seedy and disreputable, and ostensibly belong to the learned professions. This miscellaneous crowd goes swarming down to the jetty, a distance of only a few yards, utterly ignorant of the fact that the black multitude who are screaming behind them and helping to carry their bundles, are contemptuously applying the shouts and epithets which they generally reserve only for driving their mules; and that the expressions of mirth which accompany them to the steamer are consequent upon these insulting cries.

A steam tender takes the passengers from the shore to the Company's establishment on the small islands of Flaminko and Perigo, where the large steamers lie, and which are distant about two miles and a half from the shore. They form the Port of Panama, and are the most important naval position on the coast.

About eight miles beyond the Flaminko lies the lovely island of Taboga, a fairy spot, and the favorite resort in summer from the heats of Panama. I spent a charming day here, strolling under the cocoa-nut trees which line the shores of its deep little bay, or climbing up the hillside among tamarind and orange groves, through which clear streams hurry to the sea, forming tiny cascades, and deep, pellucid pools, inviting a bath. The highest point of the island is about one thousand feet above the sea. There is a small, venerable town, of crooked little streets and crumbling houses, with a picturesque old church in the middle of it, the whole buried in foliage, and commanding a view of the main-land and Panama in the distance. There is a lesser island attached to Taboga, which at low water becomes a peninsula; and here the Pacific Mail Company have their establishment. The wooden houses of the employés, perched upon the steep hill-sides, are accessible only by ladders. In one of these rickety tenements I experienced one night several shocks of an earthquake. On the water's edge the Company have very complete arrangements for repairing and refitting their ships. Taboga supplies good water, and is a safe harbor; but its distance from Panama renders it inferior, both in a commercial and political point of view, to the smaller islands. The trip to Taboga is only one of sundry small expeditions which may be made in the neighborhood of Panama, and which the traveler will find inter

esting. On moonlight evenings, the fashionable and sentimental world promenades on the ramparts, which then become an attractive lounge, and young Panama is to be seen in devoted attendance upon darkeyed signoritas. When there is no moon, the ladies receive at home, and very pleasant little re-unions are the result. There are, moreover, charming rides into the country, which is of a park-like character, pleasantly undulating, and richly diversified with wood and meadow. We galloped one morning, a merry party of ten, to the ruins of Old Panama, and spent the day. A lovely ride of two hours, across savannahs waving with long grass, and through dense woods, where the tangled branches and hanging creepers rendered progress on horseback a work of difficulty, brought us to the tall square tower which, rising above the massive foliage on the sea-side, indicates the position of the old city, sacked by the buccaneers under Kidd and Morgan some two centuries ago. In consequence of its defenseless position, the Spanish government removed the town of Panama to its present site, upon a promontory, where ledges of rock, extending far out to sea, would render an attack by boats a difficult operation.

We had reason to be grateful for the change, as most picturesque ruins have been the result of it. They derive their chief interest, not so much from themselves as from the peculiar effects produced by the rankness of the tropical vegetation amid which they are imbedded. Pieces of masonry appear as mere accessories to set off the huge branches by which they are embraced. The enormous roots of trees, eighty or a hundred feet high, which have grown since the town was in ruins, have eaten their way through the crevices of massive walls, and have ultimately almost concealed them in their giant folds. One root alone, about fifty yards in length, and fifteen feet in depth, lay along the top of a wall, like a huge Python, sending down its minor shoots, which overlapped in places so as to hide for many yards the stone-work. There were paved streets leading into dense thickets, where it was impossible to follow them and an old bridge, from the arch of which orchids hung like monster scorpions to the water below. We could have wandered for hours in every direction, and always come upon fresh ruins, had the forest been penetrable;

but we had hard work to climb over prostrate trees and force our way through tangled underwood. Bright-plumaged birds glanced among the leaves overhead, and flaring wild flowers contrasted with the sober green of the forest.

