Carleton Watkins Canoa!--Canoa!
named Carmichael from Montgomery County, NY, he went up the Bogota River[35] and walked some thirty-nine miles under a hot sun. He purchased the vessel, the Emma, and loaded her with supplies—rice, potatoes, flour, sugar, dried beef, etc. . . .The supplies and the little Emma were sold at a profit."[36]
The description is tantalizingly specific. The journey on foot was stated to be exactly thirty-nine miles (not "forty," nor even "about forty") and the return by sea took five days. However, the isthmus of Panama was a very undeveloped region and there was no port or settlement within a hundred mile radius of Panama City large enough to sequester a small schooner and be a source for North American staples such as rice, potatoes, flour, sugar, dried beef, etc. The closest such place would have been the port of Callao, Peru, a distance of twelve hundred miles south of Panama City.
A further element of tragic mystery is established when we learn that Collis's companion on the Emma adventure, "Carmichael" was not one of the Otsego County boys, as would be expected, but a "young man"[37] who hailed from north of Oneonta. Almost forty years after the events, Collis told the sad story of how Carmichael died to Bancroft's scribe, who reported it as follows:
"Carmichael, in the meantime had been attacked with brain fever and was delirious during the five days passage back [in the Emma by sea] to Panama [City]. Huntington nursed him all the way, but he sick man died soon after they reached Panama [City] and was buried there."[38]
Collis was back from the Emma adventure no later than May 9 when he wrote his brother, Solon, a letter from Panama City, where he reports ". . .death is carrying off the Americans most fearfully. . .from eight to ten deaths a day,"[39] but he fails to mention the demise of his friend, Carmichael.[40] The contradictions and omissions in the Emma story lead us to believe there is a lot about the incident that we do not know. We can only speculate on what the personal relationship between Collis and the man named Carmichael could have been given the fact that he was still prominent in Collis's memory forty years after the incident, and, is the only person in Collis's memoir of Panama who is referenced by name. Hidden in the Emma