About eight o’clock
A.M.
Come , thought I , rather too much for a modest young man this too ; and deuce take me , as I am a gentleman , if the whole bevy did not disrobe in cold blood , and squatter , naked as their mother Eve was in the garden of Eden , before she took to the herbage , right into the middle of the stream , skirting and laughing , as if not even a male musquitto had been within twenty miles . However , my neighbour took no notice of them ; it seemed all a matter of course . But let that pass . About eight o'clock A.M. I got under weigh , with Peter Mangrove , on two good stout mules , and a black guide running before me with a long stick , with which he sprung over the sloughs and stones in the road with great agility ; I would have backed him against many a passable hunter , to do four miles over a close country in a steeple-chase . Panama is distant from Cruzes about seven leagues . The road is somewhat like what the Highland ones must have been before General Wade took them in hand , and only passable for mules ; indeed , in many places where it had been hewn out of the rock in zigzags on the face of the hill , it is scarcely passable for two persons meeting . But the scenery on each side is very beautiful , as it winds , for the most part , amongst steep rocks , over shadowed by magnificent trees , amongst which birds of all sizes , and of the most beautiful plumage , are perpetually glancing , while a monkey , every here and there , would sit grimacing , and chattering , and scratching himself in the cleft of a tree .