Notes of a naturalist in South America. Ball John
great mountain barrier extending on the south side of the Caribbean Sea through Venezuela and Colombia deflects the current of the north-east trade-wind until it finally flows in an exactly contrary direction. Whatever its origin may be, it might be supposed that the interference of a current from the south-west with the course of the regular trade-wind would give rise to storms of dangerous violence. These, however, rarely if ever occur during the spring months. It may be that, on the meeting of contrary currents of unequal temperature, the ordinary result is that the warmer current rises and flows over the cooler one without actual interference.
ISTHMUS OF PANAMA.
Before sunrise on the morning of the 6th we reached Colon, and, after a little inevitable delay, took leave of our excellent commander, and set foot on the American continent at a spot which seems destined to become familiar to the civilized world as the eastern termination of the Panama Ship Canal. People who love to paint in dark colours had done their best to make us uncomfortable as to the part of the journey between the arrival at Colon and the departure from Panama. The regular train crossing the isthmus starts very early from Colon, and we should be forced to remain during the greater part of the day breathing the deadly exhalations of that ill-famed port. In point of unhealthiness Panama is but little better than Colon, and as the weekly steamer of the Pacific Navigation Company bound southward would have departed one or two days before our arrival, we were sure to be detained for five or six days, equally trying to the health and temper. Fully believing these vaticinations to be much exaggerated, we had no opportunity of testing them. A free use of the telegraph on the morning of our arrival at Jamaica, and the courtesy of the officials of the various companies concerned, relieved us from all anxiety, and reduced our stay within the shortest possible limits. It was true that the regular train had been despatched before we could land, but a special engine was in readiness to convey us across the isthmus, and the agent for the Pacific mail steamer at Panama had detained the ship bound for Lima until the same evening in order to enable us to continue our voyage.
Since the commencement of the works connected with the canal, Colon must have undergone much improvement. The bronze statue of Columbus presented by the Empress Eugénie, which for many years had lain prostrate in the mud of the sea-beach, has been cleansed and placed upon a stone pedestal. A number of stores, frail structures of wooden planks, were arranged in an irregular street, and displayed a great variety of European goods. It was rather surprising to find the prices of sundry small articles purchased here extremely moderate. One might suppose that the only inducement that could lead people to trade in a spot of such evil repute would be the hope of exorbitant profits enabling them soon to retire from business.
Of the works connected with the Ship Canal little was to be seen from the railway cars. For its eastern termination the mouth of the Chagres river, which reaches the sea close to Colon, has been selected. I am not aware whether it is proposed to divert the course of that stream from the channel of the canal, but, to judge from the appearance of its banks and the extensive mangrove swamps on either side, it appears to bear down a great amount of fine alluvial mud, which, if discharged into the canal, must be a source of future difficulty. What chiefly struck the eye of the passing traveller was the broad band which had been cleared across the isthmus to mark the line of the future canal. It is fully a hundred metres in width, and seemingly carried in a nearly straight line through the forest and over the hills that lie on the western side near to Panama. This clearing does not appear a very serious undertaking, but in a region where the energy of vegetation is so marvellous, must have cost an immense amount of labour, and to keep the line open, if that be found expedient, will demand no small yearly expenditure. There is here, properly speaking, no dry season. The rains recur at frequent intervals throughout the year, and to keep back the ever-encroaching sea of vegetation the axe is in constant requisition.
PANAMA SHIP CANAL.
In the interest of the human race, it is impossible not to desire the success of the Ship Canal, but it must not be forgotten that the project is of a character so gigantic that all previous experience, such as that of the Suez Canal, fails to give a measure of the difficulties to be encountered, or of the outlay required to overcome them. Engineers may doubtless calculate with sufficient accuracy the number of millions of cubic yards of rock or earth that must be removed, and may estimate approximately the cost of labour and materials; but the obstacles due to the climate and physical conditions of this region are a formidable addition whose amount experience alone can fully determine. The only race combining physical strength with any moderate adaptation to the climate is apparently the African negro, and even with these the amount of sickness and mortality is said to be alarmingly great. The field from which negro labour can be recruited, though large, is by no means unlimited, and it is to be expected that the rate of wages must be considerably increased as time advances. The conditions of the problem have no doubt been carefully studied by the remarkable man to whom its existence is due, and by the able assistants whom he has consulted; but it may not be too rash to hazard the prediction that, apart from any international difficulties, its success may depend upon the more or less complete realization of two desiderata – first, the extensive application of labour-saving machinery, for which perhaps the heavy rainfall may supply the motive power; secondly, the possibility, by completely clearing the summits of some of the higher hills near the line, of establishing healthy sites whence workmen could be conveyed to the required points during the day and brought back before nightfall.
EQUATORIAL VEGETATION.
Nothing in our brief experience suggested the idea of an especially unhealthy region, and the feelings of a botanist at being whirled so rapidly through a land teeming with objects of curiosity and interest are better imagined than expressed. For more than half the distance the line is simply a trench cut through the forest, which is restrained from invading and burying the rails only by constant clearing on either side. The trees were not very large, but seemed to include a vast variety of forms. More striking were the masses of climbers, parasites, and epiphytes, to say nothing of the rich and strange herbaceous plants that fringed the edge of the forest. Our train, being express, gave but a single chance of distinguishing anything amid the crowd of passing objects – during a brief halt at a station about half-way across the isthmus, round which was a cluster of small houses or huts, inhabited by Indians. Their features were much less remote from the European type than I had expected – less remote, I thought, than those of many Asiatics of Mongol stock. Ten minutes on the verge of the surging mass of vegetation that surrounded us gave a tantalizing first peep at the flora of Equatorial America. Many forms hitherto seen only in herbaria or hot-houses – several Melastomaceæ, Heliconia, Costus, and the like – were hastily gathered; but the summons to return to the train speedily calmed the momentarily increasing excitement. Although the sky was almost completely free from clouds, and the sun very near the zenith, the heat was no way excessive. My thermometers had been stowed away in the hurry of leaving the steamer, but I do not believe that the shade temperature was higher than 84° Fahr. On the western side of the isthmus the land rises into hills some five or six hundred feet in height, and between these the railway winds to the summit level, thence descending rather rapidly towards Panama. What a crowd of associations are evoked by the first view of the Pacific! What trains of mental pictures have gathered round the records of the early voyagers, the adventurers, the scientific explorers! Strangely enough, the most vividly impressed on my memory was a rough illustration in a child’s book, given to me on my seventh birthday, representing Vasco Nuñez, as, from the summit of the ridge of Darien, he, first of all western men, cast his wondering eyes over the boundless, till then unsuspected, ocean. He has climbed the steep shattered rocks, and, as he gains the crest of the ridge, has grasped a projecting fragment to steady himself on the edge of the dizzy declivity. Even now, after looking on the gently swelling hills, so completely forest-covered that without extensive clearing a distant view would be impossible, I find it hard to believe that that picture does not represent some portion of my actual past experience.
I do not know whether, in connection with the vivid recollection either of actual scenes or illustrations dating from early life, attention has been sufficiently called to the curious tricks which the brain not seldom performs in discharging its function of keeper of the records. In my experience it is common to find, on revisiting after many years a spot of which one believes one’s self to have a vivid and accurate recollection, that the mental picture has undergone some curious