ble, had been regularly practised by men appearing
to be New Englanders and New Yorkers from the es-
tablishment of the steamship line. Passengers as a
rule were helpless ; for when the steamer was ready,
they were obliged to go on board, and their baggage
was not worth the cost of hunting it. From the
first appearance of foreign travellers in these parts, it
has been a notorious fact, and of current remark, that
of all robbers and swindlers on the Isthmus white
men were the worst, and compared to them the na-
tives were humane, faithful, and honest. •
The steamers here took in coal and provisions, beef, fowl, and swine, flour and general groceries, oranges, pineapples, citrons and bananas, and liquors of all sorts. Quite a trafhc was sometimes done here in tickets by brokers; some, to save, would sell their steamer ticket and take passage on a sailing vessel, which they afterward too often found of that class whose captain and officers were accustomed to take in so much wine and spirits that they would forget to take in any water.
After a week's detention the steamer Panama an- nounced her readiness to receive passengers, of which opportunity we all made quick avail. With our ef- fects shrunken to the easy compass of our hands, we left our hotel, walked down the street, and out through the great gate, to the shore of the bay. There we found stationed just beyond the surf that broke upon the white beach, a row of boats ready to convey pas- sengers to the steamer, with porters and boatmen to carry us through the foam to the boat. Wading to the edge of the water the boatmen would stoop their ebony shoulders and back up to us invitingly. Women were picked up in their arms, and handled most ten- derly for such sooty savages. Sometimes stepping on a slippery stone, down man and rider would both go into the brine, amidst the shouts of the lookers-on. But this happened very seldom ; the wide, bare, leathery feet of the carriers were usually quit
