Sketch of the Panama Railivay ^' JVavvies^ 437 



decimated every other class of labom-er employed during the 

 construction of the lines, these latter have flourished here 

 better than any other description of settler. They seem to 

 be universally healthy and well-fed, and their oceans of 

 children, who impart life to the landscape, attest that the 

 women have not lost their fertility. They all seemed to be 

 well and were neatly clothed. However, when I crossed, it 

 happened to be a holiday, and consequently every one wore 

 his Sunday dress, clean white trowsers, white shirt, and a 

 narrow-brimmed hat of ^ne straw. 



Near Barbacoa station the eye of the traveller, that has 

 hitherto revelled in the voluptuous beauties of nature, rests 

 with pleasui'e on a splendid trophy of human industry, an 

 iron bridge, 600 feet long, which spans the Kiver Chagres at 

 this point. It was on one of the Cerros, a little west of 

 Barbacoa, that Vasco Nunez de Balboa first beheld both the 

 Atlantic and the Pacific oceans at once, and, regarding his 

 stand-point in the Isthmus as a mere handful of earth, may 

 have imagined himself a conqueror, whose glance compre- 

 hended both worlds. 



The last portion of the line, as we near the Atlantic side, 

 passes over vast swamps, which rendered the construction of 

 this portion of the road exceedingly difiicult and very ex- 

 pensive. Aspinwall itself moreover, the terminus of the 

 Inter-oceanic Railway, lies on a small island, two-thii"ds of the 

 surface of which is morass, and covered with tropical marsh 

 vegetation. This station was selected, notwithstanding its 



