At length we halted in a little stream, some miles from Rivas, to water our animals, and it was here openly announced that the party was on its way to Costa Rica to take the benefit of the government proclamation.  I rode back toward the rear, where I saw a dispute going on between one of the company who wanted to return to Rivas and others who insisted that he must go forward.  One of them met me in the path, and told me I must go with them until they had got beyond the Transit road.  They had no wish, he said, to force men to desert; but this much was needed to save themselves from danger of pursuit.  I told him my mule would never carry me back from the Transit road.  “We will catch you another,” said he, “when we reach the Jocote rancho.”  The whole crowd, save two or three, were with him, and it was useless to persist.  So I turned and rode forward with the rest.

At the Jocote rancho we succeeded in catching a mule, but he was given to another of the company, whose animal showed worse signs than my own, which, indeed, had borne me much better than I expected, and was not yet seriously fatigued.

We came out upon the Transit road, passed over the Cordillera ridges, and, just beyond the little river which crosses the road, two miles from San Juan, turned aside into a forest-trail leading down the coast to Costa Rica.  Those of us who had been pressed thus far, after crossing the Transit road, gave over all design of returning.  The bonds which drew us back were not strong, and the danger of return was considerable.  We had heard that the enemy was at Virgin Bay, and that their lancers frequently passed backward and forward on the Transit road, and between San Jorge and Virgin Bay.  If we returned, we should be confined to the path nearly all the way to Rivas by the impenetrable forest, and easily taken, should we meet the enemy, or liable even, one or two only, to be shot down from ambush by the hostile natives who lived on the route.

For my own part, I decided to go on with hesitation and regret, and I believe, had one been ready to return, I should have borne him willing company.  I preferred even the hard service and dubious chance of General Walker to the alternative of going amongst the Costa-Ricans, where a cowardly populace would probably kick and spit upon us as dirty filibusters and deserters; and should their government even keep its promises, I had no stomach for being set ashore in the city of New York, without money in my pocket, or home that I wished to go to.  My health had been good in Nicaragua, and, I believed, would remain good.  The motive which sent me there was still in force; and, withal, I wished to see the filibuster game played out,—­with Henningsen, or some other man than General Walker, as military director.  I believed it might even take a turn so, and a sans-culotte man be furnished at last with a two-hundred-and-fifty-acre home in Nicaragua,—­

  “’Mid sandal bowers and groves of spice,
  Might be a Peri’s paradise”;