A TRIP TO PANAMA AND DARIEN.

The Government of the United States of Colombia in its act of Concession to the Panama Canal Company provided that it should give to the latter "gratuitement et avec toutes les mines qu'ils pourront contenir" 500,000 hectares of land.

Some of the conditions attached to this grant were, that the land should be selected within certain limits and surveyed by the Canal Company; that a topographical map should be made of the areas surveyed and that an amount equal to that surveyed for the canal should also be surveyed for the benefit of the Colombian Government. It was also further agreed that it would not be necessary to complete the canal before any of the land should be granted, but that it would be given at different times in amounts proportional to the amount of work accomplished.

Thus in 1887, the Government agreed to consider that one-half of the work on the canal had been finished and that the canal was consequently entitled to 250,000 hectares of land, upon the completion of the necessary surveys, etc.

The land was eventually chosen partly in Darien and partly in Chiriqui as follows:

In Darien three lots, one between the Paya and Mangle rivers, one between the Maria and Pirri rivers, the two amounting to 100,000 hectares, and one lot of 25,000 hectares between the Yape and Pucro rivers.

In Chiriqui, which is a Province of Panama just east of Costa Rica, two lots were chosen amounting to 125,000 hectares, one between the Sigsola and Rabalo rivers, and the other between the Catabella and San Pedro rivers.

The Canal Company wanted the title to the land in order that it might be used as collateral security in bolstering up the finances of the corporation, and the Colombian Government was doubtless very willing to let the Canal Company have this amount or as much more as was wanted, both parties being equally aware of the valueless character of the land for any practical purposes.

My services were engaged in 1888 in connection with the astronomical work incident to the survey of these grants and it was intended that I should visit both Darien and Chiriqui, but the contract term expired about the time of the completion of the work in Darien, which was taken up first, and it was deemed prudent for various reasons, the chief of them being the unhealthiness of the locality at that season of the year, about the middle of April, not to remain longer on the Isthmus. If it had been possible to work as expeditiously as in this country there would have been ample time to have completed the necessary astronomical work for both surveys, and without understanding men and methods peculiar to a tropical country I started out with this expectation, but soon found out that any efforts looking towards expediting any particular matter were not only useless but were detrimentally reactive upon the person putting forward such efforts. Thus it was nearly the first of March before I reached Darien, having sailed from New York a month previously. Passage was had from Panama to Darien in a steamer chartered for the purpose. Sailing across the Bay of Panama and entering the Tuyra River at Boca Chica, we ascended the river as far as the village Real de St. Marie. At this point the steamer was abandoned and further transportation was had in canoes.

Darien is a province of the State of Panama and its boundaries as given by Lieut. Sullivan in his comprehensive work on "Problem of Interoceanic Communication," are as follows: "The Atlantic coast line is included between Point San Blas and Cape Tiburon; that of the Pacific extends from the mouth of the Bayano to Point Ardita. The eastern boundary is determined by the main Cordillera in its sweep across the Isthmus from a position of close proximity to the Pacific, near Point Ardita, to a similar position near Tiburon, on the Atlantic. The valleys of the Mandinga and Mamoni-Bayano determine its western limit."

The Darien hills as seen from the Atlantic side present to the view an apparently solid ridge of mountains, although there are in reality many low passes which are concealed by projecting spurs.

The dividing ridge hugs close to the Atlantic, and the rivers, of which there are a great many on this side, plunge abruptly to the sea. On the Pacific side the rivers have a much longer distance to flow before reaching the sea, and the territory bordering on the ocean is low and swampy. The tidal limit of the Tuyra River is nearly fifty miles from its mouth, and on this river and many of its tributaries one can travel many miles inland before ground sufficiently solid to land upon can be found. The vegetation within this low lying area is thick and closely matted together, and this fact taken in connection with the swampy character of the ground, makes travel on foot through any portion of it exceedingly difficult. Therefore the various rivers, which form a very complex system and penetrate everywhere are the natural highways of the country. The chief rivers on the Pacific side are the Tuyra and Boyano with their numerous tributaries and on the Atlantic watershed is the Atrato.

A peculiarity noticed at Real de St. Marie, which is at the junction of the Pyrrhi and Tuyra rivers and at which point the tide has a rise and fall of twelve or fifteen feet, was that at low tide it was impossible to enter the mouth of the Pyrrhi with a boat, while five or six miles up the stream there was always a good supply of flowing water and at double that distance it became a mountain torrent.

Outside of the swampy area the character of the country is rough and mountainous. The valleys are narrow and the ridges exceedingly sharp, the natural result of a great rain fall. The hills are able to resist the continued wasting effect of the vast volumes of descending water only by their thick mantle of accumulated vegetation, and were it not for this protection the many months of continuous annual rain would long ago have produced a leveling effect that would have made unnecessary the various attempts of man to pierce the Isthmian mountains and form an artificial strait.

The ridges are sometimes level for a short distance, but are generally broken and are made up of a succession of well rounded peaks. These peaks are always completely covered with trees and from the top of the sharpest of them it is impossible to get a view of the surrounding country. The highest point climbed was about 2,000 feet above sea level and the highest peak in Darien is Mt. Pyrrhi which is between three and four thousand.

Darien has been the scene of a great deal of surveying and exploration from the time that Columbus, in 1503, coasted along its shores, hoping to find a strait connecting the two oceans, up to the present time. Balboa, in 1510, discovered the Pacific by crossing the Darien mountains from Caledonia Bay. This discovery taken in connection with the broad indentations of the land noted by Columbus, led the old world to believe in the existence of a strait, and the entire coast on each side of the new world was diligently searched. The Cabots, Ponce de Leon and Cortez interested themselves in this search and it was not until about 1532 that all expectations of finding the strait were abandoned. The idea of a direct natural communication between the oceans being thus dispelled, the question of an artificial junction arose, and in 1551 a Spanish historian recommended to Philip II. of Spain the desirability of an attempt to join the oceans by identically the same routes to which the attention of the whole civilized portion of the world is now being drawn, that is, Tehauntepec, Nicaragua and Panama. From this time up to the commencement of the work of the Isthmian expeditions sent out by the United States, and which lasted from 1870 to 1875, but little geographical knowledge relative to Darien was obtained. The United States expeditions undoubtedly did a great amount of valuable exploration and surveying, and while the names of Strain, Truxton, Selfridge and Lull will always be held in high esteem for what they accomplished in this direction, still it is to be regretted that with all the resources at their command they did not make a complete map of the country. And just here I want to bring forward the suggestion that all that has been accomplished and more, could have been accomplished if the various explorers had known, or practically utilized, a fact that my own experience and that of other topographers, in this country and Darien, has impressed upon me; and that is, that it is easier in a rough and mountainous country to travel on the ridge than in the valley. In Darien they were looking for a low pass in the Cordillera and this was what should have first been sought, directly. Having found the low passes the valleys of the streams draining therefrom could have then been examined, and thus all necessary information could have been obtained and the subject exhausted. The plan followed by the Isthmian expeditions was to ascend a stream with the hope of finding a suitable pass. The pass might be found or it might not, and if not, so much labor as far as the direct solution of the problem was concerned was lost. A pass of low altitude was of primary importance and should have been sought for in an exhaustive way.

