Tom Cringle's Log Part 64

We dined with the magnate, and found a very large party a.s.sembled.

Amongst others, I especially recollect that the Inquisidor--General was conspicuous; but every one, with the exception of the Captain General and his immediate staff, was arrayed in gingham jackets; so there was not much style in the affair.

I had before dinner an opportunity to inspect the works of Carthagena at my leisure. It is unquestionably a very strong place, the walls, which are built of solid masonry, being armed with at least three hundred pieces of bra.s.s cannon, while the continued ebb and flow of the tide in the ditch creates a current so strong, that it would be next to impossible to fill it up, as fascines would be carried away by the current--so that, were the walls even breached, it would be impracticable to storm them. The appearance of Carthagena from the sea, that is, from a vessel anch.o.r.ed off the St Domingo gate, is very beautiful, and picturesque. It is situated on a sandy island, or rather a group of islands; and the beach here shoals so gradually, that boats of even very small draught of water cannot approach within musket-shot.

The walls and numerous batteries have a very commanding appearance. The spires and towers on the churches are numerous, and many of them were decorated with flags when we were there; and the green trees shooting up amidst the red-tiled houses afforded a beautiful relief to the prospect. A little behind the town, on a gentle acclivity, is the citadel, or fort San Felipe, whose appearance conveys an idea of impregnable strength; (but all this sort of thing, is it not written in Roderick Random?) and on the s.h.i.+p like hill beyond it, the only other eminence in the neighbourhood, stands the convent of the Popa, like a p.o.o.p lantern on the high stern of a s.h.i.+p, from which indeed it takes its name. This convent had been strongly fortified; and, commanding San Felipe, was of great use to Morillo, who carried it by a.s.sault during the siege, and held it until the insurgents sh.e.l.led him out from the citadel. The effect, when I first saw it, was increased by the whole scene--city, and batteries, and Popa--being reflected in the calm smooth sea, as distinctly as if it had been gla.s.s; so clear, in fact, was the reflection, that you could scarcely distinguish the shadow from the reality. We weighed next morning--that is on the sixth of the month, and arrived safe at Porto-Bello on the 11th, after a tedious pa.s.sage, during which we had continual rains, accompanied with vivid lightning and tremendous thunder. I had expected to have fallen in with one of our frigates here; but I afterwards learned that, although I had slid down cheerily along sh.o.r.e, the weather current that prevailed farther out at sea had swept her away to the eastward; so I ran in and anch.o.r.ed, and immediately waited on the Governor, who received me in what might once have been a barn, although it did not now deserve the name.

Porto--Bello was originally called Nombre de Dios, having received the former name from the English when we took it. It is a miserable, dirty, damp hole, surrounded by high forest-clad hills, round which everlasting mists curl and obscure the sun, whose rays, at any chance moment when they do reach the steamy swamp on which it is built or the waters of the lead-coloured, land-locked cove that const.i.tutes the harbour, immediately exhale the thick sickly moisture, in clouds of sluggish white vapours, smelling diabolically of decayed vegetables, and slime, and mud. I will venture a remark that will be found, I am persuaded, pretty near the truth, that there were twenty carrion crows to be seen in the streets for every inhabitant--the people seem every way worthy of such an abode, saffron, dingy, miserable, emaciated looking devils. As for the place itself, it appeared to my eyes one large hospital, inhabited by patients in the yellow fever. During the whole of the following day, there was still no appearance of the frigate, and I had in consequence now to execute the ulterior part of my orders, which were, that if I did not find her at anchor when I arrived, or if she did not make her appearance within forty eight hours thereafter, I was myself to leave the Wave in Porto--Bello, and proceed overland across the isthmus to Panama, and to deliver, on board of H. M.

S. Bandera, into the Captain's own hands, a large packet with despatches from the Government at home, as I understood, of great importance, touching the conduct of our squadron, with reference to the vagaries of some of the mushroom American Republics on the Pacific. But if I fell in with the frigate, then I was to deliver the said packet to the Captain, and return immediately in the Wave to Port Royal.

Having, therefore, obtained letters from the Governor of Porto--Bello to the Commandant at Chagres, I chartered a canoe with four stout canoemen and a steersman, or patron, as he is called, to convey me to Cruzes; and having laid in a good stock of eatables and drinkables, and selected the black pilot, Peter Mangrove, to go as my servant, accompanied by his never-failing companion, Sneezer, and taking my hammock and double barrelled gun, and a brace of pistols with me, we shoved off at Six A.M.

on the morning of the 14th.

