eamer and had him pilot us to that
port, so I expected to go ashore, and got my baggage in readiness, and,
when the time came, had it brought up on deck. They did not enter the
port, but came to outside. There were two passengers, it seems, that
would not sign the paper to go to Panama, and it was to land them he had
come to, and when I went to have my baggage put in the small boat the
captain informed me I had signed to go to Panama, and some of the other
passengers said I was very foolish to risk my life in that sea in so
small a boat. Before I scarcely knew it the boat had pushed off without
me, and, consequently, the whole current and course of my life was
changed. Upon such little incidents often do the events of human life
depend. It may have been fortunate for me that I did not land there.

There was in Nicaragua at the time a filibustering expedition under the
command of Captain Walker, who went from California to overthrow the
government there by taking sides with the revolutionary movement that
had been started, and to get an American control of the government,
which I did not approve of, for I considered it a dishonorable movement;
but still, if I had landed, they being my countrymen, I might have got
mixed up with them. They were conquered and all sentenced to death, and
shot. It is barely possible I might have shared their fate. I have often
thought since I made a good escape by not landing.

SCENES ON THE PACIFIC OCEAN.

The course of the steamer is frequently in sight of land. The storms I
have referred to were tropical storms, lasting but a short time. The
ocean is generally very mild all the distance, three thousand five
hundred miles from Panama to San Francisco. North of San Francisco the
storms are somewhat similar to the Atlantic ocean storms. The passengers
on the return trip were in the best of spirits; they were returning
home; all of them had been more or less successful in California, and I
can recall to my mind many pleasant times we had on board the steamship.
The porpoise are very numerous on the Pacific ocean; there were often,
for days, schools of them on the sides of the steamer, throwing
themselves out of the water, and then diving in again; great numbers, at
the same time, seeming like the motion of a revolving wheel.
Occasionally we would hear the cry, "There she blows;" a jet of water
being thrown up many feet high in the air--a sperm whale had come up to
breathe. We frequently sa