It is singular that, at a time when the Isthmus of Panama is attracting so much attention, and exploring parties have been lost in their endeavors to discover a practicable line for an inter-oceanic canal, no one should have as yet attempted to cross the Isthmus at its narrowest point. Before ascending the Atrato, and diving into the heart of the South American continent, and proposing to convey ships from thence by a tunnel, it would have been wise to examine that part of the neck of land which nature points to as affording the most probable solution of the difficulty. I heard at Panama accounts of a depression in the Cordilleras, at a point where the two seas approximate so closely to one another, that the natives are in the habit of making a portage with their canoes, from the waters flowing into the Gulf of Mexico into those which lose themselves in the Pacific; and I was not sorry, in company with a fellow-countryman, to join a Frenchman, a German, and a Spaniard, who were about to start on a visit to some property one of them had recently purchased in that direction, in the hope that I might gain some information relative to so interesting a subject. The limited time at my disposal unfortunately precluded the possibility of my attempting anything in the shape of regular exploration. About thirty miles to the southeastward of Panama, the River Bayanos enters the Pacific, almost dividing the Isthmus at a point where the distance from sea to sea does not exceed thirty miles in a direct line. This was the river we proposed ascending, in the hope, at all events, of finding out something from the Darien Indians who inhabit this narrow strip of territory, and whose inveterate hatred to Europeans has operated hitherto as an effectual barrier to any attempt at penetration into their country.

We sailed from Panama, in a small halfdecked cutter, for the mouth of this river, upon a lovely moonlight evening, and found ourselves at daylight vainly attempting to force an entrance against a strong head'wind and tide. Finding it hopeless to contend against these adverse influences, we

dropped anchor under the lee of the small island of Chepillo, which lies off the mouth of the river, and which forms a protection for small craft. The channel between the island and the main has not been very narrowly surveyed; but I fear that the formation of a port at this point would be one of the most formidable obstacles to be considered in the construction of a canal debouching here. Chepillo is low and well wooded, inhabited only by four or five families. In the afternoon we crossed the bar, on which there is a good draught of water, and, with the assistance of the tide, beat up the river, here about three hundred yards wide. The banks were magnificently wooded. The light-green mangroves which fringed the water were backed by noble forest trees, in the branches of which troops of monkeys joined their chattering clamor with the screaming and twittering of flocks of gaudy parroquets. Gently we glided up the quiet stream, and passed creeks which lost themselves in the gloomy woods, and looked black and mysterious in the fading light. As we laughed and shouted, and our voices were caught up, as though in mockery, by successive and prolonged echoes, we could almost imagine these somber recesses were peopled by malignant spirits.

At last we were again obliged to anchor, still within earshot of the distant roar of the surf,

"Where from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced neighboring ocean

Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the

wail of the forest."

Our progress was more rapid during the small hours of the following morning, and we reached the mouth of a tributary, the Mammonie, not far from the banks of which is situated the village of Chepo, which we determined to visit. It is the outpost of civilization in this direction. About ten miles higher up the Bayanos, the Spaniards built the fort of Terabla, as a frontier post. Here a few mestizoes are now settled; and it is from this point that an expedition should start with a view of reaching the opposite coast. Hitherto, during our progress into the interior, we had seen no sign of human habitations. After proceeding for two hours up the Mammonie, we reached two or three native huts, where a few canoes were collected. As our own craft was prevented by her draught of water from proceeding farther, we ap

propriated three of these, and in them forced our way for some hours up the rapid current, sometimes obliged to get out and wade, and pull them after us, and always, on account of their rickety character, running considerable risk of an involuntary bath; one that we took of our own free will, having first carefully chosen a small pool, so clear that a stray alligator would have been visible, was very enjoyable, and rendered our rough meal, partaken under the spreading shade of the Hagiron, or Ficus Indicus, doubly grateful. We indeed needed something to support us during the walk which followed, of three miles from the river, in a blazing sun, through woods and over hills, to the village of Chepo, situated on a swelling knoll in the broad savannah. Chepo contains a population of about one thousand mestizoes and negroes. Most of the houses are square huts of split cane, with conical thatched roofs; a few, however, are built of bricks, and tiled; one of these belonged to a very fat old negro woman, by profession a schoolmistress, and she, as a friend and old patient of our German doctor, received us with great empressement. Grass hammocks were swung up in all available corners. Her handmaidens bustled about under her orders, given in a loud high key, and prepared an elaborate repast. We, meantime, thought seriously over our future movements. We had already been two days in getting to Chepo, and we could not calculate upon reaching Fort Terabla for at least two days more, as our friends would be detained at their hacienda on the way. The uncertainty of boating expeditions, dependent upon wind and tide, and the necessity of my returning to Panama within the week, determined me to give up the idea of returning to Bayanos, and to remain for the night at Chepo.

