teeth, and well laden with gold-dust, two or more
friends uniting;: their accumulations, and each in turn
guarding their treasure night and day, never leavhig
it for an instant during the entire trip. This was in
order to save the freight, which was then high. They
argued if they got through, their money should ; if it
was lost, all would go down together.
Narrowly they eyed one another, the going and the returning, one with interest not unmingled with ad- miring envy, and the other with an air of superiority, perhaps with contemptuous pity. Ah! the mighty power of gold, in which is condensed all that is bright and beautiful of earth, all that is holy of heaven and hateful of hell, in whose yellow molecules are wrapped all human virtue and passion, that could thus consum- mate this meeting-, brincrino; together from the remotest ends of earth brave men of thought and deed, meeting here in the heart of a tropical wilderness, in the middle of this narrow Isthmus which so provokingly obstructs the world's commerce, on the topmost point, round which revolves the two Americas and the two great oceans, meeting in a pestilential clime, some hurrying one way and some another, some sick to death of gold- seeking, others burning for it ! It was not a little curious, the sight, as we stood and watched them there, the outward bound and homeward bound, some with the confident swagger of greenness yet upon them, rude and unaccommodating in their grumbling selfishness, stupid in their perverse independence, and surly in their unreasonable opposition to order and regulations ; the others, men of like origin and caste, but licked into some degree of form and congruity by their rough experiences, rude and ragged they may be, but quieter, more subdued, more easily adapting themselves to circumstances, more ready to yield some fancied right for the common good, more humanized and harmonious, whether more polished or not. Light like that of revelation seems to have broken in upon them during their wanderings, enlighten-
