In my canoe, on the Chagres, Jan 4, 1849.
Our supper, last night, consisted of rice and a stew of bad meat, with
a sprinkling of all the fruits I have yet seen in Grenada. I smelt,
but did not eat a particle. My comrades ate freely, and they look blue
this morning. The natives poison rats with goat milk and pine apple
combined, or with bananas and brandy. Either of these combinations
will kill a man in about one hour, so I guess I shall keep a bright
guard on what goes into my belly, which is rather loose and gripy
to-day. To continue long wet is a matter of death in these latitudes,
and if the bowels begin to degenerate, you must say your orisons
immediately. A native died one hour before our arrival, during the
fifth shake of fever and ague. On reaching the canoe, last evening,
to embark, we bailed it out, chopping up and casting overboard some
dozen water-snakes, that had got into the canoe while at tea. Last
night was the hardest I ever passed. It rained very hard. The monkeys
chattered in droves of thousands. Our boatmen sang the most doleful
songs all night. Bull frogs rent the air with their discordant sounds;
the snakes hissed, and the alligators brought their jaws together so
fiercely, as to make even the forest tremble. Amid this frightful
scene, with the thermometer at 97°, pent up in the veriest cubby hole
you ever saw, where we could not move or turn over without endangering
our lives by upsetting the canoe—it was altogether a night of extreme
suffering to us all. We stopped at about two this morning, at a hut on
the borders of the river, where being very sleepy, we took lodging for
two hours, for which, with three cups of coffee, we gave $1 50, and
departed at about five o’clock. Our bed was a piece of cloth spread
on a bamboo floor, with a pillow about one foot long and six inches
wide. It was the funniest pillow I ever saw, and we had hard work to
keep our heads upon it. When the natives supposed we were asleep, I
heard some of the rascals whispering about our assassination, and I
awoke my comrade from a profound snore with a severe pinch and scratch
with my long nails, when the glistening of our weapons, and a whisper
between ourselves, and a slight movement towards arising amid the total
darkness, scattered the cowardly assassins back to their hammocks, when
we arose, and descended the ladder stairs, and paid our bill, and went
to our canoe. The males and females nearly all smoke, and men, women,
and children are nearly in a state of nature. Their apparel costs them
very little, and the green earth affords them, without cultivation,
every species of vegetable and animal production.