Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1871-04-11
LETTER FROM PANAMA.
PANAMA, c. A. March 14th. 1871.

. parual view OF Dan Donllugo' Supe, an'
Waterman's Island where Christopher Column
c bus landed on his discovery of America. The
= Ocean Queen came safely to wharf after a
nine days run, when our eyes viewed with
astonishment another race OF beings, fretting
in their own Ngrease as Shakespeare says If
, not copperheads, they were copper colored,
and many of them naked as when they first
saw the light of day-save the fig leaf
. Their modesty is regulated wholly by the
climate. The thermometer stands at lloo
above zero; so judge ye. For a yankee to
listen to such gabbeYish as he here gets piled
npon him is enough to craze his brain--a per-
feet confusion of tongues. In purchasing
their wares a foreigner has only to show bis
purse, let them take what they choose and re-
turn what they please; they will not act the
shark or the jew Uncle Sans scrip and
greenbacks will hardly supply the hungry
a strong thirty per cent for gold, so you see
it stands one in hand to bring his dust with
him. We had ride over the famous Panama
railroad to this city. Each sleeper it is said
represents dead man, so great was the
mortality in its construction. Its forty
miles in length and cost seven millions of
dollars. The stock has been sold for S2G2
per share; but since the building Of the
Pacific road has fallen off one hundred per
cent. 1t charges only twenty-five dollars in
gold to transport single passenger over it.,
over fifty cents per mile. Twenty-Five New
York roughs being taken by one Noises Puch
of New Grenada to Magdalena Bay to gather
moss (Achil9 substitute for Chincllio, gave
him the slip by jumping off the cars and es-
Gaping in the chapperal. Pistols and police
men were of no avail there they are in deadly
climate, without money or credit, to be strip
ed and killed by the natives whose hatred to
them is not easily appeased.
Panama is the most ancient city on this
Continent. 1t was destroyed once by pirates
under the lead of the notorious Morgan from
England, one hundred years ago, after gorg-
ing themselves with plumber. The walls of
Cathedral are still standing, while large trees
have grown up from its interior and over
shadow them. To me sunshine and darkness
have no greater contrast than that between
Central America and New England. In the
former / would make no delay, in the latter
would live forever. Figs, oranges, bananas,
cocoanuts, pine-apples and thousand other
kinds of tropical fruits, with which in old
kennebec we have been wont to tickle our
we passed along to-day il would exchange them
all for a Hubbardston Nonsuch or Winthrop
greening. The views here are magnificent.
The lofty mountains, the conical hills, the
forests blooming with leaf and flower and the
green islands resting in the placid waters of
the bay, fill one to fullness with delight we
may well say that the tongue does not tire in
uttering, the hand in noting nor the eve in
seeing their beauties. Still to Northerner
death turks around.
AT present We have here alternate sunshine
and showers, but soon the dry season sets in,
and then no more rain for the summer. The
Montana is now taking in freight and stores,
soon to start over the peaceful waters of the
Pacific on her way to San Francisco. 1t is
fun for us to see bullocks taken aboard. A
suspended forty or fifty feet kicking in the air
and then pulled in; while they hitch to one
leg of the porcine grunter and elevate him the
same way; amid squealing protests he comes
aboard,peradyenture to see his kin, who may
be more piggish than himself
The manner in which our baggage is handled
from one ship to the other across the Isthmus
is perfectly awful. 1t is tumbled down the
gang plank forty or fifty feet to the wharf, as
you would roll rocks down the side of noun
tain; some go into the the dock, some are
broken open and the remainder reach the cars
stripped of all leathern straps that hold on
the tops, by the thievish natives-they use
them to grid up their lons. To obtain redress
the trouble is greater than the remedy. If
you wish to travel this route you must have
your trunk iron-clad, and then pay the COM
pany dollar to have it dashed with hempen
rope.
San Diego, Cal, March Goth. We arrived
here to-day, the first place that bears the
impress Of civilization that we have seen since
we left New York. 1t is 800 miles down the
coast from San Francisco, has about 2OOO
inhabitants. The report here is that this is
to be the terminus of the Southern Pacific
Railroad just chartered by Congress. The
people are all active with yankee enterprise !;
lots already begin to bear fabulous prices and
capitalists are vending their way hither. The
larger part of the towns and cities on the
Mexican coast are but little Better than a
collection of Bamboo huts, with the exception
of Mazatlan which has mixed population of
Mexicans, Spaniards and Americans of about
twenty five hundred, and is running cotton
manufacturing establishment. The red tape
custom house officials at every port come
down to look us over and see that we are not
smugglers-there is duty of eight per cent
imposed on Mexican dollars. AT Acapulco a
young man attempted to smugge $1,000 on
board the officers seized it, took one half n nd