18 THE VOYAGE. 
ketplace, a spot no one would be disposed to 
linger in or visit a second time, unless the nose 
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) /aden 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- 
triving—to protect the tender growths that love 
to live beneath them. Every tree seemed strang- 
ling in the coils of trailing vines and climbers ; 
real ropes, pendents, and streamers of brilliant 
blossoms, fit resting-places for the birds and but- 
terflies, themselves like living flowers. Wondrous 
