From New Orleans to San Fransisco in '49 [pp. 189-205]

Front New Orleais to San Francisco ini'49.
much better, that he thought that he was
going to get well. But he was really no
better and it was impossible for him to
go farther in that helpless condition.
My brother and old Duncan cut some
poles, pitched our tent, and built a brush
shed to cook under. They put father's
cot in the tent, and built some scaffolds
to put our beds on, for it was too wet to
sleep on the ground. My brother cooked
supper that night, for mother was so
nearly worn out that she could do nothing. We did relish that supper, having
had nothing but cold victuals since leaving the steamer at Chagres.
Our camp was in a clump of palm
trees, about two hundred yards from the
town of Gorgona, and about eighty yards
from the river. The Chagres was wider
and much more shallow here than it was
below Gorgona. The banks were low;
in fact, there were scarcely any banks
at all. The bed of the river was rocky
and the water very clear. The country
here was more open than any we had
seen coming up the river, though for
the greater part it was still a perfect
wilderness. There were some cultivated fields of bananas and plantains, but
they were small. The building material
here was the same as that at Chagres,
but the houses were square, with gable
roofs covered with palm leaves. Some
had bamboo walls, and all were very
small.
The dress of the inhabitants was of
the same style as that prevailing at
Chagres, except that many of the women
wore in addition to a skirt, one undergarment. Many of these garments were
very finely worked around the low necks
and short sleeves with what is known as
drawn work.
Their food consisted of various kinds
of fruit, rice, and a tuberous root which
they called a yam. The yams, I believe,
grew wild, but were also cultivated to
some extent. When properly cooked
and eaten with meat or gravy they made
a very good substitute for potatoes.
Rice was cooked in two ways. One way
was to boil it in little round-bottomed
earthen pots with small pieces of jerked
beef, and season with salt and some kind
of oil. Jerked beef is beef cut in long,
thin strips and dried in the sun. The
other mode of preparation was to boil in
water and then mix with grated cocoanut, and sweeten with some of their
native sugar. This sugar was of a dark
brown color, made into little round
cakes and wrapped in pieces of palm
leaves. It was used chiefly as a confection. The natives also ate the flesh of
the iguana. This is a hideous looking
reptile, which we at first thought was a
young alligator.
Although they wore but little clothing, that little was kept clean. The
washing was done in the river. The
women, carrying the soiled clothes on
the head in a basket or tray, waded out
into the stream until they found a suitable place for the performance of their
labor - a smooth, flat rock over which
the water was not very deep, and upon
which they might sit. Having weighted
down her basket to keep it from floating off, a woman would take out one
garment at a time, rub it with soap, put
it on a rock, and pound it with another
rock until it was clean. She would then
secure it in the water by placing a rock
on top of it, and leave it in the running
water until the day's washing was finished.
Many Americans passed through Gorgona on their way to Panama, but they
stopped only long enough to hire mules
to carry themselves and baggage. The
country lying along the Chagres River
was considered the most unhealthy part
of the Isthmus, and no one wished to
tarry there. But there, in that unhealthy
place, in the most unhealthy season of
the year, we must stay with our poor
father, who now realized that he was
nearing his journey's end. He was slowly
but surely passing away, and it grieved
him to know that he was going to leave
197
1892.]