Humboldt said in substance, "Do not waste your time in running experimental lines across. Send out a party fully equipped, which keeping down the dividing ridge the whole length of the Isthmus, by this means can obtain a complete knowledge of the hypsometrical and geological conditions of the dam that obstructs the travel and commerce of the world." But strange to say this plan suggested by such an eminent authority as Humboldt and so strongly recommended by common sense, has never been followed, and to-day after all the money that has been spent and the lives lost in explorations in Darien, there is not sufficient data collected to prove conclusively that there does not now exist some route for an interoceanic canal that possesses merits superior to any at present known. It is true the dividing ridge would be difficult to follow on account of the great number of confusing spurs, but I think I am safe in saying that starting from the summit of the main ridge at Culebra pass on the Isthmus of Panama, the dividing ridge extending to the pass at the head waters of the Atrato could be exhaustively followed and studied with as much facility as could either the Tuyra or Atrato rivers, embracing with each their respective tributaries.

I traveled on some of the high dividing ridges in Darien, and did not find that progress was at all difficult, and especially noted the fact of the absence of tangled undergrowth and matted vines which is so characteristic of the Darien forests generally.

Now a few words about the inhabitants of Panama and Darien, and in referring to these I mean the native inhabitants and not the indiscriminate gathering of all nationalities that were attracted by the Panama Canal.

In Central and South America, as in North America, the aboriginal inhabitant was the Indian. When the Spaniards first attempted to colonize Darien they were met and resisted by the native Indian just as our forefathers were in Virginia and Massachusetts, and as with us so in Panama and Darien the Indians have been driven back by degrees from the shores of both oceans until now they are found only in the far interior.

They resemble our Indians in appearance, but are smaller. They are averse to manual labor and live almost entirely by hunting and fishing, although they sometimes have small plantations of plantains, bananas, oranges and lemons. The Spaniards in settling in the new country brought very few women with them and the Colombian of to-day is the result of the admixture of the Indian and Spanish blood, and has many of the characteristics of each race. In addition to the Indian and Colombian there are in Panama and Darien a comparatively large number of negroes, who were originally imported as slaves by the early Spaniards, and who now constitute by far the larger portion of the inhabitants of Darien, being found usually in villages along the valleys of the larger streams. In contrast to the Colombian and Indian they are large in stature and make excellent laborers.

The principal villages in Darien, as Yovisa, Pinagana and Real de St. Marie, are inhabited exclusively by the negroes, with the exception of a Spanish judge in each, who exercises great authority. Besides being a judge in civil and criminal cases, he practically controls everything in his particular village, as all contracts for labor are negotiated with him and settlement for services made through him.

Upon reaching Darien the first work assigned me was the survey and exploration of the Pyrrhi river. This survey was made for two purposes: primarily, to determine if any of the country bordering upon it was of a sufficiently desirable character to include it within the grant, and secondly, to secure data for the general topographical map. My instructions were to proceed as far south as latitude 7° 30'. The ascent of the river was made in canoes until the frequency of rapids made it necessary to abandon them, and then the journey was continued on foot, generally wading in the middle of the stream, as the undergrowth was too thick to admit of progress along the banks. Sometimes the water was very shallow; at other times, where it had been backed up by dams of porphyritic rock, it reached above the waist, and near the end of the journey where the river ran between vertical walls of great height it was necessary to swim in order to get beyond this cañon.

The survey of this river was satisfactorily accomplished in about a week. The method adopted for the survey was to take compass bearings and to estimate distances. These courses and distances were plotted as they were taken and thus the topographical and other features could be readily sketched in connection with them. To check and control this work, observations were taken every day at noon with a sextant, on the sun, for latitude and time, and at night circum-meridian altitudes of stars were obtained when possible.

Thus a number of rivers were surveyed—the Maria, Tucuti, Yovisa and other tributaries of the Tuyra. When it was found that a sufficiently correct idea of the country for topographical purposes could not be obtained by simply meandering the water courses, lines or trochas were cut through the forest from stream to stream, and where two streams thus connected were tributaries of a common river, all of which had been previously surveyed, a closed figure was obtained, an adjustment for errors of closure made, and by putting together the topographical data obtained by the four lines, there was generally found to be sufficient information to give a satisfactory though of course a crude delineation of the included area.

After a number of rivers had been examined with more or less accuracy in this way, it was finally decided that the area for one portion of the grant best suited for the purposes of the Canal Company lay on the right bank of the Tuyra river, and that the portion of the river which lay between the mouths of two of its tributaries, the Rio Yape and the Rio Pucro, should be one of the boundaries of the grant. The Yape and Pucro have courses approximately parallel to each other and at right angles to the Rio Tuyra, and these streams were also chosen as boundary lines, so that the grant would have the three rivers as natural boundaries, and the fourth and closing boundary was to be a straight line from a certain point on the Yape to the Pucro, so located as to include within the four boundaries an area approximately equal to the amount of the grant, which in this particular case was 25,000 hectares. The problem then presented was: given three rivers for three boundaries of a figure to establish a fourth and artificial line, completing the figure in such a way that it should contain a given area, and also to procure data for a topographical map of the country surveyed.

This survey was put under my direction and I was instructed to proceed to a point overlooking the Tuyra river, between the Rio Yape and the Rio Pucro, near the mouth of the Rio Capite, for the purpose of establishing a base camp. Leaving Real de St. Marie on the evening of March 15th, with a fleet of twelve canoes and about thirty native laborers, we reached the site for the camp in two days. After landing everything, the work of clearing away trees and underbrush over an area sufficiently large for the camp was commenced. The men worked willingly with axe and machéte, and soon the forest receded and left bare a semi-circular space facing the river.

