consisted of a coarse bagging shirt, coming down to his knees. We
arrived the next day at 11 A.M., at Gorgona, and took our dinner at the
hotel kept by the Alcalde of the place, and bargained with him for a
guide and three mules to continue our journey to Panama. As soon as our
guides and mules were ready, about 1 P.M., we started for Panama. We
soon got enough of our mules by being thrown a number of times over
their heads. They did not understand our language. "Get up and go
along," was Greek to them, but when the guide said "mula vamous" they
knew what it meant. On reaching the place where we were to stay all
night, we arose in the morning refreshed, but concluded to leave our
mules and make the rest of the way a-foot, as we considered them a
nuisance, and as we had no baggage but my little satchel previously
referred to, in which I had bills of lading of my houses, they being
consigned to me, the specifications of my carpenter's schedule, my
letters and a gold chronometer watch, worth $250, belonging to H., a
broker in New York, a friend, and a bottle of the best brandy, which he
presented to me to keep off the fever in crossing the Isthmus. This bag
I handed to the guide boy, about seventeen years of age, taking out the
brandy bottle. The watch I was to sell, for he had two nephews who had
gone to California, and if they were in need, to supply their wants. I
did not meet them; sold the watch for $500 to Mr. Haight, one of the
owners of the Miners' Bank in San Francisco, and remitted the money to
my friend, so I shall not refer to the watch again.

We were walking on at a free pace, our guide boy following behind.
Looking back after awhile we could not see him. We stopped and waited
some time, but he did not come, so we thought we would go on and he
would follow. The result was we lost our way and craved for a sight of
the Pacific ocean with all the ardor that Gilboa could have done, the
first Spanish discoverer of it, and on the same route, after our