There was very little choice between the Panama and the Nicaragua routes to the West. Among those who tried the latter road were a number of young men who had just graduated from Yale College. They boarded a ship in New York that was advertised to sail during the first week in February, and expected to land in San Francisco in sixty days. It was March, however, before the ship, crowded with voyagers, set sail south from Sandy Hook. Three weeks brought her to the mouth of the San Juan River. The ship's company was landed at the little tropical town of San Juan de Nicaragua. A small steamboat had been brought along to take them up the river, but when the machinery was put together the boat was found to be worthless. Like the voyagers by Panama, these men then had to trust to native dugouts, and in this way they finally got up the river to San Carlos. Had it not been for their eagerness to reach California such a trip would have been a delight to men who had never seen the tropics before. The San Juan River flowed through forests of strange and beautiful trees. Tamarind and dyewood trees, tall palms, and giant cacti, festooned with bright-colored vines, made a background for the brilliant birds that flew through the woods. Fruit was to be had for the taking, and the weather at that time of the year was delightful. But the thought of the fortunes waiting to be picked up in California filled the minds of most of the travelers. After leaving the boats this party traveled by mule to Leon. Nicaragua was in the midst of a revolution, and the Americans acted as a guard to the President on the road to Leon. Near the end of July the company separated. Some finally sailed from the port of Realejo, and after many dangers and a voyage of almost five months succeeded in reaching San Francisco. Others reached Panama, set sail in a small boat, and were never heard from again; while yet a third party boarded a vessel at a Nicaraguan port, and managed to reach California after almost perishing from hunger and thirst.