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.