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.