In the Footprints of the Padres | Page 8

twice in the month.
What oranges were there!--such as one seldom sees outside the tropics:
great globes of delicious dew shut in a pulpy crust half an inch in
thickness, of a pale green tinge, and oozing syrup and an oily spray

when they are broken. Bananas, mangoes, guavas, sugar-cane,--on
these we fed; and drank the cream of the young cocoanut, goat's milk,
and the juices of various luscious fruits served in carven
gourds,--delectable indeed, but the nature of which was past our
speculation. It was enough to eat and to drink and to wallow a muddy
mile for the very joy of it, after having been toeing the mark on a ship's
deck for a dozen days or less, and feeding on ship's fodder.
Our second transport was scarcely an improvement on the first. Again
we threaded the river, which seemed to grow broader and deeper as we
drew near its fountain-head, Lake Nicaragua. Upon a height above the
river stood a military post, El Castillo, much fallen to decay. Here were
other rapids, and here we were transferred to a lake boat on which we
were to conclude our voyage. Those stern-wheel scows could never
weather the lake waters.
We had passed a night on the river boat,--a night of picturesque horrors.
The cabin was impossible: nobody braved its heat. The deck was
littered with luggage and crowded with recumbent forms. A few
fortunate voyagers--men of wisdom and experience--were provided
with comfortable hammocks; and while most of us were squirming
beneath them, they swung in mid-air, under a breadth of mosquito
netting, slumbering sonorously and obviously oblivious of all our woes.
If I forget not, I cared not to sleep. We were very soon to leave the river
and enter the lake. From the boughs of overarching trees swept beards
of dark gray moss some yards in length, that waved to and fro in the
gathering twilight like folds of funereal crape. There were camp-fires at
the wooding stations, the flames of which painted the foliage
extraordinary colors and spangled it with sparks. Great flocks of
unfamiliar birds flew over us, their brilliant plumage taking a deeper
dye as they flashed their wings in the firelight. The chattering monkeys
skirmished among the branches; sometimes a dull splash in the water
reminded us that the alligator was still our neighbor; and ever there was
the piping of wild birds whose notes we had never heard before, and
whose outlines were as fantastic as those of the bright objects that
glorify an antique Japanese screen.

Once from the shore, a canoe shot out of the shadow and approached us.
It was a log hollowed out--only the shell remained. Within it sat two
Indians,--not the dark creatures we had grown familiar with down the
river; these also were nearly nude, but with the picturesque nudeness
that served only to set off the ornaments with which they had adorned
themselves--necklaces of shells, wristlets and armlets of bright metal,
wreaths of gorgeous flowers and the gaudy plumage of the flamingo.
They drew near us for a moment, only to greet us and turn away; and
very soon, with splash of dipping paddles, they vanished in the dusk.
These were the flowers of the forest. All the winding way from the sea
the river walls had been decked with floral splendor. Gigantic blossoms
that might shame a rainbow starred the green spaces of the wood; but of
all we had seen or heard or felt or dreamed of, none has left an
impression so vivid, so inspiring, so instinct with the beauty and the
poetry and the music of the tropics, as those twilight mysteries that
smiled upon us for a moment and vanished, even as the great fire-flies
that paled like golden rockets in the dark.

III.
ALONG THE PACIFIC SHORE
All night we tossed on the bosom of the lake between San Carlos, at the
source of the San Juan river, and Virgin Bay, on the opposite shore.
The lake is on a table-land a hundred feet or more above the sea; it is a
hundred miles in length and forty-five in width. Our track lay
diagonally across it, a stretch of eighty miles; and when the morning
broke upon us we were upon the point of dropping anchor under the
cool shadow of cloud-capped mountains and in a most refreshing
temperature.
Oh, the purple light of dawn that flooded the Bay of the Blessed Virgin!
Of course the night was a horror, and it was our second in transit; but
we were nearing the end of the journey across the Isthmus and were
shortly to embark for San Francisco. I fear we children regretted the

fact. Our life for three days had been like a veritable "Jungle Book." It
almost out-Kiplinged Kipling. We