THE VOYAGE. 21 
river is crossed twice within a mile on iron 
bridges, we ascend gradually (the gradient being 
about sixty feet in the mile) to reach the water- 
shed, over which the descent commences to 
the Pacific. About a mile from the summit 
the line winds through a huge pile of basaltic 
columns, that look as if some Titan force had 
hurled them into the air, and let them fall again 
one over the other, like a mass of driftwood 
piles itself in a North American river. Below, 
the Rio Grande may be seen, a mere brawling 
burn; a short distance through thick woods, 
and we are at Paraiso; as unlike one’s ideal 
of paradise as Cremorne Gardens or Ratcliff 
Highway. Again we reach the swampy low- 
lands with their dense growths; ahead, and 
looming high in the glowing atmosphere, stands 
Mount Ancon, whose southern base is bathed 
by the blue waters of the Pacific; on the left, 
Cerro-de-los-Buccaneros, or the Hill of the Buc- 
caneers, from whose summit the terrible Morgan 
first looked on old Panama in the year 1670. 
We rattle past San Pedro Miguel and Caimi- 
tillo, small tidal tributaries to the Rio Grande, 
scream through the Rio Grande Station, sweep 
round the base of Mount Ancon; and before 
us are the tall spires of the cathedral, the long 
