In the Footprints of the Padres | Page 6

scattering shrubs tossing in the wind; but sovereignty over this very point was claimed by three petty powers: Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and "Mosquito." Great Britain backed the "Mosquito" claim; and, in virtue of certain privileges granted by the "Mosquito" King, the authorities of San Juan del Norte--the port better known in those days as Graytown, albeit 'twas as green as grass--threatened to seize Punta Arenas for public use. Thereupon Graytown was bombarded; but immediately rose, Phoenix-like, from its ashes, and was flourishing when we arrived. The current number of Harper's Monthly, a copy of which we brought on board when we embarked at New York, contained an illustrated account of the bombardment of Graytown, which added not a little to the interest of the hour.
While we were speculating as to the nature of our next experience, suddenly a stern-wheel, flat-bottom boat backed up alongside of the Star of the West. She was of the pattern of the small freight-boats that still ply the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. If the Star of the West was small, this stern-wheel scow was infinitely smaller. There was but one cabin, and it was rendered insufferably hot by the boilers that were set in the middle of it. There was one flush deck, with an awning stretched above it that extended nearly to the prow of the boat. It was said our passenger list numbered fourteen hundred. The gold boom in California was still at fever heat. Every craft that set sail for the Isthmus by the Nicaragua or Panama route, or by the weary route around Cape Horn, was packed full of gold-seekers. It was the Golden Age of the Argonauts; and, if my memory serves me well, there were no reserved seats worth the price thereof.
The first river boat at our disposal was for the exclusive accommodation of the cabin passengers, or as many of them as could be crowded upon her--and we were among them. Other steamers were to follow as soon as practicable. Hours, even days, passed by, and the passengers on the ocean steamers were sometimes kept waiting the arrival of the river boats that were aground or had been belated up the stream.
About two hundred of us boarded the first boat. Our luggage of the larger sort was stowed away in barges and towed after us. The decks were strewn with hand-bags, camp-stools, bundles, and rolls of rugs. The lower deck was two feet above the water. As we looked back upon the Star of the West, waving a glad farewell to the ship that had brought us more than two thousand miles across the sea, she loomed like a Noah's Ark above the flood, and we were quite proud of her--but not sorry to say good-bye.
And now away, into the very heart of a Central American forest! And hail to the new life that lay all before us in El Dorado! The river was as yellow as saffron; its shores were hidden in a dense growth of underbrush that trailed its boughs in the water, and rose, a wall of verdure, far above our smokestacks. As we ascended the stream the forest deepened; the trees grew taller and taller; wide-spreading branches hung over us; gigantic vines clambered everywhere and made huge hammocks of themselves; they bridged the bayous, and made dark leafy caverns wherein the shadows were forbidding; for the sunshine seemed never to have penetrated them, and they were the haunts of weirdness and mystery profound.
Sometimes a tree that had fallen into the water and lay at a convenient angle by the shore afforded the alligator a comfortable couch for his sun-bath. Shall I ever forget the excitement occasioned by the discovery of our first alligator! Not the ancient and honorable crocodile of the Nile was ever greeted with greater enthusiasm; yet our sportsmen had very little respect for him, and his sleep was disturbed by a shower of bullets that spattered upon his hoary scales as harmlessly as rain.
Though the alligator punctuated every adventurous hour of that memorable voyage in Nicaragua, we children were more interested in our Darwinian friends, the monkeys. They were of all shades and shapes and sizes; they descended in troops among the trees by the river side; they called to us and beckoned us shoreward; they cried to us, they laughed at us; they reached out their bony arms, and stretched wide their slim, cold hands to us, as if they would pluck us as we passed. We exchanged compliments and clubs in a sham-battle that was immensely diverting; we returned the missiles they threw at us as long as the ammunition held out, but captured none of the enemy, nor did the slightest damage--as far as we could ascertain.
Often the parrots squalled at us, but their vocabulary was limited; for