was then crowded, and some of the passengers volunteered to row ashore
with the small boats to bring them aboard, which they did. When they
approached the shore there was a company of soldiers waded in the water
with pointed guns, forbidding them to approach any nearer. The Americans
who were on the bank informed them that the soldiers would fire, and
warning them not to approach any nearer, while bewailing their fate that
they had to be left, so they returned. Then the captain received notice
to leave in half an hour or the guns of the fort would open fire on us.
It was a bright moonlight night. The fort was on a high knoll just above
us, and could have blown us out of the water. So we thought discretion
was the better part of valor, and we had to leave. The laws of nations
were on their side. We were from an infected port, Panama, where cholera
prevailed.

On board the steamer were some men of prominence. W.F. McCondery, from
Boston, a retired East India sea captain, a man of wealth, who had been
out of business for three years and craved for a more exciting life; who
started the largest commission-house in San Francisco, and had consigned
to him about all the shipments from Boston, and likewise the _Prince de
Joinville_ with my houses; Mr. G., from Liverpool, an Englishman, who
had about all the consignments from that city; Rothschild's nephew, who
had represented that house as a banker in Valparaiso, Chili, was going
to establish a branch of those great bankers' house in San Francisco;
Judge Terry, from Louisiana, who had the reputation at that time of
being a dead shot with a pistol, who afterward challenged United States
Senator Broderick to fight a duel, from political influences, and killed
him, and some years afterward was assassinated himself from a
disagreement with parties about a lawsuit. We came opposite Mazland at
the mouth of the Gulf of California, and took on board some passengers
and freight.