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Advancing by short marches, on the third day they arrived at Gigonus, where they encamped. Meanwhile the Potidaeans and the Peloponnesians with Aristeus were encamped on the side looking towards Olynthus on the isthmus, in expectation of the Athenians, and had established their market outside the city.
Reader, take down your map, and, starting at the now well-known Isthmus of Panama, run your finger northward along the coast of the Pacific, until, in latitude 13 deg. north, it shall rest on a fine body of water, or rather the "counterfeit presentment" thereof, which projects far into the land, and is designated as the Bay of Fonseca.
The storm which had risen as night closed in swept over the isthmus. The waves in its lakes dashed high, and the Red Sea, which thrust a bay shaped like the horn of a snail into it from the south, was lashed to the wildest fury.
The canal runs from northwest to southeast, the Atlantic end at the north being about twenty-two miles west of the Pacific end at the south. This seems rather strange but we must remember that the Isthmus is in the shape of the letter S and it so happens that the shortest point runs in the direction named.
The whole peninsula was surrounded with a breastwork; across the isthmus it was six feet high and strengthened with a ditch; and the beach was staked against landing.
The few remaining cannon cartridges were economically distributed. There was no longer a possibility of reinforcements. The fire from the shipping swept the isthmus. There were less than fifty bayonets to the entire command. During the afternoon Ward sent his own regiment, as well as Patterson's and Gardner's, but few men reached the actual front in time to share in the last resistance.
The mail from the Atlantic seaboard, across the Isthmus of Darien to San Francisco, took at least twenty-two days. The route across the desert by stage occupied nearly a month. To reduce this time was the absorbing thought of the hour.
The result of the above conversation and the "look round" was an arrangement that the night was to be divided into five watches of two hours each, beginning at eight o'clock in the evening and ending at six o'clock in the morning; each watch to consist of twelve men, fully armed, who were to act as sentries, half of them being detailed to watch the river in the neighbourhood of the boats, while the other half kept watch and ward over the land approach to our encampment, being stretched across the narrow isthmus in open order from the water's edge on the river-side to that on the sea-side.
She actually commenced this undertaking, and sent one or two of her galleys across the isthmus; but the Arabs seized them as soon as they reached their place of destination, and killed or captured the men that had them in charge, so that this desperate scheme was soon abandoned.
News from Washington about the creation of the new territory of Utah in September 1850 was not received in Salt Lake City until January 1851. The report reached Utah by messenger from California, having come around the continent by way of the Isthmus of Panama. The winters of 1851-52, and 1852-53 were frightfully severe and such expensive delays were not uncommon.
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