ACROSS THE ISTHMUS
On our arrival we found the population busily employed in celebrating
one of their innumerable _dias de fiesta_. The streets presented a very
gay appearance. The natives, all in their gala-dresses, were going the
rounds of the numerous gaudily-ornamented altars which had been erected
throughout the town; and mingled with the crowd were numbers of
Americans in every variety of California emigrant costume. The scene was
further enlivened by the music, or rather the noise, of fifes, drums,
and fiddles, with singing and chanting inside the churches, together
with squibs and crackers, the firing of cannon, and the continual
ringing of bells.
The town is built on a small promontory, and is protected, on the two
sides facing the sea, by batteries, and, on the land side, by a high
wall and a moat. A large portion of the town, however, lies on the
outside of this.
Most of the houses are built of wood, two stories high, painted with
bright colors, and with a corridor and veranda on the upper story; but
the best houses are of stone, or sun-dried bricks plastered over and
painted.
The churches are all of the same style of architecture which prevails
throughout Spanish America. They appeared to be in a very neglected
state, bushes, and even trees, growing out of the crevices of the
stones. The towers and pinnacles are ornamented with a profusion of
pearl-oyster shells, which, shining brightly in the sun, produce a very
curious effect.
On the altars is a great display of gold and silver ornaments and
images; but the interiors, in other respects, are quite in keeping with
the dilapidated uncared-for appearance of the outside of the buildings.
The natives are white, black, and every intermediate shade of color,
being a mixture of Spanish, Negro, and Indian blood. Many of the women
are very handsome, and on Sundays and holidays they dress very showily,
mostly in white dresses, with bright-colored ribbons, red or yellow
slippers without stockings, flowers in their hair, and round their
necks, gold chains, frequently composed of coins of various sizes linked
together. They have a fashion of making their hair useful as well as
ornamental, and it is not unusual to see the ends of three or four
half-smoked cigars sticking out from the folds of their hair at the back
of the head; for though they smoke a great deal, they never seem to
finish a cigar at one smoking. It is amusing to watch the old women
going to church. They come up smoking vigorously, with a cigar in full
blast, but, when they get near the door, they reverse it, putting the
lighted end into their mouth, and in this way they take half-a-dozen
stiff pulls at it, which seems to have the effect of putting it out.
They then stow away the stump in some of the recesses of their “back
hair,” to be smoked out on a future occasion.
The native population of Panama is about eight thousand, but at this
time there was also a floating population of Americans, varying from two
to three thousand, all on their way to California; some being detained
for two or three months waiting for a steamer to come round the Horn,
some waiting for sailing vessels, while others, more fortunate, found
the steamer, for which they had tickets, ready for them on their
arrival. Passengers returning from San Francisco did not remain any time
in Panama, but went right on across the Isthmus to Chagres.
The Americans, though so greatly inferior in numbers to the natives,
displayed so much more life and activity, even in doing nothing, that
they formed by far the more prominent portion of the population. The
main street of the town was densely crowded, day and night, with
Americans in bright red flannel shirts, with the universal revolver and
bowie-knife conspicuously displayed at their backs.
Most of the principal houses in the town had been converted into hotels,
which were kept by Americans, and bore, upon large signs, the favorite
hotel names of the United States. There were also numbers of large
American stores or shops, of various descriptions, equally obtruding
upon the attention of the public by the extent of their English signs,
while, by a few lines of bad Spanish scrawled on a piece of paper at the
side of the door, the poor natives were informed, as mere matter of
courtesy, that they also might enter in and buy, if they had the
wherewithal to pay. Here and there, indeed, some native, with more
enterprise than his neighbors, intimated to the public--that is to say,
to the Americans--in a very modest sign, and in very bad English, that
he had something or other to sell; but his energy was all theoretical,
for on going into his store you would find him half asleep in his
hammock, out of which he would not rouse himself if he could possibly
avoid it. You were welcome to buy as much as you pleased; but he seemed
to think it very hard that you could not do so without giving him at the
same time the trouble of selling.
Although all foreigners were spoken of as _los Americanos_ by the
natives, there were among them men from every country in Europe. The
Frenchmen were the most numerous, some of whom kept stores and very good
restaurants. There were also several large gambling saloons, which were
always crowded, especially on Sundays, with natives and Americans
gambling at the Spanish game of monte; and, of course, specimens were
not wanting of that great American institution, the drinking saloon, at
the bars of which a brisk business was done in brandy-smashes,
whisky-skins, and all the other refreshing compounds for which the
Americans are so justly celebrated.
Living in Panama was pretty hard. The hotels were all crammed full; the
accommodation they afforded was somewhat in the same style as at
Gorgona, and they were consequently not very inviting places. Those who
did not live in hotels had sleeping-quarters in private houses, and
resorted to the restaurants for their meals, which was a much more
comfortable mode of life.
