to return East in sixty days, and if he would keep
straight, and drive one of their wagons for them, they
would take him home with them. When they went
ashore the first day they left him in charge of their
baggage, and promised him that he could go ashore the
next. They had their private store of wines and
brandy. He had found it and tried it and got
full, and treated all the sailors and everybody on
board that would drink with him, and was the most popular
man on board with the sailors. He repented the
next day and begged their forgiveness, and they took
him home with them. Like a bad penny, he returned
as he was before. Distance did not reform him.
Well, our next port was Relago my destination.
Just after dark one day we got opposite to what, according
to the charts, was that port. It was necessary
for them to wait until morning before they could undertake
to enter it, as they had never been there before,
and there were no pilots, and they decided not to
let the steam go down, and they concluded that they
would sail slowly around in a circle, so as to be opposite
to the port in the morning. When morning came
it was foggy, and we could not see the land.
But they had such confidence in the correctness of
their chart that they determined to enter it.
Instead of the port, we came to the white caps, dashing
against the rocks almost mountains high, and we came
within an ace of being dashed to pieces against them.
If the engineer had not reversed the movement of the
engine the instant he did, we would have been wrecked.
The captain was now completely befogged. In a
short time he came to me with a paper to sign agreeing
to go to Panama. It should cost me nothing extra
for my passage there; that the few other passengers
for that port had signed it. I thought I had
better sign to go anywhere than to take any more chances
in that steamer. Come to find out afterward,
instead of being opposite the port that morning, we
were twenty miles from it, the currents of the ocean
having carried us that distance while we were sailing
around in a circle, which they had not ciphered on,
and thus came so near wrecking us. By chance
we saw a sailing vessel. The captain gave orders
for the steamer to follow it, and, when we overtook
it, we found it was bound for Relago. There was
a man on board of it who was acquainted with the port.
They got him to come on our steamer and had him pilot
us to that port, so I expected to go ashore, and got
my baggage in readiness, and, when the time came,
had it brought up on deck. They did not enter
the port, but came to outside. There were two
passengers, it seems, that would not sign the paper
to go to Panama, and it was to land them he had come
to, and when I went to have my baggage put in the small
boat the captain informed me I had signed to go to
Panama, and some of the other passengers said I was
very foolish to risk my life in that sea in so small
a boat. Before I scarcely knew it the boat had
pushed off without me, and, consequently, the whole
current and course of my life was changed. Upon
such little incidents often do the events of human
life depend. It may have been fortunate for me
that I did not land there.
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