After twelve days and some hours’ sail from San Francisco, the old,
walled city of Panama rose to view. The steamer’s gun was fired; she
dropped her anchor; and a fleet of boats and bungoes were seen
approaching. They neared and surrounded the ship. Most or all of them
were manned by swarthy-visaged, half-naked Carthaginians, and a mongrel
race of natives, whose appearance and gestures were equally as
repulsive.
Such a perfect Babel as that steamer’s deck presented! Some running to
and fro, looking for baggage, some bargaining and bantering with the
boatmen, boatmen fighting with one another for a berth next the
gangways, ladies screaming at the top of their voices, children bawling
in unison, and parrots joining in the chorus! Curses and oaths, singing
and shouting, filled up the intervals of this hurly-burly scene. I stood
agape with astonishment at witnessing the haste and recklessness with
which they rushed, helter-skelter, down the gangways, and tumbled (some
of them headlong) into the boats. More than one individual I saw
floundering in the water; and carpet-bags and valises were floating
about quite merrily.
The hideous-looking boatmen kept up a continual jargon and fighting with
one another; and perhaps, just as some person was going to step into a
boat, some native would give it a shove away, and the person, pressed
hard from behind, if not remarkably nimble, would get a ducking.
I was determined to wait until the last, rather than go with such a
rush; and I did wait, until the coast was clear. Then our party, which
consisted of four or five ladies and gentlemen, secured seats in a boat,
and bade good bye to the Uncle Sam. We had gone but a short distance
from the ship, when we heard the report of a gun booming over the water.
The steamer Panama, which left in company with us, had arrived. She had
about five hundred passengers on board; and, with the eight hundred who
had just left the Uncle Sam, the hotels in Panama would be likely to be
rather crowded. It behooved us to hasten, in order to secure a place on
the floor, if nowhere else.
As we neared the shore, the water was full of natives, who waded off
almost up to their necks, surrounded the boat, and arrested its
progress. The boatmen are agreed with the natives on the shore to manage
thus, in order to secure as many pieces of money as possible. No
entreaties or threats could induce the boatmen to budge one inch nearer
to the shore. There was no alternative but to place ourselves upon the
backs of these natives, and (as the expression is) ride post-back to the
shore. Before placing ourselves in this rather unladylike position,
there was much screaming, and laughing, and crying, and scolding; but it
all terminated in one general post-back ride to the shore. The natives
being so submerged, one could not judge well of their muscular
developments; and some of the more corpulent ladies were afraid to trust
their immense proportions on the back of a slender native, for fear of
being dropped. This accident did happen to some of them; and it was ever
accompanied with much laughing and joking at the sufferer’s expense.
Finally, we were all landed,--some in one shape, and some in another.
More than a dozen natives surrounded me, all holding their hands for a
bit, (ten cents,) each claiming the honor of having carried me on his
back to the shore. They all bore such a striking resemblance to one
another, and having on no garments by which they could be distinguished,
I was sorely troubled to know to whom I was indebted for my novel ride.
It was settled, however, to their satisfaction.
The natives took our trunks upon their backs, (not us, this time,) and
our party started for the Louisiana Hotel. When we arrived there, it was
literally jammed full; but, knowing we should fare no better by going
elsewhere, we crowded ourselves in with the multitude.
This was in the afternoon, and our appetites were considerably sharpened
by the rather scantily furnished tables which had been spread on board
the steamer for one or two days previous to our arrival.
Six or seven of us ladies were shown to a room on the second floor,
which overlooked the court-yard in the centre of the range of buildings.
Each story was surrounded by a balcony. Our room had no windows, but two
very extensive doors, which opened like folding-doors on to the balcony.
The partitions all through the house only ran two thirds of the height
to the ceiling; so there was plenty of ventilation and plenty of noise
circulating through the house. There was not a particle of paint or
paper in the whole building. The walls and partitions were of rough
boards, and these were all whitewashed. The great vaulted passages
leading through the house, and the great wide, worn staircases,
presented a cheerless and gloomy aspect. In our room were six or seven
cots, over which were thrown two sheets and a straw pillow to each cot.
