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.
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