The little town and harbour of Acapulco resemble a wash bowl with a cup full of water in the bottom. On rounding the promontory that protected the entrance to the basin, we found ourselves in the arena of a vast amphitheatre formed by a range of lofty hills that shut us out on every side from the world we had left. At the foot of these hills, opposite the entrance, was a narrow strip of level ground affording room for a miniature city. Here are the coal depots of the Pacific Company, and here, on the arrival of every steamer, a brisk trade is carried on in eggs and poultry, bananas, oranges, and limes. I have already referred to the feats of gastronomy performed at our first landing. Though it was yet early in the morning, our first impulse, after a warm greeting between us and our mother earth, was to seek a convenient house of entertainment, where for the moderate charge of fifty cents we might eat an unlimited quantity of eggs and chicken.

As the American House seemed already full, we bent our steps towards the United States, where we were fortunate enough to secure a seat at the first table. For a few minutes nothing was heard but the cracking of eggshells, the mumbling of chicken bones, the sipping of coffee, interrupted by various inexpressible ejaculations of delight; but as one dish was emptied after another there arose a strange Babel of full-grown English and baby Spanish.

"Here muchacho!—muchacho! eggs—wavers—mas wavers—mas chickeen—cafe—mas milk—darn your eyes, don't you know your own language, see here;" and thus, words failing, they had recourse to signs. But after we had eaten a couple of chickens and nearly a dozen eggs apiece, with a corresponding supply of bread and coffee, neither words nor signs were any longer intelligible, and all our eloquence produced no other reply than the simple monosyllables, "no mas," or the more mysterious "poco tiempo." "Poker temper," cried a hungry voyager, "I've had poker temper long enough, I tell you, now I want some chicken." "Poco tiempo," returned the imperturbable host, and finishing our dinner with a hearty laugh, we sallied forth into the street.

Acapulco, in spite of its picturesque location, presents little that is attractive. The houses, though built of stone, appear mean and dilapidated, half way between a stable and a jail. To my eye, at least, the tangled, unbroken foliage of the tropics is slovenly and monotonous compared with the shaven fields and trim forests of New England. I missed that pleasant green that carpets all but our most barren hills. Nothing else, not even the architectural beauty of the cocoa palm with the tinkling music that the softest breeze steals from its ivory leaves, can compensate for the nakedness of the soil. It reminds one of an Indian chief, terrible in his war paint and graceful with his nodding plumes, but otherwise as naked as the day he was born.

But my curiosity was abundantly gratified in studying the manners and habits of the people. They are so backward in all the arts of civilization that one cannot escape the impression that they are a degenerate race. It seems impossible that they should have built the houses they now occupy, and indeed, in all the towns through which we passed inhabited by a race of Spanish origin, I do not remember to have seen a single building in progress of erection or which did not seem to have been standing at least half a century. Every day a market was held in the open air on one side of the plaza, where, besides the articles already mentioned, there were exposed for sale fresh beef cut up into long strips, or rather rags, several kinds of vegetables, cheese, and tortillas.

Most of the trafficking was here done by women—they sat squat on the ground with thin rude baskets beside them—they used cakes of soap for the smaller currency, and fragments of stones for weights, breaking them in pieces till they balanced the article they were selling, and then, by some process of arithmetic I could not comprehend, arriving at the correct amount.

Near the sea-shore there was a fruit market held under the shade of some lofty trees. Here women and boys seated behind rude tables kept up an incessant cry to attract the attention of some loitering Californian, "Comprar orÁnges? comprar lemona? picayune a glass."

"Me no comprar—me no quiere," returns the other, taking it for granted, with delightful absurdity, that Mexicans as well as babies can understand bad English more readily than good, "me no comprar mas; me havvy all me wishy, here," stroking his stomach with most expressive complacency.

While we thus sauntered through the streets engaged in the innocent and laudable occupation of sucking oranges and eating what seemed to be withered slices of brown bread, but was really cocoanut and sugar, another part of our fellow-passengers were much more gravely employed. A meeting was held on the plaza, sundry speeches were made full of the most scorching sarcasm, and resolutions passed denouncing the conduct of the Company in the strongest terms. A collection was taken up for the purpose of instituting legal proceedings against the Carolina, and having her condemned as unseaworthy. Dark hints were given of burning her before she could leave the port. We were to get home from Acapulco the best way we could, and afterwards hold the Company responsible for all loss incurred by our detention.