It was a rum sort of conveyance this said canoe of mine. In the first place, it was near forty feet long, and only five broad at the broadest, being hollowed out of one single wild cotton-tree; how this was to be pulled through the sea on the coast, by four men, I could not divine.

However, I was a.s.sured by the old thief who chartered it to me, that it would be all right; whereas, had my innocence not been imposed on, I might, in a caiuco, or smaller canoe, have made the pa.s.sage in one half the time it took me.

About ten feet of the after part was thatched with palm leaves, over a framework of broad ash hoops; which awning, called the toldo, was open both towards the steersman that guided us with a long broad-bladed paddle in the stern, and in the direction of the men forward, who, on starting, stripped themselves stark naked, and, giving a loud yell every now and then, began to pull their oars, or long paddles, after a most extraordinary fas.h.i.+on. First, when they lay back to the strain, they jumped backwards and upwards on to the thwart with their feet, and then, as they once more feathered their paddles again, they came crack down on their bottoms with a loud skelp on the seats, upon which they again mounted at the next stroke, and so on.

When we cleared the harbour it was fine and serene, but about noon it came on to blow violently from the northeast. All this while we were coasting it along about pistol-shot from the white coral beach, with the clear light green swell on our right hand, and beyond it the dark and stormy waters of the blue rolling ocean; and the snow-white roaring surf on our left. By the time I speak of, the swell had been lashed up into breaking waves, and after s.h.i.+pping more salt water than I had bargained for, we were obliged, about four PM, to shove into a cove within the reef, called Naranja.

Along this part of the coast there is a chain of salt-water lagoons, divided from the sea by the coral beach, the crest of which is covered here and there with clumps of stunted mangroves.

This beach, strangely enough, is higher than the land immediately behind it, as if it had been a dike, or natural breakwater, thrown up by the sea. Every here and there, there were gaps in this natural dike, and it was through one of these we shoved, and soon swung to our grapnel in perfect security, but in a most outlandish situation certainly.

As we rode to the easterly breeze, there was the beach as described, almost level with the water, on our left hand, the land or lee side of it covered with most beautiful white sand and sh.e.l.ls, with whole warrens of land-crabs running out and in their holes like little rabbits, their tiny green bodies seeming to roll up and down, for I was not near enough to see their feet, or the mode of their locomotion, like bushels of grapeshot trundling all about on the s.h.i.+ning white sh.o.r.e. Beyond, the roaring surf was flas.h.i.+ng up over the clumps of green bushes, and thundering on the seaward face. On the right hand, ahead of us, and astern of us, the prospect was shut in by impervious thickets of mangroves, while in the distance the blue hills rose glimmering and indistinct, as seen through the steamy atmosphere. We were anch.o.r.ed in a stripe of clear water, about three hundred yards long by fifty broad.

There, was a clear s.p.a.ce abeam of us landward, of about half an acre in extent, on which was built a solitary Indian hut close to the water's edge, with a small canoe drawn up close to the door. We had not been long at anchor when the canoe was launched, and a monkey--looking naked old man paddled off, and brought us a most beautiful chicken turtle, some yams, and a few oranges. I asked him his price. He rejoined, "Por amor de Dios"--that it was his saint's day, and he meant it as a gift.

However, he did not refuse a dollar when tendered to him before he paddled away.

That night, when we were all at supper, master and men, I heard and felt a sharp crack against the side of the canoe. "Hillo, Peter, what is that?" said I.

"Nothing, sir," quoth Peter, who was enjoying his sc.r.a.ps abaft, with the headman, patron, or whatever you may call him, of my crew. There was a blazing fire kindled on a bed of white sand, forward in the bow of the canoe, round which the four bogas, or canoemen, were seated, with three sticks stuck up triangularly over the fire, from which depended an earthen pot, in which they were cooking their suppers.