Two houses were needed and without saw, nail or hammer the construction was commenced and prosecuted rapidly. Straight trees about six inches in diameter and twenty feet long were cut and planted vertically in holes dug out with the machéte, and horizontal pieces of a smaller diameter were securely fastened on with long tough strips of bark, and thus a square or oblong frame was fashioned. The horizontal pieces were placed at a distance of about three feet from the ground, on which a flooring was eventually laid, and at the top of the frame where the slope of the roof began. On the top pieces other poles were laid and fastened across and lengthwise, and on these the men stood while making the skeleton of the roof. The latter was made very steep for better protection against the rain. After the ridge pole was put in position other smaller poles were fastened on parallel and perpendicular to it so that the whole roof was divided up into squares, and it was finally completed by weaving in thick bunches of palm and other leaves in such a way as to make it thoroughly water-proof. For our purpose no protection on the sides of the structures other than the projecting eaves was considered necessary. A floor of poles laid very close together was put in one house, the one used for sleeping purposes, and in the other a table for eating, writing, draughting, etc., was made. Thus in two or three days the place was made thoroughly habitable, and men were detailed to see that the grounds, etc., were always kept thoroughly clean and in a good sanitary condition, a very necessary precaution in a tropical country. The forest afforded game, the river an abundance of fish; bananas, oranges, lemons and pineapples were easily procured from the natives, who also furnished material for a poultry yard, and thus while located at camp Capite, situated as it was on a picturesque spot overlooking two swiftly flowing rivers, with good drinking water, a commissary department well stocked, a French cook who would have done himself credit anywhere, I could not but think that heretofore pictures of life in Darien had been too somberly drawn, and that where so much suffering and sickness had prevailed among the early explorers it was because they had gone there not properly outfitted, and because carried away with ambitious enthusiasm their adventurous spirit had caused them often to undertake that which their calmer judgment would not have dictated; and that to these causes as much as to the unhealthy condition of the locality was due their many hardships. Several days were spent here getting time and latitude observations and in mapping out plans for the work. It was decided that the mouths of the Yape, Capite and Pucro and other points along these rivers, such as mouths of tributary streams, etc., should be astronomically located, that these points should be connected by compass lines, and also that cross lines should be run at various points from the Yape to the Capite and from the Capite to the Pucro. It was further decided that as time was limited it would be impracticable to run out the fourth side of the figure that would contain the grant, as the country around the headwaters of the streams was known to be exceedingly rough and mountainous, and to follow any straight line would necessarily involve a great amount of laborious cutting and climbing.

Furthermore, in order to know just what direction this line should follow it would be first necessary to make a connected preliminary survey of the three rivers; to plot this survey and then by inspection of the map and consideration of various starting points to decide on the most available location of the fourth side.

Instead of this it was considered best and sufficient to arbitrarily adopt a certain waterfall on the Rio Yape, the location of which was approximately known from a reconnoisance previously made, as the initial point of the line connecting the upper Yape with the Pucro and closing the figure. Thus it only became necessary, as far as the boundaries were concerned, to run a line along the Tuyra, joining the mouths of the Yape and Pucro; to run a line from the mouth of the Yape to the waterfall above referred to; and to run up the Pucro sufficiently far to be certain that when the work was completed and plotted, a line drawn from the position of the waterfall on the map in such a way as to include the desired area would intersect the Pucro at some point within the limit of what had been surveyed. I have not time to go into the details of the various trips by land and water necessary to carry out these plans.

Before starting it was known exactly what was necessary to be done; each assistant engineer had his work clearly mapped out before him, and each one faithfully performed the task allotted to him, so that the whole survey was brought to a successful completion. This brought to a close all the work in Darien, the other tracts having been surveyed before my arrival and consequently the whole expedition returned to Panama, and soon afterwards I returned to this country.

In going to and returning from Darien, I passed twice over the Panama railroad and along the line of the Panama canal, and I have thought that a few facts relative to the canal and railroad might prove of interest to the Geographical Society.

Published herewith is a sketch showing the location of the railroad, canal and tributary drainage, and a profile along the axis of the canal.

The first surveys for the railroad were made in 1849, and it was probably the excitement of the California gold fever that brought about its construction at this particular time. Ground was broken in January, 1850, and the last rail was laid in January, 1855.

The length of the road is 47.6 miles and it crosses the dividing summit at an elevation of 263 feet above the mean level of the Atlantic ocean. The maximum grade is 60 feet to the mile. Soon after the road was built accurate levels were run to determine the difference, if any, between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and it was found that the mean levels were about the same, although there are of course variations owing to local causes, and considerable differences of height at times, owing to differences of tides in the Atlantic and Pacific. At Aspinwall the greatest rise is only 1.6 feet, while at Panama there is at times a difference of over 21 feet between high and low water. The cost of the railroad was $75,000,000.

The existence of the railroad was probably the deciding cause that led Lesseps to the adoption of this location of the proposed canal.

Now that the scheme has practically failed it is very easy to see and appreciate the difficulties that lay in the way of building a canal at this particular place; and it certainly seems that if sound engineering principles had been adopted at least some of these difficulties could have been understood and properly combatted. The whole scheme, however, from an engineering standpoint, seems to have been conducted in the most blundering manner.

Lesseps is a diplomat and financier, but in no sense a great engineer. In the construction of the Suez canal, the questions of diplomacy and finance were the most difficult to settle, while the engineering problems were comparatively simple. In Panama the opposite conditions prevailed. Concessions were freely given him by the Colombian government and money freely offered him by the French people, but he never grasped or comprehended the difficulties that nature had planted in his way, and these only seemed to occur to him when they blocked progress in a certain direction. The Paris Conference, controlled by Lesseps, decided on the 29th of May, 1879, that the construction of an interoceanic canal was possible and that it should be built from the Gulf of Limon to the Bay of Panama.

The tide-level scheme was adopted and the following dimensions decided upon, viz: Length, 45.5 miles; depth, 28 feet; width at water line 164 feet, and width at bottom 72 feet.

The route determined upon was about the same as that of the railroad, that is along the valleys of the Chagres and Obispo, crossing the divide at the Culebra pass and then descending to the Pacific along the course of the Rio Grande. The profile which is reproduced from "Science," shows the state of progress on January 1st, 1888, and the amount of excavation that has been done since that time would make but a slight difference in the appearance of the profile. The portion shown in black is what has been removed along the axis of the canal and represents an expenditure of over $385,000,000 and seven years' labor. The reasons that make the scheme impracticable are briefly these, some of which were known before the work was commenced, and all of which should have been understood.

The first great difficulty is in cutting through the ridge culminating at Culebra where the original surface was 354 feet above the bed of the proposed canal. It was never known what the geological formation of this ridge was until the different strata were laid bare by the workman's pick, and the slope adopted, 1½ to 1, was found to be insufficient in the less compact formations, even at the comparatively shallow depth that was reached, and many and serious landslides were of frequent occurrence.

Another serious difficulty was the disposition of the excavated material, for upon the completion of a sea-level course this channel would naturally drain all the country hitherto tributary to the Chagres and Rio Grande, and any substance not removed to a great distance would eventually be washed back again into the canal. But perhaps the greatest difficulty was in the control of the immense surface drainage. The Chagres river during the dry season is, where it crosses the line of the canal near Gamboa, only about two feet deep and 250 feet wide, but during a flood the depth becomes as much as forty feet, the width 1,500 feet, and the volume of water discharged 160,000 cubic feet per second. The bed of the river is here 42 feet above sea level, or 70 feet above what the bottom of canal would have been. Now add to this a 40-foot flood and we have a water surface one hundred and ten feet above the bed of the canal.

In order to keep this immense volume of water from the canal it was proposed to build a large dam at Gamboa, and to convey the water by an entirely different and artificial route to the Atlantic. It is impossible to show on the map the whole drainage area of the Chagres, but a rough calculation shows it to be about 500 square miles. This seems a small total drainage area, but when it is considered that the annual rainfall is about 12 FEET, that this rainfall is confined to about one half the year, and that in six consecutive hours there has been a precipitation of over six inches of rain, some idea of the amount of water that finds its way through the Chagres river during the wet season may be formed.

