18 THE VOYAGE. 



ketplace, a spot no one would be disposed to 

 linger in or visit a second time, unless the nose 



c 



could be dispensed with. ' Noses have they but 

 they smell not,' must surely apply to the dwellers 

 in the marketplace ; the air is literally (and not 

 in figure of speech only) laden with the mingled 

 fragrance of past and present victims, an odour 

 far more potent than pleasant. Surely ladies 

 never go to market in Colon ! 



The train was by this time ready to take us 

 to Panama, and, with a parting scream, the iron 

 horse rushed into the tropical wilderness. On 

 leaving Colon, the line winds its way through a 

 deep cutting across a morass, and along the right 

 bank of the Rio Chagres ; glimpses are caught 

 of the river from amidst the tangled and twisted 

 foliage that shuts it in on either side like dense 

 walls. From out this leafy chaos rise the gaunt 

 trunks of the mango, cocoa-nut, plane, cieba, and 

 stately palm. Plantains, too, spread their green 

 succulent leaves sunshades of nature's own con- 



trivincr to protect the tender growths that love 



to live beneath them. Every tree seemed strang- 

 lino- in the coils of trailing vines and climbers ; 



o 



real ropes, pendents, and streamers of brilliant 

 blossoms, fit resting-places for the birds and but- 

 terflies, themselves like living flowers, Wondrous 