Ham, beans, chicken, eggs, and rice, were the principal articles of
food. The beef was dreadfully tough, stringy, and tasteless, and was
hardly ever eaten by the Americans, as it was generally found to be very
unwholesome.
There was here at this time a great deal of sickness, and absolute
misery, among the Americans. Diarrhœa and fever were the prevalent
diseases. The deaths were very numerous, but were frequently either the
result of the imprudence of the patient himself, or of the total
indifference as to his fate on the part of his neighbors, and the
consequent want of any care or attendance whatever. The heartless
selfishness one saw and heard of was truly disgusting. The principle of
“every man for himself” was most strictly followed out, and a sick man
seemed to be looked upon as a thing to be avoided, as a hindrance to
one’s own individual progress.
There was a hospital attended by American physicians, and supported to a
great extent by Californian generosity; but it was quite incapable of
accommodating all the sick; and many a poor fellow, having exhausted his
funds during his long detention here, found, when he fell sick, that in
parting with his money he had lost the only friend he had, and was
allowed to die, as little cared for as if he had been a dog.
An American characteristic is a weakness for quack medicines and
specifics, and numbers of men here fell victims to the national mania,
chiefly Yankees and Western men. Persons coming from a northern climate
to such a place as Panama, are naturally apt at first to experience some
slight derangement of their general health, which, with proper
treatment, is easily rectified; but these fellows were all provided
with cholera preventive, fever preventive, and boxes of pills for the
prevention and the cure of every known disease. The moment they imagined
that there was anything wrong with them, they became alarmed, and dosed
themselves with all the medicines they could get hold of, so that when
they really were taken ill, they were already half poisoned with the
stuff they had been swallowing. Many killed themselves by excessive
drinking of the wretched liquor which was sold under the name of brandy,
and others, by eating ravenously of fruit, green or ripe, at all hours
of the day, or by living, for the sake of economy, on gingerbread and
spruce-beer, which are also American weaknesses, and of which there were
several enterprising Yankee manufacturers.
The sickness was no doubt much increased by the outrageously filthy
state of the town. There seemed to be absolutely no arrangement for
cleanliness whatever, and the heavy rains which fell, and washed down
the streets, were all that saved the town from being swallowed up in the
accumulation of its own corruption.
Among the Americans en route for California were men of all
classes--professional men, merchants, laborers, sailors, farmers,
mechanics, and numbers of long gaunt Western men, with rifles as long as
themselves. The hotels were too crowded to allow of any distinction of
persons, and they were accordingly conducted on ultra-democratic
principles. Some faint idea of the style of thing might be formed from a
notice which was posted up in the bar-room of the most fashionable
hotel. It ran as follows: “Gentlemen are requested to wear their coats
at table, if they have them handy.” This intimation, of course, in
effect amounted to nothing at all, but at the same time there was a
great deal in it. It showed that the landlord, being above vulgar
prejudices himself, saw the necessity, in order to please all his
guests, of overcoming the mutual prejudices existing between broadcloth
and fine linen, and red flannel with no linen,--sanctioning the wearing
of coats at table on the part of the former, by making a public request
that they would do so, while, of the shirt-sleeve gentlemen, those who
_had_ coats, and refused to wear them, could still glory in the
knowledge that they were defying all interference with their individual
rights; and in behalf of the really coatless, those who could not call a
coat their own, the idea was kindly suggested that that garment was only
absent, because it was not “handy.”
As may be supposed, such a large and motley population of foreigners,
confined in such a place as Panama, without any occupation, were not
remarkably quiet or orderly. Gambling, drinking, and cockfighting were
the principal amusements; and drunken rows and fights, in which pistols
and knives were freely used, were of frequent occurrence.
The 4th of July was celebrated by the Americans in great style. The
proceedings were conducted as is customary on such occasions in the
United States. A procession was formed, which, headed by a number of
fiddles, drums, bugles, and other instruments, all playing “Yankee
Doodle” in a very free and independent manner, marched to the place of
celebration, a circular canvas structure, where a circus company had
been giving performances. When all were assembled, the Declaration of
Independence was read, and the orator of the day made a flaming speech
on the subject of George III. and the Universal Yankee nation. A
gentleman then got up, and, speaking in Spanish, explained to the native
portion of the assembly what all the row was about; after which the
meeting dispersed, and the further celebration of the day was continued
at the bars of the different hotels.
I met with an accident here which laid me up for several weeks. I
suffered a good deal, and passed a most weary time. All the books I
could get hold of did not last me more than a few days, and I had then
no other pastime than to watch the humming-birds buzzing about the
flowers which grew around my window.
