Great flocks of unfamiliar birds flew over us, their brilliant plumage taking a deeper dye as they flashed their wings in the firelight.  The chattering monkeys skirmished among the branches; sometimes a dull splash in the water reminded us that the alligator was still our neighbor; and ever there was the piping of wild birds whose notes we had never heard before, and whose outlines were as fantastic as those of the bright objects that glorify an antique Japanese screen.

Once from the shore, a canoe shot out of the shadow and approached us.  It was a log hollowed out—­only the shell remained.  Within it sat two Indians,—­not the dark creatures we had grown familiar with down the river; these also were nearly nude, but with the picturesque nudeness that served only to set off the ornaments with which they had adorned themselves—­necklaces of shells, wristlets and armlets of bright metal, wreaths of gorgeous flowers and the gaudy plumage of the flamingo.  They drew near us for a moment, only to greet us and turn away; and very soon, with splash of dipping paddles, they vanished in the dusk.

These were the flowers of the forest.  All the winding way from the sea the river walls had been decked with floral splendor.  Gigantic blossoms that might shame a rainbow starred the green spaces of the wood; but of all we had seen or heard or felt or dreamed of, none has left an impression so vivid, so inspiring, so instinct with the beauty and the poetry and the music of the tropics, as those twilight mysteries that smiled upon us for a moment and vanished, even as the great fire-flies that paled like golden rockets in the dark.

III.

ALONG THE PACIFIC SHORE

All night we tossed on the bosom of the lake between San Carlos, at the source of the San Juan river, and Virgin Bay, on the opposite shore.  The lake is on a table-land a hundred feet or more above the sea; it is a hundred miles in length and forty-five in width.  Our track lay diagonally across it, a stretch of eighty miles; and when the morning broke upon us we were upon the point of dropping anchor under the cool shadow of cloud-capped mountains and in a most refreshing temperature.

Oh, the purple light of dawn that flooded the Bay of the Blessed Virgin!  Of course the night was a horror, and it was our second in transit; but we were nearing the end of the journey across the Isthmus and were shortly to embark for San Francisco.  I fear we children regretted the fact.  Our life for three days had been like a veritable “Jungle Book.”  It almost out-Kiplinged Kipling.  We might never again float through Monkey Land, with clouds of parrots hovering over us and a whole menagerie of extraordinary creatures making side-shows of themselves on every hand.

At Virgin Bay we were crowded like sheep into lighters, that were speedily overladen.  Very serious accidents have happened in consequence.  A year before our journey an overcrowded barge was swamped at Virgin Bay and four and twenty passengers were drowned.  The “Transit Company,” supposed to be responsible for the life and safety of each one of us, seemed to trouble itself very little concerning our fate.  The truth was they had been paid in full before we boarded the Star of the West at Pier No. 2, North River.