After breakfasting on ham and beans at one of the hotels, we selected a boat to convey us up the river; and as the owner had no crew engaged, we got him to take two sailors who had run away from our vessel, and were bound for California like the rest of us. There was a great variety of boats employed on the river--whale-boats, ships’ boats, skiffs, and canoes of all sizes, some of them capable of carrying fifteen or twenty people. It was still raining heavily when we started, but shortly afterwards the weather cleared up, and we felt in better humor to enjoy the magnificent scenery. The river was from seventy-five to a hundred yards wide, and the banks were completely hidden by the dense mass of vegetation overhanging the water. There was a vast variety of beautiful foliage, and many of the trees were draped in creepers, covered with large flowers of most brilliant colors. One of our party, who was a Scotch gardener, was in ecstasies at such a splendid natural flowershow, and gave us long Latin names for all the different specimens. The rest of my fellow-passengers were a big fat man from Buffalo, two young Southerners from South Carolina, three New Yorkers, and a Swede. The boat was rather heavily laden, but for some hours we got along very well, as there was but little current. Towards the afternoon, however, our two sailors, who had been pulling all the time, began to flag, and at last said they could go no further without a rest. We were still many miles from the place where we were to pass the night, and as the banks of the river presented such a formidable barricade of jungle as to prevent a landing, we had the prospect of passing the night in the boat, unless we made the most of our time; so the gardener and I volunteered to take a spell at the oars. But as we ascended the river the current became much stronger, and darkness overtook us some distance from our intended stopping-place. It became so very dark that we could not see six feet ahead of us, and were constantly bumping against other boats coming up the river. There were also many boats coming down with the current at such a rate, that if one had happened to run into us, we should have had but a poor chance, and we were obliged to keep shouting all the time to let our whereabouts be known.