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made good music but damn their other efforts—and be-
sides they never invited me to sing, anyhow."
Many great lazy alligators on bank, sleeping in the
sun—bright-plumaged parrots flying above the trees—
birds with gay plumage and great hooked villainous bills
such as we see in the menagerie—long-legged, long-
necked birds that rise awkwardly from the edge of the
jungle, crook their necks like an S, shove their long bills
forward and throw their long legs out behind like a steer-
ing oar when they are flying—and monkeys capering
among the trees—these are the signs of the tropics.
At first everybody apologized for coming this way and
said it must be done merely to see the country and get it
off his mind—a sort of compulsory sense of duty—never
should come this way again, of course—but now on the
San Juan River with all this enchantment around us and
after coming over what we have passed through and de-
cided that it has been nothing but a comfortable, cheerful,
satisfactory, pleasure trip, we all begin to confess that if
we were already through our business in the States and
ready to return we should be uncommonly apt to come
this way after all.
New Year's Eve 1866. Slept on the floor and hammocks
at Woodyard first night out from Castillo. Started at
2 A.M. and got to Grey Town at daylight. Found vessel
San Francisco there—took them all day to transfer bag-
gage and to remove the 2 sets of steerage passengers.
Kingman told them in joke uptown our steerage and sec-
ond cabin had small-pox and they anchored 'em out.
Much crowded all night and wouldn't let any come ashore
during day. We stayed aboard most of the day, anchored
out and slept uptown—had to come to boat at 6 A.M.
At 7 Capt. Merrey sent us in surf boats in rainstorm—
our' boat had to go to the Nicaragua and finish her com-
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