Our Artist in Cuba, Peru, Spain and Algiers Part 5

A BACK SEAT. A GREAT SELL.

AN EXCELLENT VIEW. A BEGGARLY SHOW.

BREAD-BASKETS. A DEAD-HEAD.

THE START--STEAMs.h.i.+P "HENRY CHAUNCEY." FROM NEW YORK TO ASPINWALL.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sea-sickness being a weakness of Our Artist, he determines to be fore-armed, and accordingly provides himself with a few simple preventives, warmly recommended by his various friends.]

IN THE CARIBBEAN SEA.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Our Artist, having indulged rather freely in the different preventives, gets things mixed, and wishes that his friends and their confounded antidotes were at the bottom of the Dead Sea.]

ARRIVAL AT ASPINWALL.

[Ill.u.s.tration: First impressions of the city and its inhabitants.--Colored citizens on the dock, awaiting the steamer's advent.]

ISTHMUS OF DARIEN.

[Ill.u.s.tration: View from the window of a Panama railroad car--showing the low-neck and short-sleeve style of costume adopted by the youthful natives of Cruces.--Also a sprightly specimen of the one-eared greyhound indigenous to the country.]

A VIEW IN PANAMA.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The old and weather-beaten church of Santa Ana--and in the foreground, with basket on her head, baby under one arm, and bowl of milk supported by the other, a colored lady of West Indian descent, vulgarly known as a "Jamaica n.i.g.g.e.r."]

AN AFTERNOON AT PANAMA.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Deeming it always inc.u.mbent upon the traveller to invest in the products of the country, Our Artist provides himself with a good sensible Panama hat, and thus with wife and "mutual friend," he peacefully and serenely meanders around among the suburbs of the city.]

A STREET SCENE IN PANAMA.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Our Artist, with the naked eye, beholds a pig, a fighting-c.o.c.k, and a black baby, all tied by the leg, at the humble doorway of the residence of a colored citizen, in the princ.i.p.al street of the capital of Central America.]

IN THE BAY OF PANAMA.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Our Artist wanders about the sleepy little neighboring island, Taboga, where the English steamers lie, and sketches, among other picturesque bits, the clean little whitewashed cathedral in the dirty little Broadway of Taboga.]

STEAMs.h.i.+P "CHILE." FROM PANAMA TO CALLAO.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Crossing the equinoctial line, Our Artist discovers that the rays of a vertical sun are anything but bracing and cool.]

PAYTA--A SEAPORT IN PERU.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Our Artist, having understood that this town is chiefly remarkable for its fine breed of mules, ironically inquires of a native Venus if this can be considered a good specimen. The N. V. treats Our Artist with silent, stolid, Indian contempt.]

NATURAL HISTORY IN PERU.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Our Artist visits a coasting-vessel just arrived from Guayaquil, loaded with every variety of tropical fruit, and a sprinkling of tame monkeys, parrots, alligators, white herons, iguanas, paroquets, spotted deer, etc.]

ARRIVAL AT CALLAO--THE HARBOR.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The landing-boat being a trifle too much loaded by the head, Our Artist finds it somewhat difficult to steer.]

ARCHITECTURE IN CALLAO.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The little one-story Cathedral on the Plaza, which the earthquakes have so frantically and so vainly tried to swallow up or tumble down.]