With these exceptions every thing still remained in apparently the same state as when, six thousand years before, evening and morning were the fifth day. The "great horologe divine" of this lower creation was all complete--there were the springs, the weights, the wheels, but the maker's fingers had not yet put them in motion, and they still seemed waiting for that powerful touch. It was almost like sacrilege to venture into those sublimely silent waters, and arouse them from their long slumbers by our noisy and impertinent life.
The sea here seemed to have gained upon the land--the trees stood like the herds on a sultry summer's afternoon knee deep in the cooling flood. Beneath the low arching roof the shadows lay thickly woven and felted together. Birds of unknown plumage glided along the glassy pavement, among the slender stems, or unfolded their crimson and gold to the sun as they floated carelessly over our heads. Each little leaf hung silent on its perch--there was not even that whispering hum that, like the drone of a beehive or a country school-house, is forever heard from a waking forest.
But suddenly an almost imperceptible ripple came creeping round a distant headland, and the next moment a rude canoe shot out into the river. Others continually made their appearance in different directions, and in a few hours fifteen or twenty were drawn up on the beach. They contained large baskets of eggs, oranges of a finer flavour than any we had yet tasted, and a strange fruit resembling the quince in size and shape, but as yellow and almost as tasteless as a pumpkin. Parrots, macaws, and paroquets were also offered for sale, and some of them, we were told, talked the purest Castilian, but no one seemed disposed to try that method of instruction.
Having satiated our curiosity on the novel scenery around us, the question arose whether we should remain in the ship during her hazardous voyage to Panama, or tempt the more uncertain difficulties of a journey through Central America. A party that had gone up to Realejo to make inquiries, having brought back a favourable report, the greater part of the passengers abandoned the ship without reluctance. It was only at the last moment, however, that we could make up our minds to follow their example. The brief twilight of the equator was already closing around us when we took our seats in the only remaining canoe and pushed off from the ship in company with which we had braved so many perils. We crossed and recrossed the river several times to avoid the currents and shallows; sometimes we were in the middle of the stream, and again we glided like a shadow beneath the overhanging branches. It was the hour of vespers, and presently our boatmen, an Indian with his wife and daughter gaily dressed in their Sunday attire, began chanting in a low and rather plaintive tone the Evening Song to the Virgin. As the river grew narrower the trees on either hand bent their heads in listening silence. Closing our eyes, we seemed to be floating onward, as in a dream, independent of human agency, still farther and farther into the heart of a boundless, trackless forest. It was a dream to last forever, but suddenly the canoe struck with a wide-awake jar against the wharf at Realejo. Several huge canoes, as big as a railroad car and each dug out of a single mahogany, lay moored in the stream. Scrambling over two or three smaller ones that lay by our side, we mounted the wharf and looked round for the city. We could discover nothing in the darkness but half a dozen ill-looking natives, one of whom now came forward and offered with a vast deal of gesticulation to conduct us to a hotel where there were muchos Americanos. Taking our trunk on his shoulders he led the way and we followed in silence. A short walk through streets silent as churchyard paths, and lined with doorless, windowless houses, brought us into a rather more cheerful neighbourhood, and to a hotel filled indeed with mucho Americano. All were busy in making arrangements for their journey, and a few rapid inquiries soon gave us all the needed information.