EARLY one Monday morning in August, after a sojourn of about three months in San Francisco, in the course of which I had been, on the whole, rather prosperous than otherwise, I was sitting in the office of the “Golden City,” when I suddenly, without knowing why, conceived the idea of returning to “the States.” The steamer Nevada, of the “Opposition Line,” was to leave for Panama on the ensuing Wednesday; and I walked down to the office of the company and bought a ticket—being just in time to secure the last stateroom.

The astonishment and sadness of my numerous friends—for by this time there were two full semicircles of them in San Francisco—on learning of this rash act, were a source of mingled amusement and pain to me. I half regretted what I had done, and if I had not already purchased my ticket, I should have relinquished the idea of going. But the die was cast, and, concealing from them the regret I felt, I lightly reminded them that they too well knew that “When I took a notion to go to any place,” I was moderately certain to go.

Not till the steamer floated away from the pier amid the cheers and blessings of several thousand spectators, and I saw the waving hands, hats, and handkerchiefs, and heard the friendly farewells of a score who had come to see me off, and of hundreds who had come to bid other passengers adieu, did I fully realize that I was leaving the city I had so soon learned to love—again starting on a long journey of more than five thousand geographic miles. When I did realize it, it was with a depth of sadness I cannot describe: and had I not been a man, I think I should hardly have subdued that moisture of the eyes that is looked upon as an evidence of weakness—though it is sometimes a noble and heavenly weakness!

The voyage to Panama, in the course of which we put in at Manzanillo, Mexico, for coal, occupied fourteen days. Much space might be absorbed with a full description of it; but it would be scarcely pertinent. Let us close our eyes on the voyage, imagine a lapse of two weeks, and we find the good steamer Nevada quietly anchored at early morn in the picturesque harbor of Panama, New Granada. There are no piers for the accommodation of large vessels at Panama, so that ocean steamers must anchor three miles from shore, in the deep water, and be relieved of their cargoes and passengers, or loaded therewith, by means of lighters and small steamboats.

We rose from our berths on the morning the Nevada anchored in the harbor of Panama, elated with the prospect of crossing the Isthmus and taking another steamer at Aspinwall for New York. It was, therefore, somewhat to our chagrin that we learned that an accident had happened to the connecting steamer, Dakotah, that although due at Aspinwall five or six days previously, she had barely arrived, and that we must lie at Panama and wait till she should have discharged her cargo. The prospective delay was variously estimated by the officers at from “a few days,” to “some little time.”

The natives learned that we were to lie in the harbor for some days, and soon flocked about the steamer in small boats, offering to convey to shore all who wished to visit the rusty old city. The price they asked was cuarto rialos per head—which means half-a-dollar.

Many of us took advantage of this means of escaping from the confinement of the vessel, and in an hour or two the greater portion of the steamer Nevada’s “population” might have been seen intermingled with the inhabitants of benighted Panama. Prominent among those who visited the city might have been seen the owner of a certain crutch.

It was now the “rainy season,” but the heat, between the showers that visited us daily, was intense and oppressive. To counteract its effects, the thirsty Caucasians resorted to certain iced drinks, containing stimulants, which were to be had at the saloons at twenty-five cents (coin) each. I regret to chronicle the fact that many of them used these beverages to an extent rather calculated to engender thirst (next morning) than to allay it.

As the shades of evening began to fall over the tropics, three persons, Monsieur Figaro, a Frenchman; Mr. Hawes, an Englishman; and I, John Smith, Esq., an Americo-Caucasian, wended their way down a street of Panama, with the intention of taking a small boat at the beach, and returning to the steamer Nevada.

Now, at the lower end of this street, near the archway in the city’s wall, affording an outlet to the beach, there is a certain saloon with the alluring name of “Oregonian Shades.” The proprietor is an intelligent native, about the color of new leather who speaks both Spanish and English.

When we had come over to Panama, that morning, there was in “our crowd” a humorous and witty passenger named Briggs; but, in the course of the day, we had lost sight of him, and I just glanced in at the “Oregonian Shades,” as we passed, deeming it possible that he might be there; and hoping for the pleasure of his company, together with that of my French and English friends, to the steamer. Mr. Briggs was not there; but there was within a lady passenger of the Nevada, who was one of the most remarkable persons I ever met. This lady, whose husband was also a passenger, was about twenty-eight years old, five feet four inches high, and weighed two hundred and ten pounds. Her width may be imagined. To add that she was inclined to embonpoint, would be rather mild language. She was obviously of Irish birth and parentage: but whatever I may have occasion to say, of her personal merits or demerits, must not be construed into any invidious insinuations against her nationality, for I am not prejudiced against the Irish, but rather in their favor, claiming that, everything fairly considered, they possess as many noble traits as any other people.

