Once more we were at sea.  One of the most interesting places we called at, on account of its position and associations, was Panama.  For many a year it slept on neglected and almost forgotten.  Now it has been completely aroused from its lethargy, to find itself in the middle of the highway to California, and the chief resting-place of gold-diggers. It is bounded by the sea on three sides, and surrounded by a wall with ditch and bastions on the land side.  In the centre is the _plaza_, into which converge several streets of old-fashioned, sedate-looking Spanish houses, with broad verandas and heavy folding-shutters.  Now a change has rudely come over them.  Above the door of one appeared, in huge characters--"American Hotel"; while a board announced that "Good Lodging, Brandy Smashes, Sice, and Egg-nog," were to be obtained within. There are several other hotels with conspicuous signs, all denoting that they have been established by citizens of the United States, while there exist several restaurants, cafes, and newspaper and billiard-rooms besides.  A steamer had arrived only a few days before at Aspinwall, on the east side, and the town was consequently full of passengers who had come across by the railway.  Nowhere, perhaps, are the past and the present brought into greater contrast.  We visited the ruins of several churches and other buildings with massive walls, which probably never were finished,--all attesting the departed importance of the place.  Now palm-trees grow in their lonely courts; tropical climbing plants throw their festoons in rich luxuriance over their elaborate architecture, and banana-trees have taken root in the clefts of the crumbling walls. Panama, however, is not the identical city whence Pizarro sailed for the conquest of the kingdom of the Incas.  That city stood six miles down the coast; and after it was sacked and utterly destroyed by Morgan, who murdered every soul then within it, none returned to take up their habitation there, and it still remains as he left it, a heap of ruins, now overgrown by rank vegetation.