Part 3

Thus was an island born to us of sea and sky,--an island whose peak was sky-kissed, whose vales were overshadowed by festoons of vapor, whose heights were tipped with sunshine, and along whose shore the sea sang softly, and the creaming breakers wreathed themselves, flashed like snow-drifts, vanished and flashed again. The sea danced and sparkled; the air quivered with vibrant light. Along the border of that island the palm-trees towered and reeled, and all its gardens breathed perfume such as I had never known or dreamed of.

For a few hours only we basked in its beauty, rejoiced in it, gloried in it; and then we passed it by. Even as it had risen from the sea it returned into its bosom and was seen no more. Twilight stole in between us, and the night blotted it out forever. Forever?

I wonder what island it was? A pearl of the Antilles, surely; but its name and fame, its history and mystery are lost to me. Its memory lives and is as green as ever. No wintry blasts visit it; even the rich dyes of autumn do not discolor it. It is perennial in its rare beauty, unfading, unforgotten, unforgettable; a thing immutable, immemorial--I had almost said immortal.

Whence it came and whither it has gone I know not. It had its rising and its setting; its day from dawn to dusk was perfect. Doubtless there are those whose lives have been passed within its tranquil shade: from generation to generation it has known all that they have known of joy or sorrow. All the world that they have knowledge of has been compassed by the far blue rim of the horizon. That sky-piercing peak was ever the centre of their universe, and the wandering sea-bird has outflown their thoughts.

All this came to me as a child, when the first island "swam into my ken." It was a great discovery--a revelation. Of it were born all the islands that have been so much to me in later life. And even then I seemed to comprehend the singular life that all islanders are forced to live: the independence of that life--for a man's island is his fortress, girded about with the fathomless moat of the sea; and the dependence of it--for what is that island but an atom dotting watery space and so easily cut off from communication with the world at large? Drought may visit the islander, and he may be starved; the tornado may desolate his shore; fever and famine and thirst may lie in wait for him; sickness and sorrow and death abide with him. Thus is he dependent in his independence.

And he is insecluded in his seclusion, for he can not escape from the intruder. He should have no wish that may not be satisfied, provided he be native born; what can he wish for that is beyond the knowledge he has gained from the objects within his reach? The world is his, so far as he knows it; yet if he have one wish that calls for aught beyond his limited horizon he rests unsatisfied.

All that was lovely in that tropic isle appealed to me and filled me with a great longing. I wanted to sing with the Beloved Bard:

Oh, had we some bright little isle of our own, In the blue summer ocean, far off and alone!

And yet even then I felt its unutterable loneliness, as I have felt it a thousand times since; the loneliness that starves the heart, tortures the brain, and leaves the mind diseased; the loneliness that is exemplified in the solitude of Alexander Selkirk.

Robinson Crusoe lived in very truth for me the moment I saw and comprehended that summer isle. He also is immortal. From that hour we scoured the sea for islands: from dawn to dark we were on the watch. The Caribbean Sea is well stocked with them. We were threading our way among them, and might any day hear the glad cry of "Land ho!" But we heard it not until the morning of the eleventh day out from New York. The sea seemed more lonesome than ever when we lost our, island; the monotony of our life was almost unbroken. We began to feel as prisoners must feel whose time is near out. Oh, how the hours lagged!--but deliverance was at hand. At last we gave a glad shout, for the land was ours again; we were to disembark in the course of a few hours, and all was bustle and confusion until we dropped anchor off the Mosquito Shore.

II.

CROSSING THE ISTHMUS

We approached the Mosquito Shore timidly. The shallowing sea was of the color of amber; the land so low and level that the foliage which covered it seemed to be rooted in the water. We dropped anchor in the mouth of the San Juan River. On our right lay the little Spanish village of San Juan del Norte; its five hundred inhabitants may have been wading through its one street at that moment, for aught we know; the place seemed to be knee-deep in water. On our left was a long strip of land--the depot and coaling station of the Vanderbilt Steamship Company.