As I said before it was proposed to protect the canal from the waters of the upper Chagres by an immense dam at Gamboa, and for the purpose of controlling the water tributary to the lower Chagres two additional canals or channels were to be constructed on either side of the main canal. Thus, as the river is very tortuous and the axis of the canal crossed it twenty-five or thirty times, many deviations of the former became necessary. In some places the canal was to occupy the bed of the river and in others it cut across bends leaving the river for its original natural purpose of drainage. The difficulty in retaining the floods in these constructed channels would of course be immense, especially in some of the cases where the water rushing along its natural channel is suddenly turned at right angles into an artificial one. Thus it is clear that aside from the enormous expense incident to the removal of the immense amount of earth and rock necessary to complete the canal, that granting all this accomplished, it would be practically impossible to maintain a sea-level canal by reason of the difficulty in controlling the Chagres and preventing the canal from filling up.

The canal company finally came to the conclusion that the sea-level scheme was impracticable and it was abandoned, and plans were prepared for a lock system. As seen on the profile there were ten locks proposed, five on each side of the summit level. The summit level was to be 150 feet above sea level and consequently each lock would have a lift of thirty feet. The profile was constructed especially to show the amount remaining to be executed to complete the lock system, and a mere inspection will show the relative amount of completed and uncompleted area along the axis of the canal. To complete the summit cut it is still necessary to excavate 111 feet, 93 feet having already been excavated, through a horizontal distance of 3300 feet. The width of cut at top surface for the required depth at a slope of 1½ to 1 would be 750 feet, but as I said before, at this slope landslides were of frequent occurrence and the slope would probably have to be increased to at least 2 to 1.

Granting the necessary excavations made, there would be still the problem of the control of the Chagres river and the water supply for the summit level to provide for. At first it was thought that the water supply could be obtained from the storage of the waters of the Chagres and Obispo, but this idea was eventually abandoned, either from a belief in the insufficiency of the water supply during the dry season, or from difficulties in the way of conveying the water to the summit level.

Then it was that the advice of Mr. Eiffel, a noted French engineer, was sought, and after a visit to the Isthmus he proposed that the summit level should be supplied by pumping from the Pacific. A contract was immediately made with Eiffel, who was heralded all over the world as the man who would save the canal, and immediately a positive day, the seventh that had been announced, was fixed for the opening of the great canal.

I do not know just how much work was done towards perfecting the system for pumping, but probably very little was ever accomplished in this direction, as soon after this scheme was thought of the available funds of the canal company began to be very scarce, and there has been since then a general collapse of work all along the line until now it is entirely suspended. From what I have said and from what can be seen from the profile, it will be readily understood that as far as the sea-level project is concerned the amount done is not much more than a scraping of the surface, relatively speaking, and that what has been done is in places where the obstacles were fewest.

In regard to the lock canal about one third of the necessary excavation has been made along the axis of the canal, but taking into consideration other requirements necessary for the completion of the scheme, I should estimate, roughly, that probably only one sixth of the whole amount of work had been accomplished. The question now naturally arises as to what will be the probable future of this great enterprise.

The French people have seen the scheme fail under Lesseps in whom they had the most unbounded confidence, and it is not likely that they will raise any more money to be put in it as a business enterprise under any other management. Saddled as it is with a debt of nearly four hundred millions of dollars, it would be difficult to convince any one that it could ever prove to be a paying investment. Nor do I think that any American or English corporation can be organized that could obtain such concessions from Lesseps as would make the scheme an inviting field for capitalists, and thus my opinion is that the "Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique de Panama" has irretrievably collapsed, and that the canal will remain, as it is now, the most gigantic failure of the age.

ACROSS NICARAGUA WITH TRANSIT AND MACHÉTE.

The action of this National Society, with its array of distinguished members, in turning its attention for an hour to a region which has interested the thinking world for more than three centuries gives me peculiar pleasure and satisfaction.

I propose this evening to touch lightly and briefly upon the natural features of Nicaragua, to note the reasons for the interest which has always centered upon her, to trace the growth of the great project with which her name is inseparably linked; to show you somewhat in detail, the life, work, and surroundings of an engineer within her borders; and finally to show you the result that is to crown the engineer's work in her wide spreading forests and fertile valleys.

That portion of Central America now included within the boundaries of our sister republic Nicaragua, has almost from the moment that European eyes looked upon it attracted and charmed the attention of explorers, geographers, great rulers, students, and men of sagacious and far reaching intellect.

From Gomara the long list of famous names which have linked themselves with Nicaragua reaches down through Humboldt, Napoleon III., Ammen, Lull, Menocal and Taylor.

The shores were first seen by Europeans in 1502, when Columbus in his fourth voyage rounded the cape which forms the northeast angle of the state, and called it "Gracias á Dios," which name it bears to-day. Columbus then coasted southward along the eastern shore.

In 1522, Avila, penetrated from the Pacific coast of the country to the lakes and the cities of the Indian inhabitants. Previous to this the country was occupied by a numerous population of Aztecs, or nearly allied people, as the quantities of specimens of pottery, gold images, and other articles found upon the islands and along the shores of the lakes, prove conclusively.

In 1529 the connection of the lakes with the Caribbean sea was discovered, and during the last half of the eighteenth century a considerable commerce was carried on by this route between Granada on Lake Nicaragua and the cities of Nombre de Dios, Cartagena, Havana and Cadiz.

In 1821 Nicaragua threw off the rule of the mother country and in 1823 formed with her sister Spanish colonies, a confederation. This confederation was dissolved in 1838, and since then Nicaragua has conducted her own affairs. In point of advancement, financial solidity and stability of government she stands to-day nearly, if not quite, at the head of the Central American republics.

Nicaragua extends over a little more than four degrees each of latitude and longitude, from about N. 11° to N. 15° and from 83° 20' W. to 87° 40' W.

Its longest side is the northern border from the Gulf of Fonseca northeasterly to Cape Gracias á Dios, two hundred and ninety miles. From that cape south to the mouth of the Rio San Juan, the Caribbean coast line, is two hundred and fifty miles. Nearly due west across the Isthmus to Salinas Bay on the Pacific, is one hundred and twenty miles. The Pacific coast line extends thence northwest one hundred and sixty miles.

In point of size Nicaragua stands first among the Central American republics having an area of 51,600 square miles. It is larger than either the State of New York or Pennsylvania, about the size of Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland combined, and is one-fourth as large as France or Germany. Its population numbers about 300,000.

The Gulf of Fonseca, at the northern, and Salinas Bay at the southern extremity of the coast line are two of the finest and largest harbors on the Pacific coast of Central America. About midway between them is the fine harbor of Corinto, and there are also several other ports along the coast, at San Juan del Sur, Brito and Tamarindito. On the Caribbean coast no harbors suitable for large vessels exist, but numerous lagoons and bights afford the best of shelter for coasting vessels.