It seemed for a time as if these agitators would succeed in accomplishing their purpose. A broken-down steamship belonging to the American consul was lying in the harbour, and it was natural to suppose that he would do all in his power to detain the Carolina, in order to obtain passengers for his own vessel. The first step was to order a survey to be made of the ship. The survey was made as a mere matter of form by three dignified officials within the steamer, and by as many naked Indians without. The divers, who seemed to understand their business much better than their superiors, reported that two strips of copper had been detached from the ship's bottom, and the seams were also open, thus causing the leak which had occasioned us so much uneasiness. On making this discovery the authorities delayed giving us a permit to go to sea, and the commandant of the fort above the town received orders to blow us out of water if we attempted to force a passage. Our captain declared he would go to sea in spite of them. The passengers entered into the dispute with ardour, and began to furbish up their revolvers and argue the feasibility of carrying the citadel by a coup-de-main.

In this state of affairs, when the doughty little town of Acapulco and the spiteful little steamer Carolina seemed about to come to loggerheads with each other, a compromise was proposed that satisfied the dignity of both the contending parties, and prevented that dreadful bloodshed that must otherwise have inevitably followed. The Indians, who had discovered the leak, were commissioned to stop it. For this purpose two strips of copper were provided to take the place of those that were lost, and lowered down to the divers, who instantly sunk with them beneath the surface, the white soles of their feet glancing curiously amid the dark water. What they did with the copper afterwards I cannot say. It did not rise again to the surface. But whether they really succeeded in nailing it on to its proper place, or whether it is now quietly reposing in the soft mud at the bottom of the little harbour, is a question about which I must decline giving an opinion.

This arrangement, however, had the desired effect; it healed the breach, if it did not stop the leak. Our captain received his permit, and in a few hours we were ready for sea. About one hundred of our company remained behind, unwilling to risk their lives further in the Carolina. Part of them went across the country on mules to the city of Mexico, and thence by wagons to Vera Cruz, and the remainder took passage in the worn-out steamer belonging to the consul, thus jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire. If any one wonders that we did not all follow the example of the first, an explanation is easily given. The land journey to Vera Cruz was long and toilsome—the rivers were already swollen by the winter rains, and it was doubtful if we should succeed in crossing them; and after reaching that city we might still have to wait a long time before we could obtain a passage to any port in the United States. Besides, the chief-engineer thought he had now succeeded in repairing the engine, so that we should have no further trouble on that score; but, more than all, the sun shone brightly, the touch of the earth had given us all new strength and spirits, and we no longer retained any very lively apprehensions of the dangers we had so recently encountered.

Behold us, then, four days after we entered the harbour of Acapulco, once more stealing out to sea. The caution with which we moved soon convinced us that, whatever repairs had been made during our stay, the engine was still in a very precarious condition. Slowly and painfully, like one just recovering from sickness, we crept along the smooth surface of the Pacific. We watched with the most intense solicitude all the signs of the weather, fearing lest some storm hovering near should spy us out and swoop down upon our feeble craft. What we feared was at length partially accomplished. A storm that swept across the ocean many miles from our course just brushed us, in passing, with its cloud-broad wings. The effect of this trifling blow showed us what we should have had to expect if we had encountered the main body of the tempest. The leak gained upon us with frightful rapidity, and we were obliged once more to have recourse to the buckets. We divided into several companies, that succeeded each other in this fatiguing labour, and were thus enabled to continue at work nearly the whole night. About three in the morning I left my station on the ladder for the last time, my clothes completely saturated with coal and water, and altogether my appearance so deplorable that a decent chimney-sweep would have been ashamed to be seen in my society. But the heat of the smoke-pipe round which I huddled soon dried my clothes, and as to my appearance, I consoled myself with the reflection that, bad as it was, our situation was ten times worse.

The result of this night's experience was to induce Captain W. to give up his design of reaching Panama, and turn the ship's head towards Realejo. The passengers had already strongly urged this change, but, with that jealousy natural to sea-captains and cookmaids, he had hitherto preserved the most impenetrable mystery as to his intentions.

Having after some difficulty found the entrance, we sailed up the river about a mile, and made the ship fast at a wharf where the steamers of Vanderbilt's line take on board their coal, and we were now at liberty to take a view of the surrounding country.

The town of Realejo was eight miles further up the river, and the only buildings near the wharf were two or three miserable shanties inhabited by an old Indian and half a dozen melancholy fowl. On the opposite side of the river, or perhaps I should rather say arm of the sea, here about a mile in width, a single house was visible peeping through the snarled and matted forest. An American bark and brig lay dozing over their anchors half a mile from our ship, seeming, so thick was the silence in which they were encrusted, to be stuck fast in that enchanted sea, like flies in a hogshead of molasses.