I had rigged my hammock between the foremost and aftermost hoops of the toldo, and as I was fatigued and sleepy, and it was now getting late, I desired to betake myself to rest; so I was just flirting with a piece of ham, preparatory to the cold grog, when I again felt a similar thump and rattle against the side of the canoe. There was a small aperture in the palm thatch, right opposite to where I was sitting, on the outside of which I now heard a rustling noise, and presently a long snout was thrust through, and into the canoe, which kept opening and shutting with a sharp rattling noise. It was more like two long splinters of mud covered and half-decayed timber, than any thing I can compare it to; but as the lower jaw was opened, like a pair of Brobdignag scissors, a formidable row of teeth was unmasked, the snout from the tip to the eyes being nearly three feet long. The scene at this moment was exceedingly good, as seen by the light of a small, bright, silver lamp, fed with spirits of wine, that I always travelled with, which hung from one of the hoops of the toldo. First, there was our friend Peter Mangrove, cowering in a corner under the after part of the awning, covered up with a blanket, and shaken as if with an ague-fit, with the patron peering over his shoulder, no less alarmed. Sneezer, the dog, was sitting on end, with his black nose resting on the table, waiting patiently for his crumbs; and the black boatmen were forward in the bow of the canoe, jabbering, and laughing, and munching, as they cl.u.s.tered round a sparkling fire. When I first saw the apparition of the diabolical looking snout, I was in a manner fascinated, and could neither speak nor move. Mangrove and the patron were also paralysed with fear, and the others did not see it; so Sneezer was the only creature amongst us, aware of the danger, who seemed to have his wits about him, for the instant he noticed it, he calmly lifted his nose off the table, and gave a short startled bark, and then crouched and drew himself back as if in the act to spring, glancing his eyes from the monstrous jaws to my face, and nuzzling and whining with a laughing expression, and giving a small yelp now and then, and again riveting his eyes with intense earnestness on the alligator, telling me as plainly as if he had spoken it--"If you choose, master, I will attack it, as in duty bound, but really such a customer is not at all in my way." And not only did he say this, but he shewed his intellect was clear, and no way warped through fear, for he now stood on his hind legs, and holding on the hammock with his fore paws, he thrust his snout below the pillow, and pulled out one of my pistols, which always garnished the head of my bed, on such expeditions as the present.

My presence of mind returned at witnessing the courage and sagacity of my n.o.ble dog. I seized the loaded pistol, and as by this time the eyes of the alligator were inside of the toldo, I clapped the muzzle to the larboard one, and fired. The creature jerked back so suddenly and convulsively, that part of the toldo was tom away: and as the dead monster fell off, the canoe rolled as if in a seaway. My crew shouted "Que es esto?" Peter Mangrove cheered--Sneezer barked and yelled at a glorious rate, and could scarcely be held in the canoe--and looking overboard, we saw the monster, twelve feet long at least, upturn his white belly to the rising moon, struggle for a moment with his short paws, and after a solitary heavy lash of his scaly tale, he floated away astern of us, dead and still. To proceed poor Peter Mangrove, whose nerves were consumedly shaken by this interlude, was seized during the night with a roasting fever, brought on in a great measure, I believe, by fear, at finding himself so far out of his lat.i.tude; and that he had grievous doubts as to the issue of our voyage, and as to where we were bound for, was abundantly evident. I dosed him most copiously with salt water, a very cooling medicine, and no lack of it at hand.

We weighed at grey dawn, on the morning of the 15th, and at 11 o'clock, AM arrived at Chagres, a more miserable place, were that credible, even than Porto--Bello. The eastern side of the harbour is formed by a small promontory that runs out into the sea about five hundred yards, with a bright little bay to windward; while a long muddy mangrove-covered spit forms the right hand bank as you enter the mouth or estuary of the river Chagres on the west. The easternmost bluff is a narrow saddle, with a fort erected on the extreme point facing the sea, which, so far as situation is concerned, is, or ought to be, impregnable, the rock being precipitous on three faces, while it is cut off to landward by a deep dry ditch, about thirty feet wide, across which a movable drawbridge is let down, and this compartment of the defences is all very regular, with scarp and counterscarp, covered--way and glacis. The bra.s.s guns mounted on the castle were numerous and beautiful, but every thing was in miserable disrepair; several of the guns, for instance, had settled down bodily on the platform, having fallen through the crushed rotten carriages. I found an efficient garrison in this stronghold of three old negroes, who had not even a musket of any kind, but the commandant was not in the castle when I paid my visit; however, one of the invincibles undertook to pilot me to El Senor Torre's house, where his honour was dining. The best house in the place this was, by the by, although only a thatched hut; and here I found his Excellency the Commandant, a little shrivelled insignificant-looking creature. He was about sitting down to his dinner, of which he invited me to partake, and as I was very hungry, I contrived to do justice to the first dish, but my stomach was grievously offended at the second, which seemed to me to be a compound of garlic, brick dust, and train oil, so that I was glad to hurry on board of my canoe, to settle all with a little good Madeira.

