However, liquor being plenty amongst the
hotel-keepers at Virgin Bay, the officers thought it a good place to get
drunk in,--and many spent the night in that endeavor, and in playing
poker; so that in the morning, walking down to the lake to water my
mule, I met a colonel and a general staggering into quarters, rubbing
their eyes sullenly, having just lifted themselves from the street,
where the honest god Bacchus, as a poet calls him, had put them to bed
the night before.
The steamer "San Carlos" still lay over at the island, under shadow of
the volcano. The other probably lay at San Jorge, by the enemy. The old
brig formerly anchored at Virgin Bay having been burned, there was now
no hope of retaking these steamers, unless the party of Texans, which we
had by this time heard was fighting its way up the Rio San Juan, should
succeed in getting upon the lake with a boat from the river. But to-day
we came near reaching the top of this hope unexpectedly. For whilst we
still delayed in Virgin Bay, smoke began to rise from the chimneys of
the "San Carlos," and in proper time she turned her prow and came across
the water directly toward us.
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