The day of our visit at Chepo happened to be Sunday, a fact of which we were constantly reminded by the incessant crowing of game-cocks, which were tethered in the streets and little grass-grown plaza in front of the church which was to be the scene of their contests. Toward the afternoon, priests in their canonical garments, and sporting young gentlemen in white trowsers and shirts, collected there to back their favorites and witness the sport. The excitement seemed to have communicated itself to the birds, and they flapped their

wings defiantly as their owners caressed and admired them. The cockpit was a primitive arrangement: a number of logs of wood ranged round a clear space about fifty feet square. I was introduced to one of the most fashionable and celebrated of the sporting characters in Chepo, a handsome young gentleman of color, in spotless white, but without shoes or stockings or coat, who informed me that his cock was to be engaged in the first match; and he secured me a good place in the ring, which was soon crowded with anxious faces. Then two men advanced into the center of the ring with the cocks, and after re-sharpening the points of their long spurs, and whetting them with lemon-juice, they set them two or three times at one another to get their blood up, then let them go, and the fight fairly began. I never saw anything equal to the excitement of the spectators during the contest, which was as bloody and disgusting as such exhibitions must ever be. Unable to retain their seats, they danced about, swearing and cheering with frantic gesticulations. Every time one of the unfortunate birds tried to escape from his opponent he was seized by his backer, who, having previously filled his mouth with sugar-cane juice, plunged the head of the cock, streaming with blood, into it, and so succeeded in washing his wounds and refreshing him for a renewal of the conflict. Then disputes arose as to which was winning; and the betting became fast and furious, and the wretched cocks more acharné, as they almost cut each other's heads off. Twice they were both so exhausted as to be unable to raise themselves to their legs; but their merciless backers pressed them unrelentingly to the contest, until at last the one which, to my inexperienced eyes, had promised to be the victor, was stretched gasping and bleeding on the ground, and his opponent, getting on his prostrate body, managed to effect a feeble crow, and then tumbled head-over-heels in an effort to give his wings a triumphant flap.

Not caring to witness a repetition of so disagreeable a spectacle, my friend and I strolled through the village, and seeing a group of its female inhabitants collected on a grassy knoll, we joined them, and entered into conversation without any more formal introduction, after the custom of the country. One of the amenities of travel in these parts is absence of cere

mony in social intercourse. We wander through the quiet little village streets, and look in at the open doors of a snug family circle swinging in hammocks, and without more ado we walk in, and are soon swinging away as well, exchanging cigarettes, mingling our fragrant clouds with theirs, as if our intimacy had been of years' standing. The black eyes of the signoritas are at first modestly cast down, but they soon dance with merriment at the bad Spanish of the estrajeros Ingleses. As the night advances, the negro portion of the population begin to amuse themselves with music and dancing. The incessant drumming and strumming on tomtoms and banjos, and noisy shouts as they accompany the melodies with their shrill voices, render sleep impossible. Nor is the absence of rest compensated for by any exhibition worth seeing; the indecent gestures of their dances, their loud choruses, and harsh music, are pleasant neither to eye nor ear. So we sought the hospitable roof of our old hostess. Alas! we found no peace here. This respectable female's voice was louder and shriller than any negro chorus; her piercing tones nearly drove us distracted, as she stumped about, chattering to us, or scolding everybody else. She was scarcely ever without a lighted cigar in her mouth; by that I mean the lighted end of it, the usual way of smoking here being the reverse of ours, as, by smoking through the lighted end, it is supposed that the precious weed is economized. Sometimes a few puffs were taken in an orthodox way, but she evidently preferred the other mode.

As, through the kindness of an extensive landed proprietor in the neighborhood, we were provided with horses to return across the country to Panama, we started on the following morning on horseback, intending to make our first day's journey to his hacienda. Our way lay chiefly through an open savannah country. On the right, the wooded range of the Cordilleras, here depressed to an average altitude of not more than twelve or fifteen hundred feet above the sea-level, presented an irregular outline; to the left the country stretched away in gentle undulations seaward, the bottoms well wooded and marshy, the hills covered with long waving grass, admirably adapted for grazing purposes: the population is, however, sparse and scattered. During our ride of seven hours, we only

passed one insignificant village, and not until we arrived at the haciendas of Paso El Blanco and San Antonio did we see hundreds of head of cattle luxuriating in the rich pasture. At the latter of these we passed a comfortable night, and were off again soon after daylight across a neverending succession of grassy hills.

After fording a considerable river, we halted upon its banks to breakfast at the large village of Pachora, a collection of reed huts, peopled by the usual mixed race of Negro, Indian, and Spaniard. It happened to be a gala-day, and some of the population were collected under the trees, dancing to the music of a drum, a tomtom, a banjo, and a fiddle; the women were sprucely attired with flowers in their hair, and interrupted their national dances on our arrival to waltz for our benefit, and show the advanced stage of their civilization.