At four P.m. I proceeded up the river, which is here about a hundred yards across, and very deep; it rolls sluggishly along through a low swampy country, covered to the water's edge with thick sedges and underwood, below which the water stagnates, and generates myriads of musquittoes, and other troublesome insects, and sends up whole clouds of noxious vapours, redolent of yellow fever, and ague, and cramps, and all manner of comfortable things.

At ten P.M. we anch.o.r.ed by a grapnel in the stream, and I set Peter Mangrove forthwith to officiate in his new capacity of cook, and really he made a deuced good one. I then slung my hammock under the toldo, and lighting a slow match, at the end of it forwards, to smoke away the musquittoes, having previously covered the aftermost end with a mat, I wrapped myself in my cloak, and turned in to take my snooze. We weighed again about two in the morning. As the day dawned the dull grey steamy clouds settled down on us once more, while the rain fell in a regular waterspout. It was anything but a cheering prospect to look along the dreary vistas of the dull brimful Lethe-like stream, with nothing to be seen but the heavy lowering sky above, the red swollen water beneath, and the gigantic trees high towering overhead, and growing close to the water's edge, laced together with black snake-like withes, while the jungle was thick and impervious, and actually grew down into the water, for beach, or sh.o.r.e, or cleared bank, there was none,--all water and underwood, except where a heavy soft slimy steaming black bank of mud hove its s.h.i.+ning back from out the dead waters near the sh.o.r.e, with one or more monstrous alligators sleeping on it, like dirty rotten logs of wood, scarcely deigning to lift their abominable long snouts to look at us as we pa.s.sed, or to raise their long scaly tails, with the black mud sticking to the scales in great lumps--oh--horrible--most horrible! But the creatures, although no beauties certainly, are harmless after all.

For instance, I never heard a well-authenticated case of their attacking a human being hereabouts; pigs and fowls they do t.i.the, however, like any parson. I don't mean to say that they would not make free with a little fat dumpling of a piccaniny, if he were thrown to them, but they seem to have no ferocious propensities. I shot one of them; he was about twelve feet long; the bullet entered in the joints of the mail, below the shoulder of the fore paw, where the hide was tender; but if you fire at them with the scale, that is, with the monster looking at you, a musket ball will glance. I have often in this my log spoken of the Brobdignag lizards, the guanas. I brought down one this day, about three feet long, and found it, notwithstanding its dragon like appearance, very good eating. At eleven AM on the 18th, we arrived at the village of Cruzes, the point where the river ceases to be navigable for canoes, and from whence you take horse, or rather mule, for Panama. For about fifteen or twenty miles below Cruzes, the river becomes rapid, and full of shoals, when the oars are laid aside, and the canoes are propelled by long poles.

The Town, as it is called, is a poor miserable place, composed chiefly of negro huts; however, a Spanish trader of the name of Villaverde, who had come over in the Wave as a pa.s.senger, and had preceded me in a lighter canoe, and to whom I had shown some kindness, now repaid it, as far as lay in his power.

He lodged me for the night, and hired mules for me to proceed to Panama in the morning; so I slung my hammock in an old Spanish soldier's house, who keeps a kind of posada, and was called by my friend Villaverde at daydawn, whose object was, not to tell me to get ready for my journey, but to ask me if I would go and bathe before starting. Rather a rum sort of request, it struck me; nevertheless, a purification, after the many disagreeables I had endured, could not come amiss; and slipping on my trowsers, and casting my cloak on my shoulders, away we trudged to a very beautiful spot, about a mile above Cruzes, where, to my surprise, I found a score of Crusafios, all Altering in the water, puffing and blowing and shouting. Now an alligator might pick and choose, thought I; however, no one seemed in the least afraid, so I dashed amongst them.

Presently, about pistol-shot from us, a group of females appeared.

