aight palm, like
a plume in the crown of a noble chief. The boatmen spoke, one to
another, and Francisco pointed.

"There you are, Charley," said Mr. Adams. "That's Mount Carabali. It
used to be a lookout for Indians and pirates. From that palm you can
see both the Atlantic and the Pacific. We're about ten miles from
Cruces."

In four miles more a large village called Gorgona was passed. During
half the year this was the place where people crossing the Isthmus
changed from boat to mule-back, but during the other half Cruces, six
miles above, was the junction. (As for old Gorgona, to-day it has been
swallowed, the most of it, by the greedy Gatun Lake of the big canal.)

Above Gorgona about two miles the Chagres River, whose course had
mainly been east and west, turned sharply to the left, while a fork
called the Obispo River continued on toward the Pacific. (Here,
to-day, at the forks, the Gatun Lake ends, after swallowing Gorgona,
and the celebrated Culebra Cut proceeds on west into the mountains,
making a path for the great canal, with Panama only fifteen miles away.
However, in 1849 and for many years afterward, the Panama Canal across
the Isthmus was not visible to the eye. There was no Gatun Lake and no
Culebra Cut; there was only the beautiful, tricky Chagres River,
flowing between its high jungly banks and divided, above Gorgona, where
the Obispo entered.) So the canoe carrying Charley and his party turned
south up the Chagres, and toiled on, amidst rugged green walls, to
Cruces, at last.

Las Cruces (The Place of Crosses) was situated on the west bank of the
Chagres, and as the canoe approached appeared to be a village of much
importance. As Charley had heard, it had been a famous old town,
connected with Panama by a paved stone road called the Royal Road, over
which treasure of gold and silver and pearls was borne by slaves and
mules and horses, on the way from the Pacific to the Atlantic at Porto
Bello and Nombre de Dios. Yes, and in 1670 Las Cruces was captured by
the pirates of Henry Morgan (Morgan the Buccaneer, who sacked the whole
Isthmus), on their way overland to attack Panama.

As the canoe grounded, old Cruces, with its regulation thatched cane
huts and a few--very few--wooden buildings, looked sleepy enough in the
late afternoon sunlight, as if treasure-trains and pirates and even
those other gold seekers, the California Forty-niners, never had been
here. One of Captain Crosby's boat