With these exceptions every thing still remained in apparently the same state as when, six thousand years before, evening and morning were the fifth day. The "great horologe divine" of this lower creation was all complete—there were the springs, the weights, the wheels, but the maker's fingers had not yet put them in motion, and they still seemed waiting for that powerful touch. It was almost like sacrilege to venture into those sublimely silent waters, and arouse them from their long slumbers by our noisy and impertinent life.

The sea here seemed to have gained upon the land—the trees stood like the herds on a sultry summer's afternoon knee deep in the cooling flood. Beneath the low arching roof the shadows lay thickly woven and felted together. Birds of unknown plumage glided along the glassy pavement, among the slender stems, or unfolded their crimson and gold to the sun as they floated carelessly over our heads. Each little leaf hung silent on its perch—there was not even that whispering hum that, like the drone of a beehive or a country school-house, is forever heard from a waking forest.

But suddenly an almost imperceptible ripple came creeping round a distant headland, and the next moment a rude canoe shot out into the river. Others continually made their appearance in different directions, and in a few hours fifteen or twenty were drawn up on the beach. They contained large baskets of eggs, oranges of a finer flavour than any we had yet tasted, and a strange fruit resembling the quince in size and shape, but as yellow and almost as tasteless as a pumpkin. Parrots, macaws, and paroquets were also offered for sale, and some of them, we were told, talked the purest Castilian, but no one seemed disposed to try that method of instruction.

Having satiated our curiosity on the novel scenery around us, the question arose whether we should remain in the ship during her hazardous voyage to Panama, or tempt the more uncertain difficulties of a journey through Central America. A party that had gone up to Realejo to make inquiries, having brought back a favourable report, the greater part of the passengers abandoned the ship without reluctance. It was only at the last moment, however, that we could make up our minds to follow their example. The brief twilight of the equator was already closing around us when we took our seats in the only remaining canoe and pushed off from the ship in company with which we had braved so many perils. We crossed and recrossed the river several times to avoid the currents and shallows; sometimes we were in the middle of the stream, and again we glided like a shadow beneath the overhanging branches. It was the hour of vespers, and presently our boatmen, an Indian with his wife and daughter gaily dressed in their Sunday attire, began chanting in a low and rather plaintive tone the Evening Song to the Virgin. As the river grew narrower the trees on either hand bent their heads in listening silence. Closing our eyes, we seemed to be floating onward, as in a dream, independent of human agency, still farther and farther into the heart of a boundless, trackless forest. It was a dream to last forever, but suddenly the canoe struck with a wide-awake jar against the wharf at Realejo. Several huge canoes, as big as a railroad car and each dug out of a single mahogany, lay moored in the stream. Scrambling over two or three smaller ones that lay by our side, we mounted the wharf and looked round for the city. We could discover nothing in the darkness but half a dozen ill-looking natives, one of whom now came forward and offered with a vast deal of gesticulation to conduct us to a hotel where there were muchos Americanos. Taking our trunk on his shoulders he led the way and we followed in silence. A short walk through streets silent as churchyard paths, and lined with doorless, windowless houses, brought us into a rather more cheerful neighbourhood, and to a hotel filled indeed with mucho Americano. All were busy in making arrangements for their journey, and a few rapid inquiries soon gave us all the needed information.

A contract had already been made with several wealthy proprietors to convey us across the country, one hundred and fifty miles, to Granada on Lake Nicaragua, where we should proceed by water to San Juan. Carts, drawn by oxen and capable of containing six persons, were to be provided for the moderate charge of eight dollars apiece.

The most prominent member of our little cartful was a sturdy buckeye blacksmith of the most royal generosity and good nature. But he never seemed to know when he was conferring a favour, and hence it lost much of its effect from the want of that accompanying smile and unconscious softening of the voice that so often please more than the gift itself. His hair and eyebrows were whitey brown, his features showed even in their coarseness his frank and dashing temper—and the words came sputtering out of his mouth like ale out of a bottle.

His companion, a quiet, smoothfaced lad from Wisconsin, who was wonderfully expert in the use of the rifle, had to my knowledge no other name than Si.

Texas, as we styled the third of our party, was an odd mixture of shrewdness and simplicity. He had a thousand oddities, the fancies of a young girl, the whims of an old bachelor, and the greenness—I use it for want of a better word—of a Southern plantation. We all made him our butt; he knew it and enjoyed it, for he knew too that he could put an end to it whenever he would.