Come, thought I, rather too much for a modest young man this too; and deuce take me, as I am a gentleman, if the whole bevy did not disrobe in cold blood, and squatter, naked as their mother Eve was in the garden of Eden, before she took to the herbage, right into the middle of the stream, skirting and laughing, as if not even a male musquitto had been within twenty miles. However, my neighbour took no notice of them; it seemed all a matter of course. But let that pa.s.s. About eight o'clock A.M. I got under weigh, with Peter Mangrove, on two good stout mules, and a black guide running before me with a long stick, with which he sprung over the sloughs and stones in the road with great agility; I would have backed him against many a pa.s.sable hunter, to do four miles over a close country in a steeple-chase.

Panama is distant from Cruzes about seven leagues. The road is somewhat like what the Highland ones must have been before General Wade took them in hand, and only pa.s.sable for mules; indeed, in many places where it had been hewn out of the rock in zigzags on the face of the hill, it is scarcely pa.s.sable for two persons meeting. But the scenery on each side is very beautiful, as it winds, for the most part, amongst steep rocks, over shadowed by magnificent trees, amongst which birds of all sizes, and of the most beautiful plumage, are perpetually glancing, while a monkey, every here and there, would sit grimacing, and chattering, and scratching himself in the cleft of a tree.

I should think, judging from my barometer--but I may have made an inaccurate calculation, and I have not Humboldt by me--that the ridge of the highest is fifteen hundred feet above the level of the sea, so that it would be next to impossible to join the two seas at this point by a ca.n.a.l with water in it. However, I expect to see a joint Stock Company set a-going some fine day yet for the purpose of cutting it, that is, when the national capital next acc.u.mulates (and Lord knows when that will be) to a plethora, and people's purses become so distended that they require bleeding.

After travelling about twenty miles, the scene gradually opens, and one begins to dream about Vasco Nunez and the enthusiastic first explorers of the Isthmus; but my first view of the Pacific was through a drenching shower of rain, that wet me to the skin, and rather kept my imagination under, for this said imagination of mine is like a barn-door chuckey brisk and crouse enough when the sun s.h.i.+nes, and the sky is blue, and plenty of grub at hand, but I can't write poetry when I am could, and hungry, and drooked. Still, when I caught my first glimpse of the distant Pacific, I felt that, even through a miserable drizzle, it was a n.o.ble prospect.

As you proceed, you occasionally pa.s.s through small open savannahs, which become larger, and the clear s.p.a.ces wider, until the forest you have been travelling under gradually breaks into beautiful clumps of trees, like those in a gentleman's park, and every here and there a placid clear piece of water spreads out, full of pond turtle, which I believe to be one and the same with the tortoise, and eels; the latter of which, by the by, are very sociable creatures, for in the clear moonlight nights, with the bright sparkling dew on the short moist gra.s.s, they frequently travel from one pond to another, wriggling along the gra.s.s like snakes. I have myself found them fifty yards from the water; but whether the errand was love or war, or merely to drink tea with some of the slippery young females in the next pool, and then return again, the deponent sayeth not.

As you approach the town, the open s.p.a.ces before-mentioned become more frequent, until at length you gain a rising ground, about three miles from Panama, where, as the sun again shone out, the view became truly enchanting.

There lay the town of Panama, built on a small tongue of land, jutting into the Pacific, surrounded by walls, which might have been a formidable defence once, but I wish my promotion depended on my rattling the old bricks and stones about their ears, with one single frigate, if I could only get near enough; but in the impossibility of this lies the strength of the place, as the water shoals so gradually, that the tide retires nearly a mile and a half from the walls, rising, I consider, near eighteen feet at the springs, while, on the opposite side of the Isthmus, at Chagres for instance, there is scarcely any at all, the gulf stream neutralizing it almost entirely.