This corpulent lady was not, I regret to say, in a rational mood. She had visited Panama early in the day, in the company of her husband—a big, ill-looking, muscular American—who had become intoxicated during the day and basely deserted her. His name was Philip—somebody—and he was termed “Pheel” by the lady in question, whose accent was peculiar. When I have stated that Mrs. “Pheel,” however temperate, was not of the total abstinence “stripe,” but rather given to the moderate use of aqueous stimulus, and that she had not departed a hair’s breadth from her principles on the day in question, I think that the intelligent reader will not fail to comprehend the true state of things.

“Hombre,” said I, addressing the proprietor of the Oregonian Shades, as I looked in, “have you seen the gentleman with side-whiskers who was in here with us to-day, and whom we called Briggs?”

“Not since two o’clock,” replied Hombre.

At this moment Mrs. “Pheel” started up from her seat like one excited.

“Hov ye seen Pheel?” she eagerly asked.

“I have not, madam,” I replied.

“Och, he’s lift me!” she exclaimed, throwing herself back into her seat, and dropping two of five bundles of goods she had been buying.

This was too much for me. My sympathies were aroused in a moment. I knew by Philip’s complexion that he was a drinking man, and here was the patient and gentle wife anxiously awaiting his return to the “Oregonian Shades.” Can it be wondered at that, meantime, hot weather, corpulence, anxiety, and general depression of spirits all taken into consideration, she had not sat there all that time dying of thirst, while the means of allaying it were before her? Not rationally. The proprietor afterward informed me that she had “drank nothing but ale:” how much, he could not undertake to compute.

“Probably,” said I, to the deserted woman, as I stepped in and gently picked up her bundles for her, “Philip has taken a little too much, and forgotten you. You had better return to the steamer.”

“Is he in there?” asked my English companion at the door.

“Who?—Briggs?”

“Yes.”

“No, he is not: but here is a lady whom you have seen on the steamer, and who has lost sight of her husband. Had she not better return with us?”

“I suppose so.”

“Well, madam,” said I, “we are going back to the steamer now; will you come with us? Phil will be all right. No doubt he is there by this time.”

“Och, Mr. Smith, ye won’t desart me, will ye!” she exclaimed, letting two more bundles fall.

Mr. Smith! she actually called me by name! That she knew my name I was not aware. How she had learned it was a mystery to me; but it was more marvelous still that, having learned so strange and rare a name, she remembered it!

“No, madam,” said I, “you shall go with us to the ship. Come.” And I gallantly picked up her two bundles and restored them to her fulsome arms.

By this time Monsieur Figaro was looking over Mr. Hawes’s shoulder at the door, and I fancied I saw him smile. It may have been imagination.

“Come, madam,” said I. “we are going down to hire a boat immediately. Will you go with us?”

“Och! Indade I wull!”

She now rose—being very little taller standing than when sitting—dropping all her bundles but one.

I picked up all but one.

“Come, let us go.”

It was now fully dark.

Somewhat to my chagrin, this charming and confiding creature grasped my gallant arm, as a support; and we all started for the beach.

With the care of two hundred and ten unsteady pounds on my arm, and I walking on a frail crutch, I confess that I experienced a difficulty in traveling to the beach which I did not acknowledge at the time.

On the way to the boat, my voluptuous companion dropped all her bundles, one by one, and they were promptly picked up, taken care of, and carried after us, by a little native with nothing but a hat on—whose attention and fidelity I generously rewarded with a silver half-dollar on arriving at the water’s edge.

I will not take it upon myself to say that Mrs. “Pheel” had drank too much, as I should not wish to do her the slightest injustice: it may have been the extreme heat of the climate; it may have been her obesity; it may have been her anxiety; it may have been that she was not blessed with a strong constitution; it may have been all or part of these combined that governed her conduct: but certain it is, that Mrs. “Pheel,” acted strangely and unlike a lady at the beach. Some little delay was occasioned there, by the fact that the native who engaged to take us to the steamer, had to go and hunt up his partner; and during the interval, Mrs. “Pheel” not only talked strangely, walked strangely, and bore herself in an unaccountable manner; but actually became unreasonable, unmanageable, and even pugnacious. She first opened our eyes by declaring that we were going to rob her, and adding:

“Bedad, I’ll make Pheel put a head on yez all!”

This was somewhat startling to me, as I had one head that suited me very well, and, with my means of perambulating, did not desire to be encumbered with another.

