t of Veragua, westward from Panama Bay, and about a hundred miles
from its mouth; into which the _Condor_ is seeking to make entrance.

Having ciphered out his reckoning, the skipper enters it on his log:

"Latitude 7 degrees 20 minutes North, Longitude 82 degrees 12 minutes
West _Wind West-South-West. Light breeze_."

While penning these slight memoranda, little dreams the Chilian skipper
how important they may one day become. The night before, while taking
an observation of the stars, could he have read them astrologically, he
might have discovered many a chance against his ever making another
entry in that log-book.

A wind west-sou'-west is favourable for entering the Bay of Panama. A
ship steering round Cabo Mala, once she has weathered this much-dreaded
headland, will have it on her starboard quarter. But the _Condor_,
coming down from north, gets it nearly abeam; and her captain,
perceiving he has run a little too much coastwise, cries out to the man
at the wheel--

"Hard a-starboard! Put the helm down! Keep well off the land!"

Saying this, he lights a cigarrito; for a minute or two amuses himself
with his monkeys, always playful at meeting him; then, ascending to the
poop-deck, enters into conversation with company more refined--his lady
passengers.

These, with Don Gregorio, have gone up some time before, and stand on
the port-side, gazing at the land--of course delightedly: since it is
the first they have seen since the setting of that sun, whose last rays
gleamed upon the portals of the Golden Gate, through which they had
passed out of California.

The voyage has been somewhat wearisome: the _Condor_ having encountered
several adverse gales--to say nothing of the long period spent in
traversing more than three thousand miles of ocean-waste, with only once
or twice a white sail seen afar off, to vary its blue monotony.

The sight of _terra firma_, with the thought of soon setting foot on it,
makes all joyous; and Captain Lantanas adds to their exhilaration by
assuring them, that in less than twenty-four hours he will enter the Bay
of Panama, and in twenty-four after, bring his barque alongside the
wharf of that ancient port, so often pillaged by the _filibusteros_--
better known as buccaneers. It is scarcely a damper when he adds, "Wind
and weather permitting;" for the sky is of sapphire hue, and the gentle
breeze wafting them smoothly along seems steady, and as if it would
continue in the sa