ves, who were having a dance on the square in the village. After we
had been there an hour, we thought our men had their rest, and it was
time to go on according to our contract, to be rowed night and day.

In the meantime it seems the natives had taken some offense at
Lieutenant M.'s familiarity, and they appeared with handles of long
knives projecting back of their necks in a threatening manner. We
likewise learned that that was the home of one of our men, and that he
proposed to stay there all night in violation of the contract. So we had
a consultation to decide what to do to get away. It was pitch dark; we
laid our plan. Lieutenant M. beckoned one of the men away from the dance
as if he wanted to give him something, and drew his pistol on him and
marched him down to the boat, while I, with a pistol, kept him there
while he went for the other man.

After a while he came with him and we got them both in the boat and
started. About this time there was a storm came up with the rain, and
thunder and lightning, as the elements can only perform in that way in
the tropics, surrounded by impenetrable darkness, and to us an unknown
river, with its serpents and alligators, with our two naked savages,
that we only got in the boat by force, and, of course, could not feel
very friendly toward us. Expecting to be fired on from the shore, if
they could see us through the darkness, we took our departure from our
first landing place on the Chagres river, surrounded by romance enough
to satisfy the most romantic imagination in that line. Our men kept
steadily to work. After a while the clouds broke away, the moon showed
itself, and we made good progress that night. We had no trouble with our
men after that. The colonel at Chagres had evidently given us his best
man. They found that we were masters of the situation and it was for
their interest to submit. We treated them kindly after that, and all
went well, for we passed every boat we came to. I shall never forget the
look of despair at two Frenchmen, evidently gentlemen, as we went by
them, and they informed us the length of time they had been coming up
the river, and that they could do nothing with their men. That afternoon
we came in sight of a thatched hut on the banks, evidently a ranch. We
thought it for our interest to rest. We saw a man whom we took for the
proprietor, entirely naked, rubbing his back against a post. On landing
and approaching him he excused himself for a sho