Living in Panama was pretty hard. The hotels were all crammed full; the accommodation they afforded was somewhat in the same style as at Gorgona, and they were consequently not very inviting places. Those who did not live in hotels had sleeping-quarters in private houses, and resorted to the restaurants for their meals, which was a much more comfortable mode of life. Ham, beans, chicken, eggs, and rice, were the principal articles of food. The beef was dreadfully tough, stringy, and tasteless, and was hardly ever eaten by the Americans, as it was generally found to be very unwholesome. There was here at this time a great deal of sickness, and absolute misery, among the Americans. Diarrhœa and fever were the prevalent diseases. The deaths were very numerous, but were frequently either the result of the imprudence of the patient himself, or of the total indifference as to his fate on the part of his neighbors, and the consequent want of any care or attendance whatever. The heartless selfishness one saw and heard of was truly disgusting. The principle of “every man for himself” was most strictly followed out, and a sick man seemed to be looked upon as a thing to be avoided, as a hindrance to one’s own individual progress. There was a hospital attended by American physicians, and supported to a great extent by Californian generosity; but it was quite incapable of accommodating all the sick; and many a poor fellow, having exhausted his funds during his long detention here, found, when he fell sick, that in parting with his money he had lost the only friend he had, and was allowed to die, as little cared for as if he had been a dog. An American characteristic is a weakness for quack medicines and specifics, and numbers of men here fell victims to the national mania, chiefly Yankees and Western men. Persons coming from a northern climate to such a place as Panama, are naturally apt at first to experience some slight derangement of their general health, which, with proper treatment, is easily rectified; but these fellows were all provided with cholera preventive, fever preventive, and boxes of pills for the prevention and the cure of every known disease. The moment they imagined that there was anything wrong with them, they became alarmed, and dosed themselves with all the medicines they could get hold of, so that when they really were taken ill, they were already half poisoned with the stuff they had been swallowing. Many killed themselves by excessive drinking of the wretched liquor which was sold under the name of brandy, and others, by eating ravenously of fruit, green or ripe, at all hours of the day, or by living, for the sake of economy, on gingerbread and spruce-beer, which are also American weaknesses, and of which there were several enterprising Yankee manufacturers.