“Madam,” I remonstrated, “I pray that you will be quiet. We are your friends, and you are welcome to go with us to the steamer. I hope——”

“Where’s my fan?” she interrupted, springing with some abruptness to a new theme of conversation.

“I do not know. Have you lost one?”

“Bedad some one’s sthole it,” she vociferated.

By this time a dozen natives had collected on the beach, and were viewing the female Caucasian with mingled wonder and amusement.

Mr. Hawes was sitting on an old spar at this time, calmly fanning himself with a palm-leaf fan he had carried all day. The object, at this unfortunate moment, caught the eye of Mrs. Pheel.

“Ye blaggard ye!” she fairly screamed, staggering clumsily toward the startled Englishman; “ye hov me fan! Bad luck to ye, ye divil! Give me that!”

Without waiting for a word of remonstrance from Mr. Hawes, she dealt him a blow on the cheek bone that sent him backward over the spar, with his feet elevated in the night air; and, at the same time, staggered, herself, whirled round and fell prostrate on the rough stones and sand of the beach.

She was actually crazy. She screamed, struggled convulsively, swore a few regular brimstone oaths, then lay a little while apparently insensible, and gasping as though she were in a retort and the air had suddenly been pumped away.

By this time, quite a concourse of curious natives had collected around us.

After an apparent death-struggle of three-quarters of a minute, she actually ceased to breathe, and I feared she was dead. I took her ample wrist in my hand and there was not the slightest perceptible pulsation. Here was a go! Here was a fix for John Smith! Night; foreign country; a dead woman on the beach; only two of my race present, and they scared like the deuce; surrounded by a score or two of the swarthy, blood-thirsty natives of a semi-barbarous land! O, how I wished that crutch of mine were but clicking on the side-walk in front of Trinity church, New York; or the State House, Philadelphia. But no, there I was; and the gloom of night, mingled with the black faces of vicious and cowardly ruffians, frowned on me. O, Smith! Smith!

What was to be done? What could be done? Fortunately, the boat was soon after ready, and I thought the best thing we could do would be to have the “body” put aboard, and take it along. My companions concurred. But how should we get it into the boat? The quickest way was to hire the natives, so, I spoke to them. In my extremity, I remembered that but a small proportion of those present could speak English, so I endeavored to address them with a mixture of both English and Spanish. As nearly as I can recollect, I thus spoke to any and all of them, individually and collectively:

“Hombre! Signor! Carryo this hero fatwomano into boato for cuarto rialos! Do you mind!”

It appears they comprehended me, for eight of them, in view of half-a-dollar each, laid hold of the “form” and proceeded to carry it into the boat. It was indeed a clumsy burden. Yet they conveyed it to the boat on scientific principles. The following was the programme: any anatomist will readily comprehend:

Two of the Hombres supported their share of the weight by locking hands beneath the glutÆus maximi; two others, in like manner, supported the clavicles, coracoid process and acromion of scapula, the humeri, ulna, radius, et cetera, besides the sternum and latissimus dorsi; two others supported the tibia, fibula, gastrocnemius, tibialis anticus and extensor communis digitorum; the seventh supported the base of tibia, astragalus, peronÆus tertius, abductor minimi digiti, and extensor pollicis proprius; while the eighth took charge of the occipito-frontalis temporalis, os frontis, parietal and orbicularis palpebrarum.

Thus they conveyed the inanimate form to the small boat; but they were just on the point of “dumping” it in, when it returned to consciousness, opened its eyes and mouth, breathed, and was once more Mrs. “Pheel.”

“Murther!” was the first articulate sound of the resuscitated.

“Hush, my good woman,” I implored. “You are all right now. We are starting for the steamer.”

Thereupon, she opened her mouth and uttered a series of screams that made the night hateful, and causes me to shudder yet, when I think of them. The substance of them was:

“Murther! Murther! Murther! Robbery! Robbery! Help! Police! Watch! Watch! Police! Murther! Murther! Watch! Help! Help! Help! Murther! Murther! Murther! Police! Police! Police! Och! ye bloody divils! Murther! Murther! Murther!”

This, however, is but an abridged edition of the original. For five minutes—every one seeming like an age—she continued to scream in this manner, making the old walls of Panama to resound as with the voices of all the fiends.

Had this happened at the piers of any civilized town or city, the gens-d’armes would soon have been down upon us and arrested the whole party; but as it was, we were not molested, and much to our relief, at last succeeded in getting clear of shore, and we glided away toward the steamer in the dim darkness, with our baleful charge.