After our fatigues on the river, and the miserable way in which we had passed the night before, such sleeping accommodation as this appeared very inviting; and immediately after dinner I appropriated one of the beds, and slept even on till daylight. We met here several men who were returning from Panama, on their way home again. They had been waiting there for some months for a steamer, by which they had tickets for San Francisco, and which was coming round the Horn. She was long overdue, however, and having lost patience, they were going home, in the vain hope of getting damages out of the owner of the steamer. If they had been very anxious to go to California, they might have sold their tickets, and taken the opportunity of a sailing-vessel from Panama; but from the way in which they spoke of their grievances, it was evident that they were home-sick, and glad of any excuse to turn tail and go back again. We had frequently, on our way up the river, seen different parties of our fellow-passengers. At Gorgona we mustered strong; and we found that, notwithstanding the disadvantage we had been under of having an overloaded boat, we had made as good time as any of them. A great many here took the road for Panama, but we determined to go on by the river to Cruces, for the sake of the better road from that place. All our difficulties hitherto were nothing to what we encountered in these last few miles. It was one continual rapid all the way, and in many places some of us were obliged to get out and tow the boat, while the rest used the poles. We were all heartily disgusted with the river, and were satisfied, when we arrived at Cruces, that we had got over the worst of the Isthmus; for however bad the road might be, it could not be harder traveling than we had already experienced. Cruces was just such a village as Gorgona, with a similar canvas hotel, kept by equally cadaverous-looking Americans. In establishing their hotels at different points on the Chagres river, the Americans encountered great opposition from the natives, who wished to reap all the benefit of the travel themselves; but they were too many centuries behind the age to have any chance in fair competition; and so they resorted to personal threats and violence, till the persuasive eloquence of Colt’s revolvers, and the overwhelming numbers of American travelers, convinced them that they were wrong, and that they had better submit to their fate.