record this tribute with so much the more satisfaction, that I felt it was not the individual but his profession that was thus honoured, as is abundantly proved by the experience of many another scientific traveller.
The journey across the Isthmus, right through the heart of the primeval forest, which was decked out in its gayest attire, is one of the most exciting, soul-stirring scenes that the eye of the lover of nature ever rested upon. In no part of the world have I seen more luxuriant and abundant vegetation than is presented by the forests of Central America, and more especially upon the Isthmus. And, as if to heighten still further the sense of marvel and enchantment, one traverses this magnificent forest landscape behind a locomotive running on its iron track. What a contrast! The wild ravel of creepers and the green feathery branches of the palms almost penetrate into the waggons, and tell with unmistakeable emphasis that the traveller is indeed surrounded by all the beauties of Nature in her tropic garb. Trees of the most varied description and of colossal dimensions flourish in the foreign garment of a borrowed adornment. Between each solitary giant of a forest tree, parasites and Lianæ spread their delicate green coils, while many a gigantic stem, enveloped in thousands of beautiful shoots, or dead trunk choked in the embrace of a parasitic creeper, attracts the eye as the train speeds past. So quick and so strong is the process of vegetation here, that every section of this line has twice in each year to be freed from the encroachments of the forest-children; nay, were the
line to be left unused but for one twelvemonth, it would be difficult to discover any trace of its existence, so completely within that time would the whole district become once more a wilderness!
The physico-geographical conditions of the Isthmus have only latterly been made the subject of profound and exhaustive study by a German naturalist, who has published the result of his researches. The justly-dreaded climate was the main cause of its having been so long left unexamined. To that keen indefatigable savant, Dr. Moritz Wagner, my whilom faithful travelling companion through Northern and Central America, is due the praise of having first accurately and analytically investigated the territory of the Isthmus,—that dam which separates two ocean worlds as it may be considered from one point of view,—that bridge which unites two immense continents as it may be regarded from another,—and who, in so doing, has contributed many new and important facts to our previous stock of statistics respecting the hypsometrical and geognostic features of the Isthmus, as well as to the geographical distribution of the forms of organic life which are found there.
In the course of constructing the railroad, the geological profile of the country was laid open through a length of 47 miles. This fortunate circumstance the German naturalist availed himself of as an excellent opportunity for carrying out his design, but his labours were none the less beset with difficulties, and only his indomitable perseverance could have
carried him through the tropical intermittent fevers and mental anxiety, which at one time threatened to prostrate his physical strength, or even to lay him in his grave. Wagner had been first struck by the very remarkable evidence of an entire alteration in the form of the hills between Veragua and Obispo. This change in the vertical configuration, the decided depression of the Cordilleras, which is most apparent between Limon Bay (at the mouth of the Chagres river) and the Gulf of Panama, is just as much an important geological fact for physical geography, and for solving the important questions of the present and future commerce so intimately connected with the artificially cutting through of this neck of land, as the change in the horizontal configuration or the sudden compression of this part of the world in the north-west of the province of Choco, or the rugged steepness that characterizes the range of hills which forms the contour of the coast-line. The geological and botanical specimens, those most reliable of all data for physical generalization, with which Wagner illustrates his interesting exposition of the natural character, the prevailing formations, and the most prominent representations of the vegetation of the Isthmus, form at present a valuable part of the collections of natural history in the Museum of Munich.
The journey across is not made at the speed one would expect on a line where the locomotive is in charge of a Yankee. It takes four hours to do the 47 1⁄2 English miles. The stations are very numerous, often situate in the heart of the forest,
where there are only a few labourers' huts. Moreover, halts are frequent at spots where there are no passengers visible, either to take up or set down. One of the most beautiful of the stations is that at the little village of Paraiso, about nine miles distant from Panama, which lies in a kettle-shaped glade. At this point large clearings have been made, and the eye ranges over a rather more extended landscape, only bounded in fact by the contour of the neighbouring hills. The only inhabitants are negroes, mulattoes, and mestizoes, who for the most part are employed as labourers on the line. A few miles after leaving Paraiso, the train reaches the station of Culebra, or, as it is more generally called by the inhabitants, "the Summit," the narrow steep rise of which marks the water-shed between the Rio Grande, falling into the Pacific, and the Rio Chagres, which debouches into the Caribbean Sea. This is the highest point of the line. The actual height of the pass is 287 English feet, but it has been lowered by about 25 feet, so that Summit station is only 262 feet above the mean level of the ocean.
The most important village along the line is Matachin, a large straggling village, which, however, seems to be inhabited exclusively by negroes, mulattoes, and Zamboes. As I have previously remarked, the majority of the labourers on the line emigrated hither from the West Indies, especially Jamaica, attracted by the high wages of labour, and after it was completed, settled along its course in neat, clean, but small cottages. And whereas the baleful tropical climate
decimated every other class of labourer employed during the construction of the lines, these latter have flourished here better than any other description of settler. They seem to be universally healthy and well fed, and their oceans of children, who impart life to the landscape, attest that the women have not lost their fertility. They all seemed to be well and were neatly clothed. However, when I crossed, it happened to be a holiday, and consequently every one wore his Sunday dress, clean white trowsers, white shirt, and a narrow-brimmed hat of fine straw.