: The Atlantic Monthly Volume 04 No. 26 December 1859 A Magazine of Literature Art and Politics by Various - American periodicals The Atlantic Monthly

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THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS

THE EXPERIENCE OF SAMUEL ABSALOM, FILIBUSTER.

In the winter of 1856, the outlook of the present writer, known somewhere as Samuel Absalom, became exceedingly troubled, and indeed scarcely respectable. As gold-digger in California, Fortune had looked upon him unkindly, and he was grown to be one of the indifferent, ragged children of the earth. Those who came behind him might read as they ran, stamped on canvas once white, "Stockton Mills. Self-Rising Flour!"--the well-known label in California, at that day, of greatest embarrassment.

One morning, after sleeping out the night in the streets of Oroville, he got up, and read these words, or some like them, in the village newspaper:--"The heavy frost which fell last night brings with it at least one source of congratulation for our citizens. Soon the crowd of vagrant street-sleepers, which infests our town, will be forced to go forth and work for warmer quarters. It has throughout this summer been the ever-present nuisance and eyesore of our otherwise beautiful and romantic moonlit nights." "Listen to this scoundrel!" said he; "how he can insult an unfortunate man! Makes his own living braying, lying, and flinging dirt, and spits upon us sad devils who fail to do it in an honest manner! Ah, the times are changing in California! Once, no one knew but this battered hat I sit under might partially cover the head of a nobleman or man of honor; but men begin to show their quality by the outside, as they do elsewhere in the world, and are judged and spoken to accordingly. I will shake California dust from my feet, and be gone!"

When we came into the town of San Juan, we found there a general and colonel of the filibuster army, and reported ourselves forthwith as a party of recruits just arrived and at their service. The general was altogether absorbed hobnobbing with the old friends whom he had discovered in the passenger crowd, and would not listen to us; but the colonel pointed out an empty building, and told us to drop our luggage there, and amuse ourselves until we heard further from him. This town of San Juan del Sur is entirely the creation of the Nicaragua Transit Company, and is the Pacific terminus of the Isthmus portage-road. It consisted of half a dozen board hotels, and a litter of native grass-thatched huts, and lay at the foot of a high, woody spur, which curves out into the sea and forms the southern rim of a beautiful little harbor, completed by another less elevated point jutting out on the north. The country inland is entirely shut out by a dense forest, into which the Transit road plunges and is immediately lost. Whilst I was walking about this sequestered place, now all alive with the California passengers, a party of Walker's cavalry came riding in from the interior, and at once drew all eyes upon them. They were mounted on horses or mules of every color, shape, and size,--themselves yellow-faced, ragged, and dirty; nevertheless, their deadly garniture, rifles, revolvers, and bowie-knives, and their fierce and shaggy looks, kept them from being laughed at. They dismounted and tied their beasts in front of one of the hotels, and then dispersed about the town in search of whatever was refreshing.

From these men we learned that General Walker's prospects were never so fair as now. His enemies, they said, worn out and ready to despair, had drawn off to Granada, where they now lay irresolute and quarrelling amongst themselves. General Walker held the Transit route from ocean to ocean, and a single filibuster might walk all through the country without danger. This news was not satisfactory to all of us. A small, bright-eyed youth, from the California theatre, who had been noted on the voyage down for his loud talking, declared that for his part he had come to Nicaragua to fight, and, now that there was no more fighting to be done, he would pass through and take ship for the United States. The filibusters smiled at each other grimly, and told him, if that was the difficulty, he had better not go, for Walker intended driving the enemy out of Granada shortly, and he would there find all that he wanted. And well it was that they satisfied him to stay; for on that day this youth went without his dinner because he had no cent in his pocket to buy it, and ship-captains refuse to assist all such as lie under that unhappy cloud. Oh, thou light-bodied son of Thespis! Where art thou now? I saw thee last, with heavy musket on thy shoulder, marching wearily to the assault of San Jorge. Did the vultures tear thee there? Or art thou still somewhere amongst men, blowing the great deeds wrought by thy feathery arm that day? I hope thou wast not left on that dismal shore!

Late in the afternoon, when the Californians had departed for Virgin Bay, where they were to embark on Lake Nicaragua, our party of recruits took the road for the same place, on our way to Rivas, the head-quarters of the filibuster army. A short distance from the Pacific, we began the ascent of the Cordillera chain, not very formidable here, but broken into spurs and irregular ridges, with deep umbrageous hollows, and little streams of clear water winding noisily among them. Coming down from this rugged high ground, we entered a wide plain, stretching away to Lake Nicaragua, out of whose waters we saw the blue cones of Ometepec and Madeira lifting their heads up above all, and capped with clouds. Before we had crossed the twelve miles between ocean and lake, and entered Virgin Bay, it was dark, and the Californians were already hurrying aboard a little steamer, which puffed and whistled at the wharf. In half an hour afterwards they were steaming across the lake for the entrance or head of the Rio San Juan.

It was here that we ate our first meal at the expense of General Walker, or, rather, at the expense of an innkeeper of Virgin Bay; for he, our entertainer, looked upon us as little better than sorners, declaring he had already fed filibusters to the value of six thousand dollars, without other return than General Walker's promise to pay, which he professed to esteem but slightly or not at all. These hotel-keepers of Virgin Bay and San Juan, who came in the wake of the Transit Company, and made their money by the California passengers, seemed to be a good deal worried by General Walker. Their business was no longer profitable, and their families lived in a state of continual alarm between the combatants; yet they were not allowed the alternative of flight; for it was General Walker's policy, wise or unwise, when he had got a man into Nicaragua who was useful to him, to keep him there; and the last Transit Company, being entirely in his interest, carried no emigrant out of the Isthmus unfurnished with a passport from President Walker himself.

Whilst I sat looking about at these miserable people, I was accosted by an individual whom I had known in California. He professed to be glad to see me; told me Nicaragua was the finest of countries; "but," said he, with some latent humor of too ghastly a hue, "I'm sorry you didn't come down with us three months ago, as you thought of doing; we've all been promoted. The officers and two-thirds of the men have died, and nearly all the rest of us are promoted. I myself am captain. You made a great mistake, you see."

"My friend," said I, "you needn't try to frighten me. I've lived in a tropical climate before, and it is the healthiest part of the world for men of my temperament."

"Then you'll be promoted," said he. "A healthy man is sure of his reward in this service. Do you see that fellow crossing the plaza with the old shoes in his hand?"

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