too small to ride, so a large native bamboo chair was
brought and strapped upon the back of a large native and in the chair,
safely tied in, sat the brother, as contented as a lord. He was such a
handsome child, mother did not want to have the native take him for
fear he would steal him, so she had the slave start first and she came
behind and rode with him in sight all the way, but she was
unnecessarily alarmed, for he was most faithful. The day before we
left for the steamer he came with an offering of fruit and nuts for
the boy and the madre and senoritas. Mother gave him an extra dollar
and he was greatly surprised and smilingly picked up brother and
carried him to the steamer and assisted us in every way until we were
safely transferred to the steamship Tennessee, Captain Totten,
commander. The ride on the burros over mountains, hills and dales was
an experience never to be forgotten. Slowly, step by step we wound
around the mountain trail. These burros had gone the road so many
years that their tiny hoofs had worn places in the rocks. All we had
to do was to sit tight in the saddle as we ascended or descended the
steep places. The pummel of the saddle was high and we held on to
that, and enjoyed the novelty of the situation. Once or twice we
merged into a plain of a mile or so, then began the rocky ascent. We
refreshed ourselves from time to time at cooling springs that dripped
out from the rocks into a rustic stone basin. The scenery was very
attractive, but it became monotonous as we sat in our saddles while
the burros, step by step, ascended or descended the path they had
traversed so often. Toward night the mountains became more like
rolling hills and there was more open space and sky to be seen. By the
time darkness overtook us we were near the outskirts of Panama and
hoped soon to see the lights of the city. About nine o'clock we
stopped before an adobe building, long and wide, two stories high,
with a large enclosed place for the burros. This was also under the
steamship company's control. This time the proprietor was a white man
and we were able to obtain desirable beds and comfortable fare. He
gave us the best rooms, large and clean, more homelike than anything
we had seen since leaving home. We were so weary it was with
difficulty we got off the burros, having ridden all day long. I could
hardly feel the earth under me and I staggered many times before we
were comfortable in our rooms. After resting for an hour we were
summoned to supper. It was now ten o'clock. Late as it was, we found
the supper so appetizing we forgot the hour and really enjoyed the
first good meal in the ten days we were on the way. The host and his
good wife saw that everybody was made comfortable during the time we
remained there. The steamer Tennessee had arrived two days before and
had all the cargo in and fruits and fresh vegetables on board, so we
were able to sail the next afternoon at three o'clock.
[Illustration: STEAMER "AMERICAN EAGLE," SACRAMENTO RIVER, 1852