US from alternate sun and rain — our baggage stowed,
and we have settled into as comfortable positions r.s
our cargo will permit. One glance at the j angling-
crowd upon the bank, and we are off. After all there
is something touching in the scene. The steamer we
had an idea would bring character to the surface ; but
now we find we knew little of our neio-hbors before
they stepped ashore, and assumed their respective
parts for the Isthmus extravaganza. The burly man and
loud talker, that we imagine mig-ht brave boatmen or
boa constrictors, now puffs and sweats about the outer
edge of a knob of determined actors, among whom the
little quiet boyish-looking fellow, with short, slight
frame, small hand, and delicate features, assumes au-
thority as by appointment. In such an emergency
mind and resolute daring, of their own inherent vir-
tue, form a nucleus round which grosser substance
gravitates. Then what a history they have, every
one of them. In their outre guise, with all their inor-
dinate desires and liberated propensities, their fretful
fault-findings, stupid misunderstandings, and morbid
restlessness, there is an air of stormy grandeur about
them. They are heroes and martyrs, in their way.
Have they not left quiet peace for troubled wander-
ings, abandoned loving; hearts for loneliness ? Have
they not for sweet charity's sake blinded their eyes to
the rosy smiles of children, stopped their ears to the
passionate sobs of wife and mother and sister, steeled
their affections against home and its sanctifying mem-
ories, and cast themselves adrift, aye, plunged their
souls into a gehenna of hi quietude and stinging battle?
Two or four or six shining, black, thick-limbed and muscular negroes, uniting with the African wooly hair, and protruding lips, a Moorish aquiline nose, or as many lighter colored, and lighter limbed natives, propelled the boats up the stream by means of poles, at an average speed of a mile an hour. Taking their stand upon the broadened edges of the canoe on either