As soon as I was able to walk, I took passage in a barque about to sail
for San Francisco. She carried about forty passengers; and as she had
ample cabin accommodation, we were so far comfortable enough. The
company was, as might be expected, very miscellaneous. Some were
respectable men, and others were precious vagabonds. When we had been
out but a few days, a fever broke out on board, which was not, however,
of a very serious character. I got a touch of it, and could have cured
myself very easily, but there was a man on board who passed for a
doctor, having shipped as such: he had been physicking the others, and I
reluctantly consented to allow him to doctor me also. He began by giving
me some horrible emetic, which, however, had no effect; so he continued
to repeat it, dose after dose, each dose half a tumblerful, with still
no effect, till, at last, he had given me so much of it, that he began
to be alarmed for the consequences. I was a little alarmed myself, and
putting my finger down my throat, I very soon relieved myself of all his
villainous compounds. I think I fainted after it. I know I felt as if I
were going to faint, and shortly afterwards was sensible of a lapse of
time which I could not account for; but on inquiring of some of my
fellow-passengers, I could find no one who had so far interested himself
on my account as to be able to give me any information on the subject.
I took my own case in hand after that, and very soon got rid of the
fever, although the emetic treatment had so used me up that for a
fortnight I was hardly able to stand. We afterwards discovered that this
man was only now making his _début_ as a physician. He had graduated,
however, as a shoemaker, a farmer, and I don’t know what else besides;
latterly he had practised as a horse-dealer, and I have no doubt it was
some horse-medicine which he administered to me so freely.
We had only two deaths on board, and in justice to the doctor, I must
say he was not considered to have been the cause of either of them. One
case was that of a young man, who, while the doctor was treating him for
fever, was at the same time privately treating himself to large doses,
taken frequently, of bad brandy, of which he had an ample stock stowed
away under his bed. About a day and a half settled him. The other was a
much more melancholy case. He was a young Swede--such a delicate,
effeminate fellow that he seemed quite out of place among the rough and
noisy characters who formed the rest of the party. A few days before we
left Panama, a steamer had arrived from San Francisco with a great many
cases of cholera on board. Numerous deaths had occurred in Panama, and
considerable alarm prevailed there in consequence. The Swede was
attacked with fever like the rest of us, but he had no force in him,
either mental or bodily, to bear up against sickness under such
circumstances; and the fear of cholera had taken such possession of him,
that he insisted upon it that he had cholera, and that he would die of
it that night. His lamentations were most piteous, but all attempts to
reassure him were in vain. He very soon became delirious, and died
raving before morning. None of us were doctors enough to know exactly
what he died of, but the general belief was that he frightened himself
to death. The church-service was read over him by the supercargo, many
of the passengers merely leaving their cards to be present at the
ceremony, and as soon as he was launched over the side, resuming their
game where they had been interrupted; and this, moreover, was on a
Sunday morning. In future the captain prohibited all card-playing on
Sundays, but throughout the voyage nearly one-half of the passengers
spent the whole day, and half the night, in playing the favorite game of
poker, which is something like brag, and at which they cheated each
other in the most barefaced manner, so causing perpetual quarrels,
which, however, never ended in a fight--for the reason, as it seemed to
me, that as every one wore his bowie-knife, the prospect of getting his
opponent’s knife between his ribs deterred each man from drawing his
own, or offering any violence whatever.
The poor Swede had no friends on board; nobody knew who he was, where he
came from, or anything at all about him; and so his effects were, a few
days after his death, sold at auction by order of the captain, one of
the passengers, who had been an auctioneer in the States, officiating on
the occasion.
Great rascalities were frequently practised at this time by those
engaged in conveying passengers, in sailing vessels, from Panama to San
Francisco. There were such numbers of men waiting anxiously in Panama to
take the first opportunity that offered of reaching California, that
there was no difficulty in filling any old tub of a ship with
passengers; and, when once men arrived in San Francisco, they were
generally too much occupied in making dollars, to give any trouble on
account of the treatment they had received on the voyage.
Many vessels were consequently despatched with a load of passengers,
most shamefully ill supplied with provisions, even what they had being
of the most inferior quality; and it often happened that they had to
touch in distress at the intermediate ports for the ordinary necessaries
of life.
We very soon found that our ship was no exception. For the first few
days we fared pretty well, but, by degrees, one article after another
became used up; and by the time we had been out a fortnight, we had
absolutely nothing to eat and drink, but salt pork, musty flour, and bad
coffee--no mustard, vinegar, sugar, pepper, or anything of the sort, to
render such food at all palatable. It may be imagined how delightful it
was, in recovering from fever, when one naturally has a craving for
something good to eat, to have no greater delicacy in the way of
nourishment than gruel made of musty flour, _au naturel_.
There was great indignation among the passengers. A lot of California
emigrants are not a crowd to be trifled with, and the idea of pitching
the supercargo overboard was quite seriously entertained; but,
fortunately for himself, he was a very plausible man, and succeeded in
talking them into the belief that he was not to blame.