Monday morning, the head of our train began its march out of the city, and the rest followed at long intervals. There were in all about forty carts, containing nearly two hundred and fifty passengers,—and, as we are now fairly under way, I will take the opportunity to give a description of one of these ingenious vehicles. The body of the cart, which was made of mahogany, was about seven feet in length and three and a half in width. Over it was erected a rude framework of slender sticks resembling the osier, and covered with raw hides to keep off the sun and rain. The wheels were formed of solid pieces of mahogany about four feet in diameter and six inches thick, with stout projections at the hub; and as they fitted very loosely to the axle, the whole fabric moved forward with that rolling, sidelong gait peculiar to sailors and elephants. Four oxen were yoked to this rude contrivance in the manner common I believe to all Spanish countries. A straight piece of wood about four inches square, slightly hollowed at the ends to fit the heads of the oxen, was bound firmly to their horns by long strips of hide. This yoke is much lighter and simpler than our own, but more time is required to make it secure, and its position on the head would probably be unfavourable to drawing heavy loads.

With this description of our equipage, the reader will be curious to know how seven persons could find room in it. If he could have taken a peep in at the back of the cart, he would have seen the hombre, as we styled our driver, and the brother of the author elevated in front on a trunk which had accompanied us to the mines and still clung to us in all our wanderings. In the interior he would have discovered the profiles of Ohio, Texas, and New York, who sat crosswise on the bottom with their backs against one side, their feet against the other, and presented a lively resemblance to the letter C. As there was not room enough remaining to accommodate us in the same way, Si and myself were obliged to sit with our superfluous legs dangling behind. The obvious advantages of our position in enabling us to see so much more of what was passing than those within were counterbalanced by equal inconveniences. A fifth ox, that was intended to take the place of one of the others in case of any emergency, was tied to one corner of the cart; and, as he rolled along behind us, the malicious brute would set down his pestle hoofs with most unnecessary emphasis, making the soft oozy mud fly like cream in a churn, and spattering us from head to foot till we were enclosed in a complete suit of defensive armour.

Where the road was smooth, the cattle proceeded at a rapid rate, urged on by the relentless goad of our hombre. This instrument was as long and stout as a fishing-rod, and terminated in a formidable brad that brought blood at every blow. The hind quarters of the oxen were scarred as if by the smallpox from former applications of this cruel weapon. When our hombre desired to enliven the pair that were yoked to the pole, he was obliged to shorten his goad stick by thrusting it behind him into the cart, to the serious discomfiture of Texas and Ohio. To do him justice, however, he seldom resorted to this means of propulsion, except in the most difficult passages, contenting himself with yelling in the most approved fashion of his class, and belabouring his cattle with a storm of ringing Spanish curses, any one of which would easily have filled a balloon. If his unaided efforts proved ineffectual to extricate us from the slough, he was obliged to wait till the carts behind came up, when three or four drivers, levelling their goads all at once at the unlucky beasts, and raising a concert that would scare at least ten souls out of one weaver, would commence capering and grimacing in the most frantic manner. The naked Indian boys, one of whom followed every cart, would join in this exercise, while twenty or thirty bearded Saxons looked on with supreme contempt. When this species of incantation did not succeed, the only resource was to attach a third yoke of oxen, which never failed to extricate us from our difficulty.

The first part of our journey was as bad as a road through a level country could possibly be. The dark fat soil had been churned into an almost uniform mass of the softest mud, into which the wheels sunk up to the hub. Where the ground was firmer, the road had been worn into deep ruts and holes, which would bring the cart down upon its axis with stunning violence. It was the duty of the one in front to give us timely warning of these dangerous breakers.

"Hard a-starboard," he would suddenly cry, and instantly Texas and Ohio would brace themselves more firmly, in anticipation of the coming shock, while Si and myself drew in our pendulum legs with emulous celerity. Down goes the right wheel as suddenly as if it had rolled off the roof of a house, settling Texas' head an inch between his shoulders, and jamming Ohio's inextricably between his knees. The next moment their positions are reversed, the cart slowly recovers its balance and plunges down a precipice on the left. It is in vain that they cling like bats to the framework behind them, or brace their legs like pillars against the opposite side, the next jolt upsets all their calculations and throws them into a state of helpless bewilderment, from which they do not fully recover till the cart reaches more level ground, when a volley of "darns" and "gollies," and such like exclamations, seems to operate as a wonderful sedative.

