We nevertheless made out that the mouth of a river or estero, laid down in Sir Edward Belcher's chart, on the opposite side of the bay in front of La Union, was really that of the river Goascoran, a considerable stream having its rise at a point due north, and not far from Comayagua, the capital of Honduras, which, we also ascertained, was seated in the midst of a great plain, bearing the same name. A large stream, it was said, flowed past that city,—but whether the Goascoran or some other, or whether it flowed north or south, neither arriero nor correo could tell.
The navigability of the Goascoran was also a doubtful question. According to some, it could be forded everywhere; others declared it impassable for many leagues above its mouth: a discrepancy which we were able to reconcile by reference to its probable state at different seasons of the year.
Fixing an early day for taking the field in earnest, and leaving H. and Don Henrique to make the necessary preparations, I improved the interval, in company with Lieutenant J., in making a boat exploration of the Goascoran. Obtaining a ship's gig, with two oarsmen and a supply of provisions, we left La Union at dawn on the 15th of April. We found that the river enters the bay by a number of channels, through low grounds covered with mangrove-trees. It was at half-tide, and we experienced no difficulty in entering. Our course at first was tortuous, and it seemed as if the river had lost itself in a labyrinth of channels, and we were ourselves much confused with regard to our true direction. Keeping, however, in the strongest current, at the end of half an hour we penetrated beyond the little delta of the river, and the belt of mangroves, to firm ground. Here the stream was confined to a single channel two hundred yards broad, with banks of clay and loam from six to ten feet high. The lands back appeared to be level, and, although well covered with ordinary forest-trees, were apparently subject to overflow. We observed cattle in several grassy openings, and here and there a vaquero's hut of branches; for it is a general practice of the hacienderos to drive down their herds to the low grounds of the coasts and rivers, during the dry season, and as soon as the grass on the hills or highlands begins to grow sere and yellow. We observed also occasional heaps of oyster-shells on the banks, or half washed away by the river; and on the sand-spits at the bends of the stream, and in all the little shady nooks of the shore, we saw thousands of water-fowl, ducks of almost every variety, including the heavy muscovy and the lively teal; and there were flocks of white and crimson ibises, and solitary, long-legged, contemplative cranes, and gluttonous pelicans; while myriads of screaming curlews scampered along the line of the receding tide to snap up imprudent snails and the numerous minute crustaceæ which drift about in these brackish waters. The familiar kingfisher was also there, coming down with an occasional arrowy dash on some unsuspecting minnow, and then flapping away leisurely for a quiet meal in the shady recesses of a neighboring tree.
We fired on a flock of ducks, killing a number and wounding others, all of which we secured except one which struggled away into an eddy under the bank. We pushed in, and my hand was extended to pick him up, when a slimy, corrugated head, with distended jaws and formidable teeth, rose to the surface before me, paused an instant, then shot forward, and, closing on the wounded bird, disappeared. The whole was done so quickly as to escape the notice of my companions, who would hardly believe me when I told them that we had been robbed by an alligator. We lost a duck, but gained an admonition; and I scarcely need add that our half-formed purpose of taking a bath in the next cool bend of the river was abandoned.
When the tide had run out, we were able to form a better notion of the river. We found, that, although near the end of the dry season, it was still a fine stream, with a large body of water, but spread over so wide a channel as to preclude anything like useful navigation, except with artificial aids. In places it was so shallow that our little boat found difficulty in advancing. But this did not disappoint us; for nothing like a mixed transit with transhipments had ever entered into my plan, which looked only to an unbroken connection by rail from one sea to the other. At four o'clock, satisfied that no useful purpose could be effected by going farther up the stream, we stopped at a collection of huts called Las Sandías,—not inappropriately, for the whole sloping bank of the river, which here appeared to be little better than a barren sand-bed, was covered, for a quarter of a mile, with a luxuriant crop of water- and musk-melons, now in their perfection. We purchased as many as we could carry off for a real. They were full, rich, and juicy, and proved to be a grateful restorative, after our day's exposure to the direct rays of the sun, and their scarcely less supportable reflection from the water. The melon-patch of Las Sandías is overflowed daring the rainy season, and probably the apparently bare, sandy surface hides rich deposits of soil below.
We found the stream here alive with an active and apparently voracious fish, varying in length from fourteen to twenty inches, reddish in color, and closely resembling the Snapper of the Atlantic coast of Central America. The male inhabitants of Las Sandías were occupied in catching these fishes with hand-nets, in the rifts and currents; and the women were busy in cleaning and drying them. Their offal had accumulated around the huts in offensive heaps, and gave out an odor which was almost insupportable, but of which the women appeared to take no notice. We did not, therefore, trespass long on their hospitality, but returned to our boat and started back to La Union. As night came on, the trees along the river's bank were thronged with chachalacas, which almost deafened us with their querulous screams. Two well-directed shots gave us half a dozen,—for the young chachalaca is not to be despised on the table,—and we added them to our stock of water-fowls and melons as tempting trophies to our companions from the new Canaan on which they were venturing.
[To be continued.]
KEPLER.
The acceptance of a doctrine is often out of all proportion to the authority that fortifies it. There are sweeps of generalization quite permeable to objection, which yet find metaphysical support; there are irrefragable dogmas which the mind drops as futile and fruitless. It is recorded of Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood, that it found reception from no physician then over forty years old. We believe the splendid nebular construction of Laplace has its own difficulties; yet what noble or aspiring mind does not find interior warranties for the truth of that audacious synthesis? Is it that the soul darts responsive impartments to the heavens? that the whirl is elemental in the mind? that baffling intervals stretch deeper within us, and shoals of stars with no parallax appear?
Among the functions of Science, then, may well be included its power as a metre of the intellectual advance of mankind. In these splendid symbols man writes the record of his advancing humanity. How all is interwoven with the All! A petrified national mind will certainly appear in a petrified national Science. And that sublime upsurging from the depths of human nature which came with the last half of the eighteenth century appeared not alone in the new political and social aspirations, but in a fresh insight into Nature. This spirit manifested itself in the new sciences that sprang from the new modes of vision,—Magnetism, Electricity, Chemistry,—the old crystalline spell departing before a dynamical system of Physics, before the thought of the universe as a living organic whole. And what provokers does the discovery of the celestial circles bring to new circles of politics and social life!