confusion, covered by thousands of little plants, or soared against the
sky in broken arches and corridors. But in the body of the town, the old
picturesque houses had taken on a new and temporary smartness which
consisted mostly of canvas signs. The main street was composed of
hotels, eating-houses, and assorted hells. At times over a thousand men
were there awaiting transportation. Some of them had been waiting a long
time, and had used up all their money. They were broke and desperate. A
number of American gambling-houses were doing business, and of course
the saloons were much in evidence. Foreigners kept two of the three
hotels; Americans ran the gambling joints; French and Germans kept the
restaurants. The natives were content to be interested but not entirely
idle spectators. There was a terrible amount of sickness aggravated by
American quack remedies. Men rejoiced or despaired according to their
dispositions. Every once in a while a train of gold bullion would start
back across the Isthmus with mule-loads of huge gold bars, so heavy that
they were safe, for no one could carry them off to the jungle. On the
other hand there were some returning Californians, drunken and wretched.
They delighted in telling with grim joy of the disappointments of the
diggings. But probably the only people thoroughly unhappy were the
steamship officials. These men had to bear the brunt of disappointment,
broken promises, and savage recrimination, if means for going north were
not very soon forthcoming. Every once in a while some ship, probably an
old tub, would come wallowing to anchor at the nearest point, some
eleven miles from the city. Then the raid for transportation took place
all over again. There was a limited number of small boats for carrying
purposes, and these were pounced on at once by ten times the number they
could accommodate. Ships went north scandalously overcrowded and
underprovisioned. Mutinies were not infrequent. It took a good captain
to satisfy everybody, and there were many bad ones. Some men got so
desperate that, with a touching ignorance of geography, they actually