But it must not be supposed that we remained constantly in such contracted quarters. Ohio's bustling activity was continually driving him out to stretch his legs, Si was anxious to try his new revolver, and we all felt a natural curiosity to see as much of the country as possible. It was unsafe, however, to loiter long behind. The oxen moved commonly as fast as a man could walk, and if they ever got out of sight it was no easy matter to overtake them. We each of us found ourselves at different times in this awkward predicament; and the state of exhaustion in which we at length rejoined our company, and the ill-concealed derision with which we were greeted, made us firmly resolve never again to be guilty of a similar blunder. Yet the boy of ten or twelve years who accompanied us, performed nearly the whole journey on foot, and without exhibiting any signs of fatigue. When we first left Realejo he marched before, in the middle of the road, and the cattle followed close behind as if he had been their pilot. But after we were once fairly started, he was no longer needed in that capacity, and I wondered why he continued to follow us. Presently I saw him seize a large knife, resembling a butcher's cleaver, that lay in the back of the cart, and run into the woods. In ten or fifteen minutes he reappeared, carrying a large bundle of strips of bark about a foot in length. While I was in an agony of curiosity to know what he would do next, he advanced to the side of the cart and thrust several of the mysterious strips in between the axle and the wheel, which had been for some time creaking in the most distressing manner. A few turns relieved the difficulty. The bark, ground against the heated axle, yielded a small supply of lubricating sap that furnished an indifferent substitute for grease. This lasted perhaps an hour, when another application became necessary. In spite, however, of this ingenious artifice, we wore out two axles four inches in diameter in performing a journey of one hundred and fifty miles. Several times the axle began to smoke, when the cry of "Acqui, muchacho! muchacho! rota, fuego!" brought our indefatigable satellite to our assistance. When not thus occupied, he commonly walked behind the cart, with a grave and erect demeanour that set off the hat, the only article of clothing he had on, to infinite advantage.

The wardrobe of our hombre was rather more extensive. He had, besides a hat, a shirt and pair of pantaloons; and, in that climate, nothing more was required. The children of both sexes seldom wear a rag of clothing till they are four years old, and the boys often go entirely naked ten years longer. As we were passing one day through a village, the name of which I have forgotten, my attention was attracted by a little girl not more than three years old, standing before the door of a house, with no other protection than a cigar and the cloud of smoke that she breathed from her nostrils with all the practiced nonchalance of an ancient Dutchman. A dispute, however, arose as to the sex of this young ancient, one of my companions stoutly maintaining that it was a boy; but then, as a lady to whom I related the incident ingeniously remarked, the children dress so much alike in that country that such a mistake might easily occur.

We went the first day only seven miles, and stopped for the night at Chanandaigua, a large town, and much more attractive than Realejo, though the style of building, as in all the cities of Central America, is to a stranger naturally gloomy and repulsive. The houses are mostly of one story, built of stone or brick, and plastered with cement. There are few windows looking towards the street, and these are often guarded by iron gratings or heavy shutters. The principal hotels and larger dwelling-houses somewhat resemble an Eastern caravanserai. They consist of a range of apartments surrounding an open square, and connected by a broad verandah. On this verandah the most important affairs of the family are conducted. It is often used as a kitchen, and almost always as a dining-room and bed-chamber. Hammocks slung between the posts and the walls of the house furnish a favourite lounge by day and bed by night. But little furniture is required, and that of the plainest description. A few chairs, a rough table, and a number of cot-bedsteads comprised the entire contents of the best hotel we found during our journey, and in Leon, a city of forty thousand inhabitants, we were obliged to sleep on the floor.

At Chanandaigua we fared sumptuously on boiled chicken, eggs, and wheaten bread resembling what we call French rolls. The flour used in the country is mostly imported from the United States, and the lower classes subsist almost entirely on corn and fruit. Our hombre grew fat on a diet we thought fit only for hogs. When we left Realejo, he threw into the cart a bag containing a lump of something twice as big as his hand, and of most alarming ponderosity. On stopping for dinner, he opened the bag, and displayed to our wondering eyes what seemed the half of a huge cheese, but on closer inspection proved to be a loaf of meal and water of a degree of density that argued immense pressure. With a huge wedge of this in one hand and a small wedge of rude cheese resembling curd in the other, he munched and nibbled alternately, with the most evident satisfaction. Before we reached the end of our journey, the bread had become so sour as to impregnate the whole atmosphere of our cart; yet the appetite of the hombre appeared in no wise diminished, and he and the muchacho probably finished the cake between them on their homeward route.