PANAMA AND ITS PEOPLE—BELL. 613 
“Tsthmus of Darien.” On the Atlantic coast the confines are the Rio 
Miel (forming the boundary of Colombia, though Panama still 
claims the Tanela River some distance to the southeast) and the Mu- 
latas Archipelago. Here it joins the department of Colon, which with 
Panama almost evenly divides the Isthmus lengthwise till it reaches 
its western limit at Cocle. The entire southern Pacific coast is in- 
cluded in Panama from Cocle to Colombia. This department con- 
tains the largest city (Panama City), with towns lke Chorrera, a 
small resort in the hills, and Chame, both in the western section. 
From the Bay of Panama to that of San Miguel the country is unin- 
habited, except the valley of the Chepo* or Bayano’. The Chepo is 
navigable as far as the hamlet of La Capitana, near the point where 
the Mamoni flows into the main stream. On this tributary is the 
town of Chepo (population 6,875 in 1898, according to Valdés, which 
must include, however, a large surrounding area). It is a poor place, 
though until comparatively recently it had some well-to-do inhab- 
itants, who left it for Panama City, with which it is connected by 
trail. In 1565 Chepo was colonized by Cordova, governor of Old 
Panama, though it was known as early as 1515 as an Indian town. 
This section was so harassed by the buccaneers, Watling, Wafer, 
Sharp, Bullman, Dampier, Guzman, Coxon, Baskerville, and others 
that two forts were built, one on the tributary river, the Terrable, 
and the other, not more than a stockade, near Chepo, in the con- 
struction of which it is said the Indians actually assisted, as at the 
time the marauders were preying upon them more than were the 
Spaniards themselves. The Terrable River was surveyed by Reclus, 
who, however, failed to find his way by means of it to the coast, as 
was also the Mamoni, a beautiful river full of cascades and water- 
falls, explored by the American surveyors from 1870-1875. The 
main waters of the Chepo flow in an approximately southeasterly (or 
westerly) direction, with no habitations along its banks, except the 
small hamlet of Jesus Maria. Its most southeasterly tributary, the 
Canaza, rises in a country absolutely unknown at the present time. 
In fact, the only other parts of the interior of Darien that are 
known are the districts along the Tuyra and lower Chucunaque with 
their tributaries, along which small towns are scattered through 
this forgotten country, over which, in the old days, the buccaneers 
passed by many routes. The above-mentioned villages are the 
homes of negro and Indian half-breeds who, when they work at all, 
are rubber hunters or traders in hard woods. They are miserable 
towns and contain no permanent white residents, the largest of them 
“@The name Chepo is derived from the chief Cheapes, encountered by Balboa. 
®Bayano is from a famous fugitive slave, who, uniting with others of his 
kind, committed atrocities on the Spanish in these parts, and was killed after a 
laborious campaign by Pedro de Ursua in 1555 (4). 
