n in many a battle.

For a time there was nothing to do but gaze at the shore--at the old,
crumbling Castle of San Lorenzo, where through glasses a few cannon
could be descried; at the clumps of palms, standing like plumes; at the
rolling green hills, bordering the shore, and at the distant mountain
range which was to be crossed after the river had been ascended as far
as possible. Beyond the mountains lay the Pacific Ocean, where, at the
city of Panama, the steamer for California would be boarded by those
who got there in time. Except for the dots of soldiers, surveying the
_Georgia_ from the walls of the fort, the only signs of life ashore
were the thatched roofs of some huts, back among the trees.

In the course of an hour another murmur arose from the impatient
passengers, for the ship's boat reappeared, issuing from the narrow
mouth of the river--and with it was a much larger boat that soon turned
out to be a big canoe, manned by half a dozen natives. Both boats
headed for the ship. The canoe reached it first. It was a dug-out,
fashioned from the single trunk of a tree; and its crew, wielding their
paddles, were black as coals, their naked bodies streaming with
perspiration. On their legs they wore white cotton trousers, loose and
comfortable.

They halted amidships, under the steamer's rail, where while the
thousand faces stared down at them they gestured and called up. All
that Charley could understand were the words: "Go ahead!" They held up
their fingers, opening them and closing them to indicate twenty,
evidently. But the passengers could do nothing, although some of them
almost jumped overboard in their excitement.

Now the ship's boat with the second mate in it hove alongside. The
mate clambered up, by the rope ladder which was lowered for him and
closely guarded. He made himself heard the best he could and the word
speedily traveled fore and aft, on all the decks, that the canoe would
take ashore twenty people, at once.

"And he says we've just time, if we start to-day, to catch the
_California_ at Panama," was reported.

What a hubbub resulted! Of course, every party aboard ship tried to
place in the canoe their man who would engage a canoe, ashore, for the
river trip. The tussle looked and sounded like a free-for-all
fist-fight. Down the rope-ladder swarmed the picked men, each trying
to out-elbow the others, and dropped recklessly into the dug-out. Two
men jumped for the dug-out fro