The central portion of Nicaragua is traversed, from north to south, by the main cordillera of the isthmus, which, here greatly reduced in altitude, consists merely of a confused mass of peaks and ridges with an average elevation scarcely exceeding 1,000 feet.

Between this mountainous region and the Caribbean shore stretches a low level country, covered with a dense forest, rich in rubber, cedar, mahogany and dye woods. It is drained by several large rivers whose fertile intervales will yield almost incredible harvests of plantains, bananas, oranges, limes, and other tropical fruits.

West of the mountain zone is a broad valley, about one hundred and twenty-five feet above the level of the sea, extending from the Gulf of Fonseca, southeasterly to the frontier of Costa Rica. The greater portion of this valley is occupied by two lakes, Managua and Nicaragua. The latter one hundred and ten miles long by fifty or sixty miles wide is really an inland sea, being one-half as large as Lake Ontario and twice as large as Long Island Sound. These lakes, with the rainfall of the adjacent valleys, drain through the noble San Juan river, which discharges into the Caribbean at Greytown, at the southeast angle of the country.

Between the Pacific and these lakes is a narrow strip of land, from twelve to thirty miles in width, stretching from the magnificent plain of Leon with its cathedral city, in the north, to the rolling indigo fields and the cacao plantations which surround the garden city of Rivas, in the south.

The lowest pass across the backbone of the New World, from Behring's Strait to the Straits of Magellan, extends along the San Juan valley and across the Lajas—Rio Grande "divide," between Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific; the summit of this divide is only one hundred and fifty-two feet above the sea and forty-two feet above the lake.

Nicaragua presents yet another unique physical feature. Lying between the elevated mountain masses of Costa Rica on the south and Honduras on the north, the average elevation of its own mountain backbone hardly one thousand feet, it is the natural thoroughfare of the beneficent northeast Trades. These winds sweep in from the Caribbean across the Atlantic slopes, break the surface of the lakes into sparkling waves, and then disappear over the Pacific, aerating, cooling and purifying the country, destroying the germs of disease and making Nicaragua the healthiest region in Central America.

The scenery of the eastern portion of the country is of the luxuriant sameness peculiar to all tropical countries.

In the vicinity of the lakes and between them and the Pacific, the isolated mountain peaks which bound the plain of Leon on the northeast; the mountain islands of Madera and Ometepe; the towering turquoise masses of the Costa Rican volcanoes; and the distant blue mountains of Segovia and Matagalpa, visible beyond the sparkling waters of the lakes, feast the eye with scenic beauties, unsurpassed elsewhere in grandeur, variety and richness of coloring.

The products of the country are numerous despite the fact that its resources are as yet almost entirely undeveloped.

Maize, plantains, bananas, oranges, limes, and indeed every tropical fruit, thrive in abundance. Coffee is grown in large quantities in the hilly region in the northwest; sugar, tobacco, cotton, rice, indigo and cacao plantations abound between the lakes and the Pacific; potatoes and wheat thrive in the uplands of Segovia; the Chontales region east of Lake Nicaragua, a great grazing section, supports thousands of head of cattle; and back of this are the gold and silver districts of La Libertad, Javali and others.

Numerous trees and plants of medicinal and commercial value are found in the forests. Game is plentiful and of numerous varieties; deer, wild hog, wild turkey, manatee and tapir; and fish abound in the streams and rivers. The temperature of Nicaragua is equable. The extreme variation, recorded by Childs, was 23° observed near the head of the San Juan in May, 1851.

The southeast wind predominates during the rainy season. Occasionally, in June or October as a rule, the wind hauls round to southwest and a temporal results, heavy rain sometimes falling for a week or ten days.

The equatorial cloud-belt, following the sun north in the spring, is late reaching Nicaragua, and the wet season is shorter than in regions farther south. The average rainfall, based on the records of nine years, is 64.42 inches. The "trades" blow almost throughout the year. Strong during the dry season and freshening during the day; the wind comes from the east-northeast, and blows usually for four to five days, when, hauling to the east or southeast for a day or two, it calms down, then goes back to northeast and rises again.

The Spanish discoverers of the great Lake Nicaragua, coming upon it from the Pacific, and noting the fluctuations of level caused by the action of the wind upon its broad surface, mistook these fluctuations for tides and felt assured that some broad strait connected it with the North Sea. Later, when Machuca had discovered the grand river outlet of the lake, and the restless searching of other explorers in every bay and inlet along both sides of the American isthmus had extinguished forever the ignis fatuus "Secret of the Strait," Gomara pointed this out as one of the most favorable localities for an artificial communication between the North and South Seas.

It was not until 1851, however, that an accurate and scientific survey of a ship canal route was made by Col. O. W. Childs.

This survey which showed the lake of Nicaragua to be only one hundred and seven feet above the sea, and the maximum elevation between the lake and the Pacific to be only forty-one feet, exhibited the advantages of this route so clearly and in such an unanswerable manner that it has never since been possible to ignore it.

In 1870, under the administration of General Grant and largely through the unceasing efforts of Admiral Ammen, the United States began a series of systematic surveys of all the routes across the American isthmus from Tehuantepec to the head waters of the Rio Atrato; and six years later, with the plans and results of all these surveys before it, a commission composed of General Humphreys, Chief of Engineers, U. S. Army; Hon. Carlile Patterson, Superintendent U. S. Coast Survey; and Rear-Admiral Daniel Ammen, Chief of Bureau of Navigation, U. S. Navy; gave its verdict in favor of the Nicaragua route.

The International Canal Congress at Paris, in 1879, had such convincing information placed before it that it was forced, in spite of its prejudices, to admit that in the advantages it offered for the construction of a lock canal, the Nicaragua route was superior to any other across the American isthmus.

In 1876, and again in 1880 Civil Engineer A. G. Menocal, U. S. N., the chief engineer of previous governmental surveys, resurveyed and revised portions of the route, and in 1885 the same engineer, assisted by myself, surveyed an entirely new line on the Caribbean side, from Greytown to the San Juan river, near the mouth of the San Carlos.

On the eastern side of Nicaragua, all these surveys (except the last), were confined almost entirely to the San Juan river, and its immediate banks; and the country on either side beyond these narrow limits was, up to 1885, almost entirely unknown. Between Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific, however, every pass from the Bay of Salinas to the Gulf of Fonseca had been examined.

In 1885 the party of which I was a member pushed a nearly direct line across the country from a point on the San Juan, about three miles below the mouth of the Rio San Carlos, to Greytown, a distance of thirty-one miles by our line, as compared with fifty-six miles by the river and forty-two miles by the former proposed canal route.

In December, 1887, I went out in charge of a final surveying expedition, consisting of some forty engineers and assistants and one hundred and fifty laborers, to resurvey and stake out the line of the canal preparatory to the work of construction.

The information and personal experience gained in previous surveys made it possible, without loss of time, to locate the various sections of the expedition in the most advantageous manner, and push the work with the greatest speed consistent with accuracy.