On the right hand a hill overhangs the town, rising precipitously to the height of a thousand feet or thereabouts, on the extreme pinnacle of which is erected a signal station, called the Vigia, which, at the instant I saw it, was telegraphing to some craft out at sea. As for the city, to a.s.sume our friend Mr Bang's mode of description, it was shaped like a tadpole, the body representing the city, and the suburb the tail; or a stewpan, the city and its fortifications being the pan, while the handle, tending obliquely towards us, was the Raval, or long street, extending Savannahward, without the walls. At the distance from which we viewed it, the red-tiled houses, cathedral, with its towers, and the numerous monasteries and nunneries, seemed girt in with a white ribbon, while a series of black spots here and there denoted the cannon on the batteries. To the left of the town, there was a whole flotilla of small craft, brigs, schooners, and vegetable boats; while farther out at sea, beyond the fortifications, three large s.h.i.+ps rode at anchor; and beyond them again, the beautiful group of islands lying about five miles off the town, appeared to float on and were reflected in the calm, gla.s.slike expanse of the Pacific, like emeralds chased in silver, while the ocean itself, towards the horizon, seemed to rise up like a scene in a theatre, or a burnished bright silver wall, growing more and more blue, and hazy and indistinct, as it ascended, until it melted into the cloudless heaven, so that no one could tell where water and sky met.

"Thou glorious mirror, in all time, Calm or convulsed--in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark heaving boundless, endless, and sublime, The image of Eternity--the throne Of the Invisible."

While a sperm whale every now and then rose between us and the islands, and spouted up a high double jet into the air, like a blast of steam, and then, with a heavy flounder of his broad tail, slowly sank again; and a boat here and there glided athwart the scene, and a sleepy sail arose with a slow motion and a fitful rattle, and a greasy cheep, on the mast of some vessel, getting all ready to weigh, while small floating trails of blue smoke were streaming away astern from the tiny cabooses of the craft at anchor, and a mournful distant "yo heave oh" came booming past us on the light air, and the everlasting tinkle of the convent bells sounded cheerily, and the lowing of the kine around us called up old a.s.sociations in my bosom, as I looked forth on the glorious spectacle from beneath a magnificent bower of orange-trees and shaddocks, while all manner of wild-flowers blossomed and bloomed around us.

We arrived at Panama about three PM, covered to the eyes with mud, and after some little difficulty, I found out Senor Hombrecillo Justo's house, who received me very kindly. Next morning I waited on the Governor, made my bow and told him my errand. He was abundantly civil; professing himself ready to serve me in any way, and promising to give me the earliest intelligence of the arrival of the Bandera. I then returned to mine host's, to whom I had strong letters of introduction from some Kingston friends.

I soon found that I had landed amongst a family of originals. Mine host was a little thin withered body, with a face that might have vied with the monkey whom the council of Aberdeen took for a sugar planter. He wore his own grey hair in a long greasy queue, and his costume, when I first saw him, was white cotton stockings, white jean small clothes and waistcoat, and a little light-blue silk coat; he wore large solid gold buckles in his shoes, and knee-buckles of the same. His voice was small and squeaking, and when heated in argument, or crossed by any member of family,--and he was very touchy--it became so shrill and indistinct that it pierced the ear without being in the least intelligible. In those paroxysms he did not walk, but sprung from place to place like a gra.s.shopper, with unlooked-for agility, avoiding the chairs and tables and other movables with great dexterity. I often thought he would have broken whatever came in his way; but although his erratic orbit was small, he performed his evolutions with great precision and security. His general temper, however, was very kind, humane, and good-humoured, and he seldom remained long under the influence of pa.s.sion. His character, both as a man and a merchant, was unimpeachable, and, indeed, proverbial in the place. His better half appeared to be some years older, and also a good deal of an original.

She was a little short thick woman; but, stout as she was when I had the honour of an embrace, she must have been once much stouter, for her skin appeared from the colour and texture to have come to her at second hand, and to have originally belonged to a much larger person, for it bagged and hung in flaps about her jowls and bosom, like an ill-cut maintopsail, which sits clumsily about the clews. I think I could have reefed her with advantage, below the chin.

Her usual dress was a s.h.i.+ft, with a whole sailroom of frills about the sleeves and bosom, and a heavy pink taffeta petticoat, (gowns being only worn by these fair ones as you put on a greatcoat, that is, when they go abroad,) and a small round ap.r.o.n like a flap of black silk. Over these she wore a Spanish aroba, or twenty-five pounds weight of gold chains, saints, and crucifixes, and a large black velvet patch, of the size of a wafer, on each temple, which I found, by the by, to be an ornament very much in fas.h.i.+on amongst the fair of Panama. Her hair, or rather the scanty remnant thereof, was plaited into two grizzled braids, with a black bow of ribbon at the end of each, and hung straight down her back.

