I 
TLOKA OF THE ISTHMUS OF PAXAMA. 65 
which, in many instances, assume the appearance of islands. Their vegetation is a cmious 
mixture of httoral and inland plants, and often presents species from the higher mountains, 
by which the remote sources of the water may be traced. Of those rivers emptying them- 
selves into the Pacific Ocean, the San Juan, Churchmique, Bayano, Rio Grande de Nata, 
Santamaria, Tavasara, and Chiriqui, are the largest ; of those flo^nng into the Atlantic, ^ 
the Belen, Veraguas, Chagres, and the nine-mouthed Atrato. Nowhere is the vegetation 
more luxuriant than on the banks of these rivers. Wild fig-troes form great bowers 
over the bed, evergreen Pithccolobiums emit a delicious perfume, Bamboos, the most gi- 
gantic of grasses, show their feathery tops, groves of vegetable ivory palms display then- 
foliage; to whatever spot the eye is du:ccted it meets fi-esh beauties, new charms. The 
canoe is pushed for miles along the silent forests, where only pumas, jaguars, and monkeys 
have taken up their abode. Suddenly, the sylvan scene is interrupted by a cleared piece 
of ground, a few huts. The roaring lion, the huge Baobab-tree, may help to give to the 
story of the traveller a romantic colouring, but they will never awaken those emotions which 
the sight of man, accompanied by his domestic animals and useful plants, is calculated to 
create. They have been coupled together from time immemorial, and vainly has it been 
attempted to discover the native country of the cerealia, and the most important esculent 
roots and domestic animals, or to find out the time when they began to be nursed. All 
that learning, research, and ingenuity have been enabled to effect is to have traced do^m 
their history to that remote period when gods and men lived on familiar terms with 
each other ; their origin, like that of our race, is wrapped in that mystery which seems 
to be a fit curtain for screening those things which were never intended for the human 
understanding. 
The aspect of the flora is much more diversified than the uniformity of the climate 
and the surface of the country would lead one to expect. The sea-coast and those parts 
influenced by the tides and the immediate evaporation of the sea, produce a quite peculiar 
vegetation, which is generally characterized by a leathery glossy foUage, and leaves with entire 
margins. ' In all muddy places, do^^-n to the verge of the ocean, are impenetrable thickets, 
formed of IMangrovcs, chiefly Rhizophoras and Avieennias, which exhale putrid miasmata 
and spread sickness over the adjacent districts. Occasionally extensive tracts are covered 
with the Guagara de puerco {Acrostichum aureum, Linn.), its fronds bemg as much as 
ten feet high. Myriads of mosquitoes and sand-flies flll the air; huge alligators sun them- 
selves on the sUmy banks, lying motionless, blinking with their great eyes, and jumping 
into the water directly any one approaches. To destroy these dreaded swamps is almost 
impossible : the Avicennias, with their asparagus -like rhizomata, send up mnumerable 
young shoots whenever the main stem is felled ; the Rhizophoras extend in all directions 
their long aerial roots, which soon reach the ground and preserve the trees from falling, 
after their terrestrial roots have Ufted them high above the original level. At Panama, 
where the tide rises to the height of twenty-two feet, these trees are frequently under water. 