It did not appear to be much, that sandspit known as Punta Arenas, with its row of sheds at the water's edge, and its scattering shrubs tossing in the wind; but sovereignty over this very point was claimed by three petty powers: Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and "Mosquito." Great Britain backed the "Mosquito" claim; and, in virtue of certain privileges granted by the "Mosquito" King, the authorities of San Juan del Norte--the port better known in those days as Graytown, albeit 'twas as green as grass--threatened to seize Punta Arenas for public use. Thereupon Graytown was bombarded; but immediately rose, Phoenix-like, from its ashes, and was flourishing when we arrived. The current number of Harper's Monthly, a copy of which we brought on board when we embarked at New York, contained an illustrated account of the bombardment of Graytown, which added not a little to the interest of the hour.

While we were speculating as to the nature of our next experience, suddenly a stern-wheel, flat-bottom boat backed up alongside of the Star of the West. She was of the pattern of the small freight-boats that still ply the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. If the Star of the West was small, this stern-wheel scow was infinitely smaller. There was but one cabin, and it was rendered insufferably hot by the boilers that were set in the middle of it. There was one flush deck, with an awning stretched above it that extended nearly to the prow of the boat. It was said our passenger list numbered fourteen hundred. The gold boom in California was still at fever heat. Every craft that set sail for the Isthmus by the Nicaragua or Panama route, or by the weary route around Cape Horn, was packed full of gold-seekers. It was the Golden Age of the Argonauts; and, if my memory serves me well, there were no reserved seats worth the price thereof.

The first river boat at our disposal was for the exclusive accommodation of the cabin passengers, or as many of them as could be crowded upon her--and we were among them. Other steamers were to follow as soon as practicable. Hours, even days, passed by, and the passengers on the ocean steamers were sometimes kept waiting the arrival of the river boats that were aground or had been belated up the stream.

About two hundred of us boarded the first boat. Our luggage of the larger sort was stowed away in barges and towed after us. The decks were strewn with hand-bags, camp-stools, bundles, and rolls of rugs. The lower deck was two feet above the water. As we looked back upon the Star of the West, waving a glad farewell to the ship that had brought us more than two thousand miles across the sea, she loomed like a Noah's Ark above the flood, and we were quite proud of her--but not sorry to say good-bye.

And now away, into the very heart of a Central American forest! And hail to the new life that lay all before us in El Dorado! The river was as yellow as saffron; its shores were hidden in a dense growth of underbrush that trailed its boughs in the water, and rose, a wall of verdure, far above our smokestacks. As we ascended the stream the forest deepened; the trees grew taller and taller; wide-spreading branches hung over us; gigantic vines clambered everywhere and made huge hammocks of themselves; they bridged the bayous, and made dark leafy caverns wherein the shadows were forbidding; for the sunshine seemed never to have penetrated them, and they were the haunts of weirdness and mystery profound.

Sometimes a tree that had fallen into the water and lay at a convenient angle by the shore afforded the alligator a comfortable couch for his sun-bath. Shall I ever forget the excitement occasioned by the discovery of our first alligator! Not the ancient and honorable crocodile of the Nile was ever greeted with greater enthusiasm; yet our sportsmen had very little respect for him, and his sleep was disturbed by a shower of bullets that spattered upon his hoary scales as harmlessly as rain.

Though the alligator punctuated every adventurous hour of that memorable voyage in Nicaragua, we children were more interested in our Darwinian friends, the monkeys. They were of all shades and shapes and sizes; they descended in troops among the trees by the river side; they called to us and beckoned us shoreward; they cried to us, they laughed at us; they reached out their bony arms, and stretched wide their slim, cold hands to us, as if they would pluck us as we passed. We exchanged compliments and clubs in a sham-battle that was immensely diverting; we returned the missiles they threw at us as long as the ammunition held out, but captured none of the enemy, nor did the slightest damage--as far as we could ascertain.