We would have gone into some port for supplies but, of such grub as we
had, there was no scarcity on board, and we preferred making the most of
it to incurring delay by going in on the coast, where calms and light
winds are so prevalent.
We killed a porpoise occasionally, and ate him. The liver is the best
part, and the only part generally eaten, being something like pig’s
liver, and by no means bad. I had frequently tasted the meat at sea
before; it is exceedingly hard, tough, and stringy, like the very worst
beefsteak that can possibly be imagined; and I used to think it barely
eatable, when thoroughly disguised in sauce and spices, but now, after
being so long under a severe salt-pork treatment, I thought porpoise
steak a very delicious dish, even without any condiment to heighten its
intrinsic excellence.
We had been out about six weeks, when we sighted a ship, many miles off,
going the same way as ourselves, and the captain determined to board
her, and endeavor to get some of the articles of which we were so much
in need. There was great excitement among the passengers; all wanted to
accompany the captain in his boat, but, to avoid making invidious
distinctions, he refused to take any one unless he would pull an oar. I
was one of four who volunteered to do so, and we left the ship amid
clamorous injunctions not to forget sugar, beef, molasses, vinegar, and
so on--whatever each man most longed for. We had four or five Frenchmen
on board, who earnestly entreated me to get them even one bottle of oil.
We had a long pull, as the stranger was in no hurry to heave-to for us;
and on coming up to her, we found her to be a Scotch barque, bound also
for San Francisco, without passengers, but very nearly as badly off as
ourselves. She could not spare us anything at all, but the captain gave
us an invitation to dinner, which we accepted with the greatest
pleasure. It was Sunday, and so the dinner was of course the best they
could get up. It only consisted of fresh pork (the remains of their last
pig), and duff; but with mustard to the pork, and sugar to the duff, it
seemed to us a most sumptuous banquet; and, not having the immediate
prospect of such another for some time to come, we made the most of the
present opportunity. In fact, we cleared the table. I don’t know what
the Scotch skipper thought of us, but if he really could have spared us
anything, the ravenous way in which we demolished his dinner would
surely have softened his heart.
On arriving again alongside our own ship, with the boat empty as when we
left her, we were greeted by a row of very long faces looking down on us
over the side; not a word was said, because they had watched us with the
glass leaving the other vessel, and had seen that nothing was handed
into the boat; and when we described the splendid dinner we had just
eaten, the faces lengthened so much, and assumed such a very wistful
expression, that it seemed a wanton piece of cruelty to have mentioned
the circumstance at all.
But, after all, our hard fare did not cause us much distress: we got
used to it, and besides, a passage to California was not like a passage
to any other place. Every one was so confident of acquiring an immense
fortune there in an incredibly short time, that he was already making
his plans for the future enjoyment of it, and present difficulties and
hardships were not sufficiently appreciated.
The time passed pleasantly enough; all were disposed to be cheerful, and
amongst so many men there are always some who afford amusement for the
rest. Many found constant occupation in trading off their coats, hats,
boots, trunks, or anything they possessed. I think scarcely any one went
ashore in San Francisco with a single article of clothing which he
possessed in Panama; and there was hardly an article of any man’s
wardrobe, which, by the time our voyage was over, had not at one time
been the property of every other man on board the ship.
We had one cantankerous old Englishman on board, who used to roll out,
most volubly, good round English oaths, greatly to the amusement of some
of the American passengers, for the English style of cursing and
swearing is very different from that which prevails in the States. This
old fellow was made a butt for all manner of practical jokes. He had a
way of going to sleep during the day in all sorts of places; and when
the dinner-bell rang, he would find himself tied hand and foot. They
sewed up the sleeves of his coat, and then bet him long odds he could
not put it on, and take it off again, within a minute. They made up
cigars for him with some powder in the inside; and in fact the jokes
played off upon him were endless, the great fun being, apparently, to
hear him swear, which he did most heartily. He always fancied himself
ill, and said that quinine was the only thing that would save him; but
the quinine, like everything else on board, was all used up. However,
one man put up some papers of flour and salt, and gave them to him as
quinine, saying he had just found them in looking over his trunk.
Constant inquiries were then made after the old man’s health, when he
declared the quinine was doing him a world of good, and that his
appetite was much improved.
He was so much teased at last that he used to go about with a naked
bowie-knife in his hand, with which he threatened to do awful things to
whoever interfered with him. But even this did not secure him much
peace, and he was such a dreadfully crabbed old rascal that I thought
the stirring-up he got was quite necessary to keep him sweet.
After a wretchedly long passage, during which we experienced nothing but
calms, light winds, and heavy contrary gales, we entered the Golden Gate
of San Francisco harbor with the first and only fair wind we were
favored with, and came to anchor before the city about eight o’clock in
the evening.