There we took small boats
and were poled up the river by Indians to Cruces, at which place we
mounted mules and rode over the mountain to Panama. There I found a
crowd of persons in every degree of excitement, waiting for passage
to California. There were thousands of them. Those who came on the
"Crescent City" had engaged passage on the Pacific side also; but
such was the demand among the multitude at Panama for the means
of transportation, that some of the steerage passengers sold their
tickets from that place to San Francisco for $750 apiece and took
their chances of getting on cheaper. These sales, notwithstanding they
appeared at the time to be great bargains, proved, in most cases, to
be very unfortunate transactions; for the poor fellows who thus sold
their tickets, besides losing their time, exposed themselves to
the malaria of an unhealthy coast. There was in fact a good deal
of sickness already among those on the Isthmus, and many deaths
afterwards occurred; and among those who survived there was much
suffering before they could get away.
The vessel that conveyed us, and by "us" I mean the passengers of
the "Crescent City," and as many others as could by any possibility
procure passage from Panama to San Francisco was the old steamer
"California." She was about one thousand tons burden; but probably no
ship of two thousand ever carried a greater number of passengers on a
long voyage.
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