The location lines of the previous surveys were taken as a preliminary line and carefully re-measured and re-levelled. Preliminary offsets were run; the location made, and staked off upon the ground; offsets run in from three hundred to one hundred feet apart, extending beyond the slope limits of the canal; borings made at frequent intervals; and all streams gauged.

The result of this work was a series of detail charts and profiles, based upon rigidly checked instrumental data, and covering the entire line from Greytown to Brito, from which to estimate quantities and cost.

As may be imagined by those familiar with tropical countries, the prosecution of a survey in these regions is an arduous and difficult work, and one demanding special qualifications in the engineer. His days are filled with a succession of surprises, usually disagreeable, and constant happenings of the unexpected. Probably in no other country will the traveler, explorer, or engineer, find such an endless variety of obstacles to his progress.

Every topographical feature of the country is shrouded and hidden under a tropical growth of huge trees and tangled underbrush, so dense that it is impossible for even a strong, active man, burdened with nothing but a rifle, to force himself through it without a short, heavy sword or machéte, with which to cut his way.

Under these circumstances the most observant engineer and expert woodsman may pass within a hundred feet of the base of a considerable hill and not have a suspicion of its existence, or he may be entirely unaware of the proximity of a stream until he is on the point of stepping over the edge of its precipitous banks.

The topography of the country has to be laboriously felt out, much as a blind man familiarizes himself with his surroundings. In doing this work the indispensable instrument, without which the transit, the level, and indeed the engineer himself is of no use, is the national weapon of Nicaragua, the machéte, a short, heavy sword.

As soon as he is able to walk, the son of the Nicaraguan mozo or huléro takes as a plaything a piece of iron hoop or an old knife, and imitates his father with his machéte. As he gets older a broken or worn-down weapon is given him, and when he is able to handle it, a full size machéte is entrusted to him and he then considers himself a man. From that day on, waking or sleeping, our Nicaraguan's machéte is always at his side. With it he cuts his way through the woods; with it he builds his camp and his bed; with it he kills his game and fish; with it at a pinch he shaves himself, or extracts the thorns from his feet; with it he fights his duels, and with it, when he dies, his comrades dig his grave.

When in the field the chief of a party, equipped with a pocket compass and an aneroid barometer, is always skirmishing ahead of the line with a machétero, or axeman, to cut a path for him. A pushing chief, however, speedily dispenses with the machétero and slashes a way for himself much more rapidly.

As soon as he decides where the line is to go the engineer calls to the machéteros and the two best ones immediately begin cutting toward the sound of his voice. They soon slash a narrow path to him, drive a stake where he was standing and then turn back toward the other machéteros, who have been following them, cutting a wider path and clearing away all trees, vines and branches, so that the transit man can see the flag at the stake. The moment the leading machéteros reach him the chief starts off again and by the time the main body of axemen have reached his former position the head machéteros are cutting toward the sound of his voice in a new position.

As soon as the line is cleared the transit man takes his sight and moves ahead to the stake, the chainmen follow and drive stakes every hundred feet, and the leveller follows putting in elevations and cross sections. In this way the work goes on from early morning until nearly dark, stopping about an hour for lunch.

After the day's work comes the dinner, the table graced with wild hog, or turkey, or venison, or all. After dinner the smoke, then the day's notes are worked up and duplicated and all hands get into their nets. For a moment the countless nocturnal noises of the great forest, enlivened perhaps by the scream of a tiger, or the deep, muffled roar of a puma, fall upon drowsy ears, then follows the sleep that always accompanies hard work and good health, till the bull-voiced howling monkeys set the forest echoing with their announcement of the breaking dawn.

In reconnoissance and preliminary work the experienced engineer, is able, in many cases, to avoid obstacles without vitiating the results of his work, but in the final location, in staking out absolute curves and driving tangents thousands of feet long across country, no dodging is possible.

On the hills and elevated ground the engineer can, comparatively speaking, get along quite comfortably, his principal annoyances being the uneven character of the ground, which compels him to set his instrument very frequently, and the necessity of felling some gigantic tree every now and then.

In the valleys and lowlands there is an unceasing round of obstacles. The line may run for some distance over level ground covered with a comparatively open growth, then without warning it encounters the wreck of a fallen tree, and hours are consumed hewing a passage through the mass of broken limbs and shattered trunk, all matted and bound together with vines and shrubbery. A little farther on a stream is crossed, and the line may cross and recross four or five times in the next thousand feet. The engineer must either climb down the steep banks, for the streams burrow deep in the stiff clay of these valleys, ford the stream and climb the opposite bank, or he must fall a tree from bank to bank and cross on its slippery trunk twenty or twenty-five feet above the water.

Either on the immediate bank or in its vicinity is almost certain to be encountered a "saccate" clearing. This may be only one or two hundred feet across or it may be a half a mile. In the former case the "saccate" grass will be ten or fifteen feet in height and so matted and interwoven with vines and briars that a tunnel may be cut through it as through a hedge. If the clearing be large, the tough, wiry grass is no higher than a man's head, and a path has to be mowed through it, while the sun beats down into the furnace-like enclosure till the blade of the machéte becomes almost too hot to touch.

But worse than anything thus far mentioned are the Silico or black palm swamps. Some of these in the larger valleys and near the coast are miles in extent.

Occupied exclusively by the low, thick Silico palms, these swamps are in the wet season absolutely impassable except for monkeys and alligators, and even at the end of the dry season the engineer enters upon one with sinking heart as well as feet, and emerges from it tired and used up in every portion of his anatomy. It is with the utmost difficulty that he finds a practicable place to locate his instrument, generally utilizing the little hummocks formed by the trunks of the clusters of palms, and in moving from point to point he is compelled to wade from knee to shoulder deep in the black mud and water.

General reconnaissances from high trees in elevated localities, simple enough in theory, are by no means easy in a country so miserly with its secrets as this, nor are their results reliable without a great expenditure of time, labor, and patience.

On level, undulating and moderately broken ground, the tops of the trees, though they may be one hundred and fifty feet from the ground, are level as the top of a hedge. Even an isolated hill if it be rounded in shape presents hardly better facilities, the trees at the base and on the sides, in their effort to reach the sunlight grow taller than those on the summit, and there is no one tree that commands all the others.

If however an isolated hill of several hundred feet in height be found, its steep sides culminating in a sharp peak, one day's work by three or four good axmen, in cutting neighboring trees, will prepare the way for a study of the general relief and topography of the adjacent country. If after these preliminaries have been completed the engineer imagines that he has only to climb the tree and sketch what he sees, to obtain reliable knowledge of the country, he is doomed to serious surprises in the future. If he makes the ascent during the middle of the day, he will, after he has cooled off and rested from his exhausting efforts, see spread out before him a shimmering landscape in which the uniform green carpet and the vertical sun combined, have obliterated all outlines except the more prominent irregularities of the terrene, and have blended different mountain ranges, one of which may be several miles beyond the other, into one, of which only the sky profile is distinct. Naturally under these conditions estimates of distance may be half or double the truth.