This constituted the entire stock of furniture, if we except two old
rickety chairs and our trunks.
From the balcony opposite our door we could watch the proceedings in the
cook-room; and it was amusing to watch those half-naked natives knock
over the fowl, of which there were numbers in the back yard, about
half-divest them of their feathers, hurry them into a kettle, and by the
time they were well heated through, run with them to the tables, if they
were not met on the way there by the half-famished passengers, who would
snatch the half-cooked viands from their hands, and beat a hasty retreat
to their rooms.
In vain we waited to be summoned to supper. Finally, one of our party
made a descent upon the cooks, and procured the wherewith to appease, in
a measure, our hunger.
The Uncle Sam’s passengers had intended to get mules, and start that
night from Panama to cross the isthmus; and this could have been
accomplished, had not the natives been so shrewd. When they saw the
steamer Panama coming in directly after the Uncle Sam, they rightly
conjectured, that, if they kept their mules out of sight until all from
both steamers were landed, there would be such a demand for mules they
could get any price they saw fit to ask. Therefore, when mules were
called for by those of the passengers who reached the shore first, there
were none to be found. No entreaty or persuasion could induce them to
bring one forward; but we were told there would be plenty on the morrow.
That afternoon a party of us took a stroll around the city, visited the
oldest and largest cathedral in the place, walked upon the battlements
which surround this ancient and once flourishing city, but now, in many
places, wearing the aspect of decay and ruin. Some portions of the wall
were falling into ruins; but in some places it was sufficiently wide for
two carriages to drive abreast; but there were no vehicles there then.
There were the sentry-boxes, built at short intervals along the
battlements, which, in days gone by, had sheltered the wearied sentinel
during his nightly patrol.
I saw in some places the ruins of old churches and convents. Some
portions of the high stone walls would be standing, out of the sides of
which were growing bushes and small trees. The sight of those trees
growing out of high stone walls at once attracted my attention. For how
many ages must those old walls have been exposed to burning suns and
deluging rains, to have thus afforded sustenance for those scraggy
shrubs and trees! The stones were all moss-grown, and rank vines were
running in great profusion over the decaying ruins. An air of silent
desertion seemed to pervade those ruinous remains, which gave rise to
melancholy reflections. They forcibly reminded one of the mutability of
all things earthly. Just as the setting sun was casting its red beams
upon the high and narrow stained-glass windows of the rich old
cathedral, we were wandering under its vaulted roof, feasting our
astonished senses with a sight of the massive gold and silver ornaments
which were displayed in such rich profusion upon the walls. What an air
of mystery and gloom seemed to surround us! How our voices echoed and
reverberated in the far-off niches and recesses of this gloomy-looking
edifice. Several times I was startled by the appearance of some old
monk, with his cowl closely drawn, who would start from some niche in
the wall, where he had remained unperceived, and, without uttering a
word, hold out a silver plate, whereupon you were expected to deposit a
piece of money. When once more in the open air, I experienced a sense
of freedom from the feelings of mystery and gloom, which unavoidably
cluster around one while traversing those silent cathedrals.
We then repaired to the vestibule of a convent, not with the expectation
of gaining admittance, however. There was a wooden frame which turned in
the wall, after the manner of those yard-gates which turn upon a pivot,
and on which stood a pitcher of water and a glass. After drinking, a
person is expected to leave a piece of money beside the pitcher. Every
few moments, this frame is turned by an unseen hand; but, when the
pitcher and glass appear again, the money, if there had been any beside
it, had disappeared.
It being a moonlight evening, several of us ladies, accompanied by one
gentleman, started to prosecute our walk through some other parts of the
city. We passed through several streets, or, as they appeared to me,
lanes; but they looked _so_ gloomy! And, then, those old ruins seemed
such grand lurking-places for the revengeful Spaniard, with his
murderous stiletto, that we all frightened ourselves by such imaginings,
and ran back again to the hotel as quickly as possible.
What a night was that at Panama! So many returning Californians, and
some such wild ones, too! They seemed determined to make night hideous
with their singing and shouting. There was little sleep for any one in
Panama that night.