Page:Darien Exploring Expedition.pdf/8

440

Granadian commissioner, wishing to relieve him, offered to take the spy-glass, but on being informed that the Indians knew that this was carried by the commander, who would be selected for the first fire, he turned pale, and did not press his offer. Several of the men requested to take part of his load, but he refused, saying, that by carrying more than they, and doing more work, he could better tell how fast to march and when to halt, so as not to overtask them.

At some points the water had attained a great depth, especially where it had caught a rotary motion around some of the smaller boulders, and the traveling not only grew more difficult, but very dangerous. They had lost the Indian trail, and not being able to pass through the forest without the tedious operation of cutting a road with an ax, so thick was the undergrowth, they were forced to climb along the rocky banks of the river, to cross wide clefts in the rocks, and surmount enormous boulders, where a false step or a slip would have led to a broken limb, if not to a broken neck. They made only some ten miles the whole day, and at six in the evening, finding a defensible position, pitched their camp. The men were quite fagged out, and prepared their supper without their usual boisterous merriment. Besides, the consciousness of danger at hand made each one thoughtful. To enliven their spirits they concluded to drink up a bottle of brandy which one of the party carried for medicinal purposes, for the very sensible reason that they feared it would get broken. The evening gun of the Cyane, rising with a booming-sound over the Isthmus, also cheered them, for while that was in hearing, they did not feel themselves so entirely cut off from the outer world.

It was not so pleasant, however, when darkness enshrouded the wilderness; but the camp fires blazed brightly, and they were all brave hearts. Still many an anxious glance searched the shadowy forest that hemmed them in, and a score of musket-balls or arrows in their midst would hardly have taken them by surprise. Sentries were posted at some distance up and down the bank, to give timely warning. As silence settled on the camp imitations of the cries of wild beasts were heard in the surrounding forest, made evidently by the Indians who were hovering near, in the hope of alarming them. The next morning the boatswain's "Heave round" rung far and wide through the solitude, and the tired sleepers arose to another day's toil. On examining the ground near the camp they discovered the tracks of seven men, who had closely reconnoitred them in the night. Strain had already begun to doubt whether he was on a branch of the Savana, owing to the course which the river pursued, but as the number of cascades corresponded exactly with those laid down for that river, he was still partially satisfied, and hoped that the maps might, after all, prove to be tolerably correct.

Leaving camp about half past eight, they followed the river by the bed or banks, just as one or the other furnished best footing. Both were difficult; the former being encumbered with granite boulders, and the water often so deep as