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