osing my footing
altogether. And as with that due regard to personal appearance, which
I have always deemed a duty as well as a pleasure to study, I had,
before leaving Navy Bay, attired myself in a delicate light blue
dress, a white bonnet prettily trimmed, and an equally chaste shawl,
the reader can sympathise with my distress. However, I gained the
summit, and after an arduous descent, of a few minutes duration,
reached the river-side; in a most piteous plight, however, for my
pretty dress, from its contact with the Gatun clay, looked as red as
if, in the pursuit of science, I had passed it through a strong
solution of muriatic acid.

By the water-side I found my travelling companions arguing angrily
with the shrewd boatmen, and bating down their fares. Upon collecting
my luggage, I found, as I had expected, that the porters had not
neglected the glorious opportunity of robbing a woman, and that
several articles were missing. Complaints, I knew, would not avail me,
and stronger measures seemed hazardous and barely advisable in a
lawless out-of-the-way spot, where

"The simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can,"

seemed universally practised, and would very likely have been defended
by its practitioners upon principle.

It was not so easy to hire a boat as I had been led to expect. The
large crowd had made the boatmen somewhat exorbitant in their demands,
and there were several reasons why I should engage one for my own
exclusive use, instead of sharing one with some of my travelling
companions. In the first place, my luggage was somewhat bulky; and, in
the second place, my experience of travel had not failed to teach me
that Americans (even from the Northern States) are always
uncomfortable in the company of coloured people, and very often show
this feeling in stronger ways than by sour looks and rude words. I
think, if I have a little prejudice against our cousins across the
Atlantic--and I do confess to a little--it is not unreasonable. I have
a few shades of deeper brown upon my skin which shows me related--and
I am proud of the relationship--to those poor mortals whom you once
held enslaved, and whose bodies America still owns. And having this
bond, and knowing what slavery is; having seen with my eyes and heard
with my ears proof positive enough of its horrors--let others affect
to doubt them if they will--is it surprising that I should be so