350 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



from all parts of the world towards the western shores 

 of the continent of North America ; the remote posi- 

 tion of the country, however, and the slender traffic 

 with which it had heretofore been favoured, made the 

 process of emigration one of considerable difficulty. 

 Various routes were adopted by the hardy gold- 

 seekers ; some plunged boldly into the western 

 prairies, and scaling the Rocky Mountains, arrived 

 half famished at their destination; others hazarded 

 the stormy passage round the Horn, and often never 

 arrived at all ; while a third section found their way 

 across some part or other of that neck of land which 

 connects the Northern and Southern continents, and 

 which is now known by the newly-invented appella- 

 tion of Central America. The facilities for crossing 

 this Isthmus were offered at two points. At one place, 

 between Chagres and Panama, the distance between 

 the Atlantic and Pacific is only forty-eight miles; 

 while three hundred miles farther north, and conse- 

 quently affording a shorter route, the magnificent lake 

 of Nicaragua, which is connected with the Gulf of 

 Mexico by a navigable river, is separated from the 

 Pacific by a neck of land only twelve miles across. 

 These rival routes have both been largely patronised 

 by Californian passengers : the one by Panama, which 

 was established some years before the other, they now 

 cross by railway ; while in Nicaragua they ascend in 

 steamers to the western shore of the lake, and perform 

 the remaining twelve miles on mules. Four lines of 



