The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 4: To California and ReturnWard, Artemus
General
The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 4: To California and Return
Ward, Artemus
American wit and humor
We start at seven the next morning for Panama.
My native comes bright and early to transport my carpet sack to the
railway station. His clothes have suffered still more during the
night, for he comes to me now dressed only in a small rag and one
boot.
At last we are off. "Adios, Americanos!" the natives cry; to which
I pleasantly reply, "ADOUS! and long may it be before you have a
chance to Do us again."
The cars are comfortable on the Panama railway, and the country
through which we pass is very beautiful. But it will not do to
trust it much, because it breeds fevers and other unpleasant
disorders, at all seasons of the year. Like a girl we most all
have known, the Isthmus is fair but false.
There are mud huts all along the route, and half-naked savages gaze
patronizingly upon us from their doorways. An elderly lady in
spectacles appears to be much scandalized by the scant dress of
these people, and wants to know why the Select Men don't put a stop
to it. From this, and a remark she incidentally makes about her
son, who has invented a washing machine which will wash, wring, and
dry a shirt in ten minutes, I infer that she is from the hills of
Old New England, like the Hutchinson family.
. . . .
The Central American is lazy. The only exercise he ever takes is
to occasionally produce a Revolution. When his feet begin to swell
and there are premonitory symptoms of gout, he "revolushes" a
spell, and then serenely returns to his cigarette and hammock under
the palm-trees.
These Central American Republics are queer concerns. I do not of
course precisely know what a last year's calf's ideas of immortal
glory may be, but probably they are about as lucid as those of a
Central American in regard to a republican form of government.
And yet I am told they are a kindly people in the main. I never
met but one of them--a Costa-Rican; on board the Ariel. He lay
sick with fever, and I went to him and took his hot hand gently in
mine. I shall never forget his look of gratitude. And the next
day he borrowed five dollars of me, shedding tears as he put it in
his pocket.
. . . .
At Panama we lose several of our passengers, and among them three
Peruvian ladies, who go to Lima, the city of volcanic eruptions and
veiled black-eyed beauties.
The Senoritas who leave us at Panama are splendid creatures. They
learned me Spanish, and in the soft moonlight we walked on deck and
talked of the land of Pizarro. (You know old Piz. conquered Peru!
and although he was not educated at West Point, he had still some
military talent.) I feel as though I had lost all my relations,
including my grandmother and the cooking stove when these gay young
Senoritas go away.
They do not go to Peru on a Peruvian bark, but on an English
steamer. Off to Acapulco.
4.3. MEXICO.
We make Acapulco, a Mexican coast town of some importance, in a few
days, and all go ashore.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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