After leaving Pachora, our way lay through dense woods; and we progressed more slowly, but enjoyed a grateful shade. We were not encouraged at the prospect of fording another river by a huge recentlykilled alligator which lay stretched upon its banks. Snakes now and then glided across our path; and both in birds and plants a tempting field was afforded to the naturalist. This variety, both in animal and vegetable life, beguiled our somewhat fatiguing ride. I only delayed once, however, to knock over a magnificent bird as large as a turkey, and which was pronounced by our guide to be the King of the Vultures. His magnificent pale-yellow plumage, and head surmounted by a golden comb, and in which black, white, and red were admirably contrasted, rendered him well worthy the respect which his dusky subjects, the common scavengerbird of the country, pay him, and which has procured him his title of royalty.

It was evening when we spurred our jaded steeds across the bridge, and, entering the old archway, passed through the fortifications, and clattered along the narrow streets of Panama. The whole distance from Chepo is not much above fifty miles; but the villainous state of the road, or rather path, had told upon horse and rider, and made us both glad to see our journey's end; and it was with no little satisfaction that I once more dismounted at the hospitable and ever-open door of my kind host.

I

HAPPY AND UNHAPPY WOMEN.

GIVE fair warning that this is likely to be a "sentimental" chapter. Those who object to the same, and complain that these papers are "not practical," had better pass it over at once; since it treats of things essentially unpractical, impossible to be weighed and measured, handled and analyzed, yet as real in themselves as the air we breathe and the sunshine we delight in; things wholly intangible, yet the very essence and necessity of our lives.

Happiness! Can any human being undertake to define it for another? Various last-century poets have indulged in "odes" to it, and good Mrs. Barbauld wrote a "Search" after it, a most correct, elegantly phrased, and genteel little drama, which, the dramatis personæ being all females, and not a bit of love in the whole, is, I believe, still acted in old-fashioned boarding-schools with great éclat. The plot, if I remember right, consists of an elderly lady's leading four or five younger ones on the immemorial search through a good many very long speeches; but whether they ever found happiness, or what it was like when found, I really have not the least recollection.

Let us hope that excellent Mrs. Barbauld is one of the very few who dare venture even the primary question, what is happiness? Perhaps, honest woman! she is better able to answer it now.

I fear, the inevitable conclusion we must all come to is, that in this world happiness is quite indefinable. We can no more grasp it than we can grasp the sun in the sky or the moon in the water. We can feel it interpenetrating our whole being with warmth and strength; we can see it in a pale reflection shining elsewhere; or in its total absence we, walking in darkness, learn to appreciate what it is by what it is not. But I doubt whether any woman ever craved for it, philosophized over it, or, pardon the shade of Barbauld! commenced the systematic search after it, and ever attained her end, For happiness is not an end; it is only a means, an adjunct, a consequence. The Omnipotent himself could never be supposed by any, save those who out of their own human selfishness construct the attributes of Divinity, to be absorbed

Therefore, whosoever starts with "to be happy" as the summum bonum of existence, will assuredly find out she has made as great a mistake as when in her baby hood she cried, as most of us do, for the moon, which we cannot get for all our crying. And yet it is a very good moon notwithstanding; a real moon, too, who will help us to many a poetical dream, light us in many a lover's walk, till she shine over the grass of our graves upon a new generation ready to follow upon the immemorial quest, which, like the quest of the Sangreal, is only possible to pure hearts, and which the very purest can never fully attain, except through the gates of the holy city, the New Jerusalem.

Happy and unhappy women, the adjectives being applied less with reference to position than to character, which is the only mode of judgment possible; to judge them and discourse of them is a very difficult matter at best. Yet I am afraid it cannot be doubted that there is a great average of unhappiness existent among women; not merely unhappiness of circumstances, but unhappiness of soul, a state of being often as unaccountable as it is irrational, finding vent in those innumerable faults of temper and of character which arise from no inherent vice, but merely because the individual is not happy.

Possibly women more than men are liable to this dreary mental eclipse, neither daylight nor darkness. A man will go poetically wretched or morbidly misanthropic, or any great misfortune will overthrow him entirely, drive him to insanity, lure him to slip out of life through the terrible by-road of suicide; but he rarely drags on existence from year to year with

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nerves," ," "low spirits," and the various maladies of mind and temper that make many women a torment to themselves, and a burden to all connected with them.

Why is this? and is it inevitable? Any one who could in the smallest degree answer this question, would be doing something to the lessening of a great evil, greater than many other evils which, being social and practical, show more largely on the aggregate census of female woe.