Like may excellent wives, she loved to circulate her spouse's blood by a little well-timed opposition now and then; but she never tried her strength too far, and she always softened down in proportion as he waxed energetic, and began to accelerate his motions, so that by the time he had given one or two hops, she had either fairly given in, or moved out.

They had no children, but had in a manner adopted a little black creature about four years old, which, being a female, the lady had christened by the familiar diminutive of Diablita.

Another curiosity was the maternal aunt of Don Hombrecillo, a little superannuated woman about four feet high, if she could have stood erect, but old age had long since bent her nearly double; she was on the verge of eighty-five years of age, and had outlived all her faculties. This poor old creature, in place of being respectably lodged and taken care of, was allowed to go about the house, tame, without any fixed abode so far as I could learn; nor did she always meet with that attention, I am sorry to say it, from the family, or even from the servants, that she was ent.i.tled to from her extreme helplessness. She had a droll custom of eating all her meals walking, and it was her practice to move around the dinner-table in this her dotage, and to commit pranks, that, against my will, made me laugh, and even in despite of the feelings of pity and self-humiliation that arose in my bosom at the sight of such miserable imbecility in a fellow-creature. Thus keeping on the wing as I have described, it was her practice to cruise about behind the chairs, occasionally s.n.a.t.c.hing pieces of food from before the guests, so slyly, that the first intimation of her intentions was the appearance of her yellow shrivelled birdlike claw in your plate.

The brother of our host was a little stout man, but still very like Senor Justo himself. For instance, I always gloried in likening the latter to a dried prune; then, to conceive of his plump brother, imagine him boiled, and so swell out the creases in his skin, and there you have him.

This little dumpling was very asthmatic, and used to blow like a porpoise by the time he reached the top of the stairs. The only time he had ever been out of Panama was whilst he made a short visit to Lima, the wonders of which he used to chant unceasingly. But the continual cause of my annoyance--I fear I must write disgust--was the stepmother of mine host, a large fat dirty old woman. She had a pouch under her chin like a pelican, while her complexion, from the quant.i.ty of oil and foul feeding in which she delighted, was a greasy mahogany. She despised the unnatural luxuries of knives and forks, constantly devouring her meat with her fingers, whatever its consistency might be; if flesh, she tore it with both hands; if soup, she--bah! and, as the devil would have it, the venerable beauty chose to take a fancy to me.

Oh, she was a balloon! I have often expected to see her rise to the roof.

These polished personages may be called Senor Justo's family, but it was occasionally increased by various others; none of whom, however, can I heave-to to describe at present.

The day after my arrival, the operation of covering dollar boxes with wet hides had been going on in the dinner saloon the whole forenoon, which drove me forth to look about me; but I returned about half-past two, this being the hour of dinner, and found all the family, excepting mine hostess, a.s.sembled, and my appearance was the signal for dinner being ordered in. I may mention here, that this worthy family were all firmly impressed with the idea, that an Englishman was an ostrich, possessing a stomach capable of holding and digesting four times as much as any other person; and under this belief they were so outrageously kind, that I was often literally stuffed to suffocation when I first came amongst them; and when at length I resolutely refused to be immolated after this fas.h.i.+on, they swore I was sick, or did not like my food, which was next door to insulting them. El Senor Justo's fat dumpling of a brother thought medical advice ought to be taken, for when he was in Lima several seamen belonging to an English whaler had died, and he had remarked, the twaddling body, that they had invariably lost their appet.i.tes previous to their dissolution.

But to return. Dinner being ordered, was promptly placed on the table, and mine host insisted on planting me at the foot thereof, while he sat on my left hand; so the party sat down; but the chair opposite, that ought to have been filled by Madama herself, was still vacant.

"Adonde esta su ama," quoth Don Hombrecillo to one of the black waiting wenches. The girl said she did not know, but she would go and see. It is necessary to mention here that the worthy Senor's counting-house was in a back building, separated from the house that fronted the street by a narrow court, and in a small closet off this counting-house, my quatre had been rigged the previous night, and there had my luggage been deposited. Amongst other articles in my commissariat, there was a basket with half-a-dozen of champagne, and some hock, and a bottle of brandy, that I had placed under Peter Mangrove's care to comfort us in the wilderness. We all lay back in our chairs to wait for the lady of the house, but neither did she nor Toma.s.sa, the name of the handmaiden who had been despatched in search of her, seem inclined to make their appearance. Don Hombrecillo became impatient.

