ranks were not wanting in cowards. Cowards might be induced to come on
a desperate enterprise like this, through misrepresentation by Walker's
own agents; through mere thoughtlessness, or mistake,--not knowing what
soldier's metal was in them; or, with the bayonet of Hunger against
their backs at home, they might be unmindful of any other bayonet on the
distant shore of Nicaragua. (It should be musket-shot, however; for the
greasers never found heart to use the bayonet.) And then again, many,
who, when they first reached Nicaragua, were no cowards, after a few
months' stay, became changed,--by the depressing effects of fever, by
loss of confidence in their drunken officers, and by the absence of all
incentive to fight stoutly for a leader so unpopular as Walker. It was a
common saying, that in this army an old rule was reversed,--the veterans
were worse fighters than the recruits. The soldier was at his best
when he first landed upon the Isthmus, raw and healthy. After that, he
rapidly deteriorated, losing spirit with every battle, until he became
at last a thoroughbred coward. Seven or eight greasers to one filibuster
was said to be good fighting, at one time; but now three or four to one
was thought to be great odds; and before the game ended, I hear, they
were become equally matched, man for man, almost. But, whatever General
Walker said in his speech, this class of weak ones were not always the
deserters. It required some little energy or strength of legs, with
which these were unfurnished, to go over to the enemy at San Jorge, or
walk down to Costa Rica; and the fact was, that from the first many of
the healthiest and liveliest men, whose defection could least be borne,
were leaving,--not from fear, mainly, but because by this proclamation
they were offered the first opportunity to escape from a disagreeable
service to which they thought themselves bound by no tie of love or
honor.

It was now about time for a steamer to arrive at San Juan on the Pacific