Often the parrots squalled at us, but their vocabulary was limited; for they were untaught of men. Sometimes the magnificent macaw flew over us, with its scarlet plumage flickering like flame. Oh, but those gorgeous birds were splashes of splendid color in the intense green of that tropical background!

There were islands in this river,--islands that seemed to have no shores, but lay half submerged in mid-stream, like huge water-logged bouquets. There were sand-bars in the river, and upon these we sometimes ran, and were brought to a sudden stand-still that startled us not a little; then we backed off with what dignity we might, and gave the unwelcome obstructions a wide berth.

Perhaps the most interesting event of the voyage was "wooding up." A few hours after we had entered the river our steamer made for the shore. More than once in her course she had rounded points that seemed to block the way; and occasionally there were bends so abrupt that we found ourselves apparently land-locked in the depths of a wilderness which might well be called prodigious. Now it was evident that we were heading for the shore, and with a purpose, too. As we drew nearer, we saw among the deep tangle of leaves and vines a primitive landing. It was a little dock with a thatched lodge in the rear of it and a few cords of wood stacked upon its end. There were some natives here--Indians probably,--with dark skins bared from head to foot; they wore only the breech-clout, and this of the briefest. Evidently they were children of Nature.

Having made fast to this dock, these woodmen speedily shouldered the fuel and hurried it on board, while they chanted a rhythmical chant that lent a charm to the scene. We were never weary of "wooding up," and were always wondering where these gentle savages lived and how they escaped with their lives from the thousand and one pests that haunted the forest and lay in wait for them. Every biting and stinging thing was there. The mosquitoes nearly devoured us, especially at night; while serpents, scorpions, centipedes, possessed the jungle. There also was the lair of larger game. It is said that sharks will pick a white man out of a crowd of dark ones in the sea; not that he is a more tempting and toothsome morsel--drenched with nicotine, he may indeed be less appetizing than his dark-skinned, fruit-fed fellow,--but his silvery skin is a good sea-mark, as the shark has often confirmed. So these dark ones in the semi-darkness of the wood may, perhaps, pass with impunity where a pale-face would fall an easy prey.

At the Rapids of Machuca we debarked. Here was a miry portage about a mile in length, through which we waded right merrily; for it seemed an age since last we had set foot to earth. Our freight was pulled up the Rapids in bongas (row-boats), manned by natives; but our steamer could not pass, and so returned to the Star of the West for another load of passengers.

There was mire at Machuca, and steaming heat; but the path along the river-bank was shaded by wondrous trees, and we were overwhelmed with the offer of all the edible luxuries of the season at the most alarming prices. There was no coin in circulation smaller than a dime. Everything salable was worth a dime, or two or three, to the seller. It didn't seem to make much difference what price was asked by the merchant: he got it, or you went without refreshments. It was evident there was no market between meals at Machuca Rapids, and steamer traffic enlivened it but twice in the month.

What oranges were there!--such as one seldom sees outside the tropics: great globes of delicious dew shut in a pulpy crust half an inch in thickness, of a pale green tinge, and oozing syrup and an oily spray when they are broken. Bananas, mangoes, guavas, sugar-cane,--on these we fed; and drank the cream of the young cocoanut, goat's milk, and the juices of various luscious fruits served in carven gourds,--delectable indeed, but the nature of which was past our speculation. It was enough to eat and to drink and to wallow a muddy mile for the very joy of it, after having been toeing the mark on a ship's deck for a dozen days or less, and feeding on ship's fodder.

Our second transport was scarcely an improvement on the first. Again we threaded the river, which seemed to grow broader and deeper as we drew near its fountain-head, Lake Nicaragua. Upon a height above the river stood a military post, El Castillo, much fallen to decay. Here were other rapids, and here we were transferred to a lake boat on which we were to conclude our voyage. Those stern-wheel scows could never weather the lake waters.