436 Voyage of the Novara. 



where there are only a few labourers' huts. Moreover, halts 

 are frequent at spots where there are no passengers visible, 

 either to take up or set down. One of the most beautiful of 

 the stations is that at the little village of Paraiso, about nine 

 miles distant from Panama, which lies in a kettle-sliaped 

 glade. At this point large clearings have been made, and 

 the eye ranges over a ratlier more extended landscape, only 

 bounded in fact by the contour of the neighbouring hills. 

 The only inhabitants are negroes, mulattoes, and mestizoes, 

 who for the most part are employed as labourers on the 

 line. A few miles after leaving Paraiso, the train reaches the 

 station of Culebra, or, as it is more generally called by the 

 inhabitants, " the Summit," the narrow stee]) rise of which 

 marks the water-shed between the Rio Grande, falling into 

 the Pacific, and the Rio Chagres, which debouches into the 

 Caribbean Sea. This is the highest point of the line. The 

 actual height of the pass is 287 English feet, but it has been 

 lowered by about 25 feet, so that Summit station is only 262 

 feet above the mean level of the ocean. 



The most important village along the line is Matachin, a 

 large straggling village, which, however, seems to be in- 

 habited exclusively by negroes, mulattoes, and Zamboes. As 

 I have previously remarked, the majority of the labourers on 

 the line emigrated hither from the West Indies, especially 

 Jamaica, attracted by the high wages of labour, and after it 

 was completed, settled along its course in neat, clean, but 

 small cottages. And whereas the baleful tropical climate 



