It was one of the passengers, a typical Yankee.
"'See here, captain,' he said, 'my chum and I are ship carpenters, and the
other man of our party is one of the best sailors of the Newfoundland
fleet; just give us a chance to help you, and maybe we needn't founder
yet awhile.' The chance was given, and we did not founder.
"Some days later we anchored in the harbor of Chagres. There were many
vessels in the bay, and a large number of people waiting to secure
passage across the Isthmus. They crowded around the landing place of the
river canoes and fought and shouted until we children were frightened at
the uproar, and taking our hands mother retired to the shade of some
trees to wait.
"It was almost night when father called to us to come quickly, as he had
a boat engaged for us. It lay at the landing, a long canoe, in one end
of which our things were already stored. Some men who were friends of
father's and had joined our party stood beside it with revolvers in hand
watching to see that no one claimed the canoe or coaxed the boatmen
away. Mother and Sue were quickly tucked beneath the awning, the rest of
us tumbled in where we could, and at once our six nearly naked negro
boatmen pushed out the boat and began working it up the stream by means
of long poles which they placed on the bottom of the river bed, thus
propelling us along briskly but with what seemed to me great exertion.
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