"Josefa,"--to another of the servants--"run and desire your mistress to come here immediately." Away she flew, but neither did this second pigeon return. Mine host now lost his temper entirely, and spluttered out, as loud as he could roar, "Somos comiendo, Panchita, somos comiendo;" and forthwith, as if in spite, he began to fork up his food, until he had nearly choked himself. Presently a short startled scream was heard from the counting-house, then a low suppressed laugh, then a loud shout, a long uproarious peal of laughter, and the two black servants came thundering across the wooden gangway or drawbridge, that connected the room where we sat with the outhouse, driven onwards by their mistress herself. They flew across the end of the dining room into the small balcony fronting the lane and began without ceremony to shout across the narrow street to a Carmelite priest, who was in a gallery of the opposite monastery, "that their mistress was possessed."

Presently in danced our landlady, in propria persona, jumping and screaming and laughing, and snapping her fingers, and spinning round like a Turkish dervish, "mira el fandango, mira el fandanG.o.dexa me baylar, dexa me baylar--See my fandango, see my fandangolet me dance let me dance--ha, ha, ha."

"Panchita," screamed Justo, in extreme wrath, "tu es loco, you are mad sit down, por amor de Dios--seas decente--be decent."

She continued gamboling about, "loven soy y virgin--I am young and a virgin--y tu Viejo diablo que queres tu,--and you, old devil, what do you want, eh?--Una virgin por Dios soy--I am young," and seizing a boiled fowl from the dish, she let fly at her husband's head, but missed him, fortunately; whereupon she made a regular grab at him with her paw, but he slid under the table, in all haste, roaring out,--"Ave Maria, que es esso--manda por el Padre--Send for the priest, y trae una puerco, en donde echar el demonio, manda, manda--send for a priest, and a pig, into which the demon may be cast,--send--" "Dexa me, dexa me baylar"

continued the old dame--"tu no vale, Bobo viejo, you are of no use, you old blockhead--you are a forked radish, and not a man--let me catch you, let me catch you," and here she made a second attempt, and got hold of his queue, by which she forcibly dragged him from beneath the table, until fortunately, the ribbon that tied it slid off in her hand, and the little Senor instantly ran back to this burrow, with the speed of a rabbit, while his wife sung out, "tu gastas calzones, eh? para que, damelos damelos, yo los quitare?" and if she had caught the worthy man, I believe she would really have shaken him out of his garments, peeled him on the spot, and appropriated them to herself as her threat ran. "I am a cat, a dog, and the devilhoo--hoo--hoo--let me catch you, you miserable wretch, you forked radish, and if I don't peel off your breeches,--I shall wear them, I shall wear them,--Ave Maria." Here she threw herself into a chair, being completely blown; but after a gasp or two, she started to her legs again, dancing and singing and snapping her fingers, as if she had held castanets between them, "Venga--Venga--dexa me baylar Dankee, Dankee la--Dankee, Dankee la--mi guitarra--mi guitarra Dankee, Dankee la--ha, ha, ha,"--and away she trundled down stairs again, where she met the priest who had been sent for, in the lower hall, who happened to be very handsome young man. Seeing the state she was in, and utterly unable to account for it, he bobbed, as she threw herself on him, eluded her embraces, and then bolted up stairs, followed by Mrs Potiphart at full speed.--"Padre, father," cried she, "stop till I peel that forked radish there, and I will give you his breeches--Dankee, Dankee." All this while, Don Hombrecillo was squeaking out from his lair, at the top of his pipe--"Padre, padre, trae el puerco, venga el puerco--echar el demonio--echar el demonio bring the pig, the pig, and cast out the devil."--"Mi guitarra, canta, canta y bayle, viejo diablito, canta o yo te matarras--Bring my guitar, dance, dance and sing, you little old devil you, or I'll murder you, dankee, dankee."

In fine, I was at length obliged to lend a hand, and she was bodily laid hold of, and put to bed, where she soon fell into a sound sleep, and next morning awoke in her sound senses, totally unconscious of all that had pa.s.sed, excepting that she remembered having taken a gla.s.s of the Englishman's small beer.