There are two ways of extracting reliable information from these tree-top reconnaissances. If it be in the rainy season the observer must be prepared to make a day of it, and when he ascends the tree in the morning he takes with him a long light line with which to pull up his coffee and lunch.

Then aided by the successive showers which sweep across the landscape, leaving fragments of mists in the ravines, and hanging grey screens between the different ranges and mountains, bringing out the relief first of this and then of that section, an accurate sketch may gradually be made. The time of passage of a shower from one peak to another, or to the observer, may also be utilized as a by no means to be despised check upon distance estimates.

If it be the dry season, the observer may take his choice between remaining on his perch in the tree from before sunrise to after sunset, or making two ascents, one early in the morning and the other late in the afternoon. In this case the slowly dispersing clouds of morning, and the gradually gathering mists at sunset, together with the reversed lights and shadows at dawn and sunset, bring out very clearly the relief of the terrene, the overlapping of distant ranges, and the course of the larger streams.

This kind of work cannot be delegated to anyone, and besides the arduous labor involved in climbing the huge trees, there are other serious annoyances connected with it. The climber is almost certain to disturb some venomous insect which revenges itself by a savage sting which has to be endured; or he may rend clothes and skin also, on some thorny vine, or another, crushed by his efforts, may exude a juice which will leave him tattooed for days; then, though there may not be a mosquito or fly at the base of the tree, the top will be infested with myriads of minute black flies, which cover hands and face, and with extremely annoying results. On the other hand the explorer may as a compensation have his nostrils filled with the perfume of some brilliant orchid on a neighboring branch; and there is a breezy enjoyment in watching the showers as they rush across the green carpet, and in listening to the roar with which the big drops beat upon the tree tops.

The special phase of field work which fell to my personal lot was entirely reconnaissance, consisting of canoe examinations of all streams in the vicinity of the line of the canal, to determine their sources, character of valley, and approximate water shed; of rapid air-line compass and aneroid trails, to connect one stream, or valley head with another, or furnish a base line for a general sketch plan of a valley; and of studies of the larger features of the terrene, from elevated tree tops.

The last has been already described; in the second the experience was very similar to that of the parties in running main lines. On these occasions three or at most four hardy huléros (rubber hunters) comprised the party, two carrying the blankets, mosquito bars and provisions for several days, and one or two cutting the lightest possible practicable trail and marking prominent trees.

In a day's march of from five to eight miles, and this was the utmost that even such a light, active and experienced party could cover in one day, every possible and some almost impossible kinds of traveling was encountered, and thoroughly exhausted men crept into their bars every night.

The canoe reconnaissances were more agreeable, though some most unpleasant as well as most enjoyable memories are connected with them.

The innumerable large fallen trees which obstruct the streams and over or through which the canoe must be hauled bodily, the almost inevitable capsizing of the canoe, the monotonous red clay banks on either side and the frequent necessity of lying down at night in a bed of mud into which the droves of wild pigs which inhabit these valleys have trampled the clayey soil, are among the disagreeable incidents.

From the head of canoe navigation to their sources the character of these streams is entirely different, and both in 1888 and in 1885 I have followed them far up into mountain gorges, the beauty of which is as fresh in my memory as if I had been there but yesterday.

The crew of the canoe on these reconnaissances usually consisted of three picked men, and when the canoe had been pushed as far up stream as it was possible for it to go, two of the men were left with it while the third and best, slinging the blankets, bars, and a little coffee, sugar, and milk, upon his back pushed on with me. Wading through the shallow water up the bed of the stream, taking bearings and estimating distances, while my huléro followed, ever alert to strike some drowsy beauty of a fish in the clear water; the source of the stream was generally reached in a day, and never did we make preparations to sleep on some bed of clean, yellow sand washed down by the stream in flood times, but what I had a plump turkey hanging from my belt, and my huléro several fine fish.

Much has been written about the climate of Nicaragua and its effect upon the inhabitants of more northerly countries when exposed to it.

It would seem that the experience of the numerous expeditions sent out by the United States, and the reports of the surgeons attached to those expeditions would have long since settled the matter. To those who cannot understand how there can be such a difference in climate between two localities so slightly removed as Panama and Nicaragua, and the former possessing a notoriously deadly climate, the experience of the recent surveying expedition must be conclusive.

Only five members of that expedition had ever been in tropical climates before, and the rodmen and chainmen of the party were young men just out of college who had never done a day's manual labor, nor slept on the ground a night in their lives. Arriving at Greytown during the rainy season, the first work that they encountered was the transporting of their supplies and camp equipage to the sites of the various camps. This had to be done by means of canoes along streams obstructed with logs and fallen trees. Some parties were a week in reaching their destination, wading and swimming by day, lifting and pushing their canoes along, and at night lying down on the ground to sleep.

One party worked for six months in the swamps and lagoon region directly back of Greytown, and several other parties worked for an equal length of time in the equally disagreeable swamps of the valley of the San Francisco. Several of these officers are down there yet, as fresh as ever. In making tours of inspection of the different sections I have repeatedly, for several days and nights in succession, passed the days traveling in the woods through swamps and rain, and the nights sleeping as best I could, curled up under a blanket in a small canoe, while my men paddled from one camp to the next.

In spite of all this exposure not only were there no deaths in the expedition but there was not a single case of serious illness, and the officers who have returned up to this time, were in better health and weight than when they went away.

Of course the men had the best of food that money could obtain and previous experience suggest, and the chiefs of all parties were required to strictly enforce certain sanitary regulations in regard to coffee in the morning, a thorough bath and dose of spirits on returning from work, and mosquito bars and dry sleeping suits at night; yet the climate must be held principally responsible for a sanitary result which I believe could not be excelled in any temperate zone city, with the same number of men, doing the same arduous work under conditions of equal exposure.

The forests everywhere abound in game and every party which included in its personnel a good rifle-shot was sure of a constant supply of wild pig, turkey, quail and grouse, varied by an occasional deer, all obtained in the ordinary work of reconnoissance and surveying. For the men's table there was abundance of monkey, iguana and macaw.

Parties in the lower valleys of the various streams had no trouble in adding two or three varieties of very toothsome fish to their bill of fare, though these fish were rarely caught with the hook, but usually shot, or knifed by an alert native, as they basked in the shallows. These parties also obtained occasionally a danta (tapir) or a manatee.

On the river it was possible to obtain a fine string of fish with hook and line, then there was the huge tarpon to be had for the spearing, and fish pots sunk in suitable places were sure to yield a mess of fresh water lobsters. Ducks were also occasionally shot.

The forms of life are even more numerous in the vegetable than in the animal kingdom. The effect of these wonderful forests is indescribable, and though many writers have essayed a description, I have yet to see one that does the subject justice. Only a simple enumeration of component parts will be attempted here. First comes the grand body of the forest, huge almendro, havilan, guachipilin, cortez, cedar, cottonwood, palo de leche trees, and others rising one hundred and fifty or two hundred feet into the scintillant sunshine. The entire foliage of these trees is at the top and their great trunks reaching up for a hundred feet or more without a branch offer a wonderful variety of studies in types of column. Some rise straight and smooth, and true, others send out thin deep buttresses, and others look like the muscle-knotted fore-arm of a Titan, with gnarled fingers griping the ground in their wide grasp.

