CHAPTER XXVII.

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.