When we reached Nicaragua, in the latter part of December, 1856, the entire force of the filibusters was still in Rivas, with the exception of a small party stationed on the Rio San Juan, beyond the lake, and communicating with the Isthmus force only by means of two small steamers, "La Vírgen" and "San Cárlos," which plied across the lake between the head of the river and Virgin Bay, on the California passenger-line. The allies had remained inactive at Granada, and were said to be broken into factions, and daily deserting and returning home in large bodies. The isthmus of Rivas was free ground to the filibusters, and a score of rangers might forage with little danger from the Costa Rican line almost to Granada. Their force outside of the hospital, as we saw it at head-quarters, numbered probably from eight hundred to one thousand men,—one-third mere skeletons, scarcely able to go through drill on the plaza,—fit only to bury,—and the great majority of the remainder turning yellow, shaken daily by chills and fever, and soon to be as worthless as the others. They were all foreigners,—Americans, Germans, Irish, French, and English,—with the exception of one small company of natives, captained by a half-breed Mexican. It was said, however, that many of the poorer natives were willing to fight against the Chamorristas,—the aristocratic Nicaraguan faction originally opposed to Patricio Rivas and the Liberals, now in arms against General Walker,—but that they made miserable soldiers outside of a barricade, and General Walker had no arms to throw away upon them. For sustenance, the filibusters had the fruits around Rivas, and a small ration of tortillas and beef, furnished them daily by Walker's commissary. The beef, as we heard, was supplied by Señor Pineda, General Walker's most powerful and faithful friend amongst the natives; and the tortillas were bought from the native women in the neighborhood of Rivas. It was the quality of the food—assisted largely by exposure, irregular fasts, and aguardiente—which made Nicaragua so fatal to the filibusters. The isthmus between the lake and the Pacific, swept nine months of the year by cool eastern breezes, is not unhealthy. But the ration of beef and tortillas (simple maize cakes without salt) was too scanty and intermittent; and in the absence of proper food, the men were driven to fill their stomachs with the unwholesome fruits which everywhere surrounded their quarters, and but few were able to stand it many months.

As to the spirit which seemed to animate these men, it was certainly most discouraging. They had lost all thought—supposing them to have ever had such thought—of regenerating Central America; and most of them wished no better thing than to fill their bellies, or to escape from Nicaragua. Many of them were sunk into a physical and mental lethargy, thinking of nothing and caring for nothing, and were gone, not a few, even into lunacy. Some cursed General Walker for enticing them there under false pretences. There were men with families who professed to have come there to settle and cultivate the soil, having been persuaded that the war was ended and the country prepared for peaceful immigration. Some had paid their own passage, purposing merely to reconnoïtre, and remain or not, as it pleased them; but when they landed in Nicaragua, General Walker placed muskets in their unwilling hands, and there he had kept them, fighting, not for himself or his promises, but for life. It disgusted others that the service was not only almost certain death and thankless, but was altogether unprofitable. It was General Walker's practice, and had been always, to discharge his soldiers' wages with scrip of no cash value whatever, or so little that many neglected to draw it when due them. And this was concealed at their enlistment. Indeed, the hatred towards General Walker and the service seemed almost universal amongst the privates, and they would have revolted and thrown away their arms at any moment, had there been hope of escape in that. But they were held together by common danger in a treacherous or hostile country, separated by broad oceans and impassable forests from a land of safe refuge. There was, besides, distrust of each other; and fear, though no love, of General Walker. He was said to have the iron will and reckless courage of the true man of destiny. At one time, so they told us, a large body of fresh, able-bodied men, just arrived in Nicaragua, refused to join the filibusters on account of some disappointment about the amount of promised wages. General Walker led out his crowd of yellow men, whom the newcomers might have knocked down with the wind of their fists, and so overawed them by this display of resolution that they forthwith swallowed their complaints and joined his ranks with as good a grace as they might. I myself, in these first days, saw a little incident which impressed me that the man was no trifler. I was in his quarters one day, when an officer came in and made a report to him about some matter of his duty.

"Captain," said General Walker, looking serenely over the man's head, "if this is the way you are going to do business, Nicaragua has no further need for you. We want nothing of this sort done here, Sir."

The fierce, big-whiskered officer said nothing, but looked cowed; and, indeed, not without excuse; for though there was a nasal whine in the tone of the little General, and no great fire in his unmeaning eye, there was yet a quiet self-reliance about him extremely imposing, and which, as I thought, reached back of any temporary sufflation as tyrant of Rivas, and was based upon perennial character. Nor is it contrary, so far as I know, to the laws of psychology, for a man to be endued with all the self-reliance of Bonaparte, with, at the same time, an unusually short gift of the great man's marvellous insight, military or other.

Such an all-pervading demoralized spirit amongst the men as this I have slightly marked was sure to be contagious; and I am persuaded that there were few of us who came down there with enthusiasm or admiration for General Walker, but lost most of it during our first days' mixture in Rivas.

At the end of some six or eight days, our company came up from the Transit road, without the California passengers having as yet made their appearance. General Walker was expecting by this steamer, so long due on the Atlantic side, a large body of recruits with cannon, bombs, and other military stores, whose arrival would put him in condition to attack the enemy at Granada. He began to grow uneasy; and at length sent an armed row-boat across the lake to the head of the Rio San Juan to get intelligence. The little party which held that river were thought to be in no danger behind the walls of San Carlos and Castillo, and still further protected by the impenetrable forests which stretched backward from either bank; but now it began to be whispered that General Walker had committed a fatal blunder in not using the surest means to keep his only communication with the Atlantic open.

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