But whatever the form of the tree trunks may be, the shallow soil upon the hills and the marshy soil in the lowlands, has taught them that there is greater safety and stability in a broad foundation than in a deeply penetrating one, and so almost without exception the tree roots spread out widely, on, or near, the surface. Beneath the protecting shelter of these patriarchs, as completely protected from scorching sun and rushing wind as if in a conservatory, grow innumerable varieties of palms, young trees destined some day to be giants themselves, and others which never attain great size. Still lower down, luxuriate smaller palms, tree ferns, and dense underbrush, and countless vines. These latter, however, are by no means confined to the underbrush, many of them climb to the very tops of the tallest trees, cling about their trunks and bind them to other trees and to the ground with the toughest of ropes. With one or two exceptions these vines are an unmitigated nuisance. To them more than to anything else is due the impenetrableness of the tropical thicket. Of all sizes and all as tough as hemp lines, they creep along the ground, catching the traveler's feet in a mesh from which release is possible only by cutting. They bind the underbrush together in a tough, elastic mat, which catches and holds on to every projection about the clothes, jerking revolvers from belts, and wrenching the rifle from the hand, or, hanging in trap-like loops from the trees, catch one about the neck, or constantly drag one's hat from the head. The one exception noted above is the bejuco de agua or water vine. This vine, which looks like an old worn manilla rope, is to be found hanging from or twined about almost every large tree upon elevated ground, and to the hot and thirsty explorer it furnishes a most deliciously cool and clear draught.

Seizing the vine in the left hand, a stroke of the machéte severs it a foot or two below the hand, and another quick stroke severs it again above the hand; immediately a stream of clear, tasteless water issues from the lower end and may be caught in a dipper or á la native directly in the mouth. A three-foot length of vine two inches in diameter will furnish at least a pint of water. The order of cutting mentioned above must invariably be adhered to, otherwise, if the upper cut be made first, the thirsty novice will find he has in his hand only a piece of dry cork-like rope.

It is practically impossible to judge of the age of the huge trees in these forests. Mighty with inherent strength, stayed to the ground and to their fellows by the numerous vines, sheltered and protected also by their fellows from the shock of storms, their huge trunks have little to do except support the direct weight of the tops, and they rarely fall until they have reached the last stages of decay. Then some day the sudden impact of a ton or two of water dropped from some furious tropical shower, or the vibrations from a hurrying troop of monkeys, or the spring of a tiger, is too much for one of the giant branches heavy with its load of vines and parasites, and it gives way, breaking the vines in every direction and splitting a huge strip from the main trunk. With its supports thus broken and the whole weight of the remaining branches on one side, the weakened trunk sways for a moment then bows to its fate. The remaining vines break with the resistless strain, and the old giant gathering velocity as he falls and dragging with him everything in his reach, crashes to the earth with a roar which elicits cries of terror from bird and beast, and goes booming through the quivering forest like the report of a heavy cannon. A patch of blue sky overhead and a pile of impenetrable debris below, mark for years the grave of the old hero.

As regards the insect and reptile pests of the country it has been my experience that both their numbers and capacity for torment have been greatly exaggerated. Mosquitoes, flies of various sizes, wasps and stinging ants exist, and the first in some places in large numbers; yet to a person who has any of the woodsman's craft of taking care of himself, and whose blood is not abnormally sensitive to insect poisons, they present no terrors and but slight annoyances. At our headquarters camp on San Francisco island, we had no mosquitoes from sunrise to sunset, and even after sunset they were not especially numerous. At another camp only a few miles away there were black flies only and no mosquitoes, at another both, while at the camps up in the hills there were neither. It was only at camps in the wet lowlands and near swamps, that they became an almost unendurable annoyance. Even here it was those who remained in camp that suffered most. Men out in the thick brush were but little annoyed by them, and when on their return to camp they had finished their dinner and gotten into their mosquito bars they were out of their reach. As to snakes, the danger from them even to a European, is practically nothing. Not a man of the several hundred that have been engaged in the various expeditions in that country has ever been bitten, and in hundreds of miles of tramping through the worst forests of the country, either entirely alone or if accompanied by natives, with them some distance in the rear, I have never fancied myself in danger. The poisonous snakes are invariably sluggish, and unless actually struck or stepped upon are apt to try to get out of the way, if they make any move. The only snake that is at all aggressive, as far as my observations go, is a long, black, non-poisonous snake. This will sometimes advance upon the intruder with head raised a couple of feet from the ground, or if coiled about a tree will lash at him with its tail.

The floral exhibit of these forests is apt to be disappointing to one whose ideas have been formed by a perusal of books. An occasional scarlet passion flower; now and then the fragrant cluster of the flor del toro; a few insignificant though fragrant flowering shrubs; and in muddy sloughs near the streams, patches of wild callas; are about all that meet the eye of the non-botanical wanderer in the deep forest.

There is not light enough for flowers beneath the dense canopy of trees, and they, like the smaller birds, seek the tree tops and the banks of the river where sunlight and air are abundant. In the tree tops the orchids and other flowering parasites run riot. Many of the trees are themselves flowering, and if one can look down upon the tree tops of a valley in March or April, he sees the green expanse enlivened by blazing patches of crimson, yellow, purple, pink, and white.

The river banks are the favorite home of the flowering vines, and there they form great curtains swaying from the trees in bright patterns of yellow, pink, red and white. The grassy banks and islands, and the shallow sand spits also bring forth innumerable varieties of aquatic plants.

So much for the Atlantic slope of the country.

On the west side between the Lake and the Pacific the work is very different. There it is possible to ride mule-back to the top of a commanding hill, sit down and make the reconnaissance sketch at leisure. The secondary reconnaissances may also be made mule-back, and everywhere the rolling country and the cleared and cultivated fields, permit the engineer to see where he is going and how he is going.

His surroundings are also different. He moves camp in an oxcart instead of a canoe. His eyes instead of being confined by the impenetrable veil of the tropical thicket, feast upon views of the distant mountains, the crisp waves of the Lake, and the blue expanse of the Pacific. During the day he meets black-eyed and brown-limbed señoritas, instead of wild hogs and turkeys, and at night as he turns in, he hears, not the scream of tigers, but the songs of the lavandera's ecru daughters floating across the stream which supplies their wash-tubs and his camp.

The first grand natural feature which arrests attention in the most cursory examination of the map of Nicaragua is the Great Lake. This lake with an area of some three thousand square miles and a water-shed of about eight thousand square miles, is unique in the large proportion of its own area to that of its water-shed. A result of this large proportion of water surface to drainage area, at once evident, is the very gradual changes of level of the lake and their confinement within very narrow limits. The difference between the level of the lake at the close of an abnormally dry season and its level at the close of an abnormally wet season is not more than ten feet, and the usual annual fluctuation is about five feet.