OLD ROADS TO A NEW ISLAND 5 



that they will hardly let one stay in their villages 

 overnight. 



Even on the most peaceful trips the men were 

 terribly bitten by small jungle pests. Little 

 brown ticks waited on every leaf for a chance to 

 fasten themselves on man or beast and suck his 

 blood. Clouds of hungry mosquitoes rose from 

 the wayside pools. The men sickened and died 

 of malaria and yellow fever. Yellow fever was 

 a disease no European had ever heard of before 

 America was discovered. 



Big boa constrictors rustled through the leaves, 

 and painted, poisonous little coral snakes lay 

 under rotten logs. The natives frightened the 

 Spaniards with stories of other jungle animals 

 which were seldom seen. Sometimes, however, 

 they did catch sight of the green eyes of a "tiger 

 cat" shining in the camp-fire light, or heard in the 

 distance the deep howling of an animal the 

 natives said was a monkey, but which sounded 

 more like the roaring of a great bull. 



It is no wonder that the Spaniards, even while 

 they were building their first roads four hundred 

 years ago, tried to work out some easier and 

 safer method of travel. They puzzled over some 

 way of making a canal that would join a river 

 on the Atlantic side to a river that ran into the 

 Pacific Ocean, but their plans were too expensive 

 to carry out. They were obliged to stick to the 

 king's highways and' the Chagres River. Away 



