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Collection: Books and Periodicals
Three Years in California by John D. Borthwick (1857)(LoC) (423 pages)
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Page: of 423
ROBINSON CRUSOES. 5,
At last, after twenty days’ passage from New York,
we made Chagres, and got up to the anchorage
towards evening. The scenery was very beautiful.
We lay about three-quarters of a mile from shore,
in a small bay enclosed by high bluffs, completely
covered with dense foliage of every shade of green.
We had but little time, however, to enjoy the
scenery that evening, as we had scarcely anchored
when the rain began to come down in true tropical
style ; every drop was a bucketful. The thunder and
lightning were terrific, and in good keeping with the
rain, which is one of the things for which Chagres is
celebrated. Its character as a sickly wretched place
was so well known that none of us went ashore that
night ; we.all preferred sleeping aboard ship.
It was very amusing to watch the change which
had been coming over some of the men on board.
They seemed to shrink within themselves, and to wish
to avoid being included in any of the small parties
which were being formed to make the passage up the
river. They were those who had provided themselves with innumerable contrivances for the protection of their precious persons against sun, wind, and
rain, also with extraordinary assortments of very untempting-looking provisions, and who were completely
equipped with pistols, knives, and other warlike
implements. They were like so many Robinson
Crusoes, ready to be put ashore on a desert island ;
and they seemed to imagine themselves to be in just
such a predicament, fearful, at the same time, that