The interior of the room was not yet pink with very early morning. Charley stiffly scrambled to his feet, and followed his father down the ladder, and through the room below--treading carefully so as not to disturb the sleepers there. Mr. Grigsby already was out; and if Captain Crosby was awake he pretended to be asleep so as to avoid more thanks! A little fire blazed on the river bank, near the boat. The boatmen had made coffee and boiled some rice in cocoa-milk for the breakfast, so that within fifteen minutes the boat was headed up-stream, on the spurt for Cruces. Now urged by four paddlers instead of two, it fairly flew, cleaving the current while the dim shores and water grew lighter. The mountain divide ahead was gradually drawing closer, and all the country along the stream seemed steeper. One by one ranches were passed which in the midst of cleared forest and jungle looked more prosperous than the ranches of the lower river. Well it was that the boat was equipped with four boatmen, for the current ran very swift off the high hills, and contained several rapids where two of the men--yes, and once all four of them--had to shove with poles. They constantly chewed sections of sugar-cane cut from an armful that had been tossed in at Pena Blanca. Charley tried the same stunt, and found that the sugar-cane juice was good for a lunch. Shortly after noon the course made a long turn about the foot of a mighty, rounded hill, standing alone. Great trees clustered thickly to its top; and here, high above all, up rose a single straight palm, like a plume in the crown of a noble chief. The boatmen spoke, one to another, and Francisco pointed. "There you are, Charley," said Mr. Adams. "That's Mount Carabali. It used to be a lookout for Indians and pirates. From that palm you can see both the Atlantic and the Pacific. We're about ten miles from Cruces." In four miles more a large village called Gorgona was passed. During half the year this was the place where people crossing the Isthmus changed from boat to mule-back, but during the other half Cruces, six miles above, was the junction. (As for old Gorgona, to-day it has been swallowed, the most of it, by the greedy Gatun Lake of the big canal.)