122 AMERICAN FERN JOURNAL 
Across THE IstHmMus oF PANAMA 
The Powhatan came to anchor in Aspinwall harbor, 
on the north side of the Isthmus, at nine o’clock on the 
morning of April 4, 1881, having made the passage from’ 
New York in eleven days. The water was green as a 
eatbird’s egg, in sharp contrast to the deep indigo of the - 
Caribbean sea, through which we had just been steaming. 
The town of Aspinwall (or Colon) looked rather pictur- 
esque from our anchorage, with several white buildings 
surrounded by balconies and galleries and a line of native 
cottages beneath crested coconut palms; but we found 
the streets very dirty and ill-smelling when we went 
ashore. The island on which the town is built is very 
little above the sealevel and the greater part of it was 
at that time a brackish swamp. All the fresh water was 
hauled by the railroad into the town, and it was appar- 
ent from the looks of the natives that they did not waste 
it in washing. The great majority of those we saw were — 
negroes or mulattos, including the prefect, who visited 
our ship with his staff and received a salute of thirteen 
guns. 
My first walk was along the beach to the right, where 
after some time I came to a mangrove swamp, the first 
I had ever seen. In the marshy ground there was first 
of all a dense growth of a coarse, simply pinnate fern, 
with the upper pinne fertile and cinnamon-colored. 
_ This proved to be Acrostichum aureum, a species found in 
: tropical marshes all over the world. Near by there was 
a great lagoon into which the town of Aspinwall was 
drained. It was said to be the resort of alligators, but 
I saw none. I did, however, see a crested iguana, a 
hi said the natives eat with relish. 
s a dense thie 
