assengers took boats _en route_
for Gorgona, while those bound for California hired mules for the land
journey to Panama. So after awhile all cleared away, and Cruces was
left to its unhealthy solitude.

CHAPTER IV.

AN UNWELCOME VISITOR IN CRUCES--THE CHOLERA--SUCCESS
OF THE YELLOW DOCTRESS--FEARFUL SCENE AT THE
MULE-OWNER'S--THE BURYING PARTIES--THE CHOLERA
ATTACKS ME.

I do not think I have ever known what it is to despair, or even to
despond (if such were my inclination, I have had some opportunities
recently), and it was not long before I began to find out the bright
side of Cruces life, and enter into schemes for staying there. But it
would be a week or so before the advent of another crowd would wake
Cruces to life and activity again; and in the meanwhile, and until I
could find a convenient hut for my intended hotel, I remained my
brother's guest.

But it was destined that I should not be long in Cruces before my
medicinal skill and knowledge were put to the test. Before the
passengers for Panama had been many days gone, it was found that they
had left one of their number behind them, and that one--the cholera. I
believe that the faculty have not yet come to the conclusion that the
cholera is contagious, and I am not presumptuous enough to forestall
them; but my people have always considered it to be so, and the poor
Cruces folks did not hesitate to say that this new and terrible plague
had been a fellow-traveller with the Americans from New Orleans or
some other of its favoured haunts. I had the first intimation of its
unwelcome presence in the following abrupt and unpleasant manner:--

A Spaniard, an old and intimate friend of my brother, had supped with
him one evening, and upon returning home had been taken ill, and after
a short period of intense suffering had died. So sudden and so
mysterious a death gave rise to the rumour that he had been poisoned,
and suspicion rested for a time, perhaps not unnaturally, upon my
brother, in whose company the dead man had last been. Anxious for many
reasons--the chief one, perhaps, the position of my brother--I went
down to see the corpse. A single glance at the poor fellow showed me
the terrible truth. The distressed face, sunken eyes, cramped limbs,
and discoloured shrivelled skin were all symptoms which I had been
familiar with very recently; and at once I pronounced the cause of
death to be cholera. The Cruces people were mightily angry