8 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 69 



Camp for the night was made on the bank of the river where shelter 

 from nearly continuous rain was secured by covering - an abandoned 

 native hut with a tent fly. On the following day the swamps were 

 left behind and, as in many other parts of Panama, we found the 

 most practicable route lay along the bed of the stream. Accordingly, 

 we entered the river and waded steadily for eight or ten miles, the 

 water varying from a few inches to waist deep, and care being neces- 

 sary to avo'id the deeper places. The difficulties increased as we ad- 

 vanced toward the interior, as the river banks, at first low, became 

 high and finally merged with the steep general slopes of mountains 

 whose tops were no longer visible, and the bed of the stream assum- 

 ing a sharper angle became littered in places with huge boulders. The 

 day had been partially clear, but late in the afternoon it began to rain 

 very hard, the river rose several feet in a few minutes and we were 

 obliged to camp at a point on the left bank, indicated by bearings 

 to be about abreast of Cerro Brujo, and which I later decided to use 

 as a bare for general work. Poles were cut to form a frame work 

 over which long palm fronds were placed in overlapping position, 

 and a secure shelter from the hardest rain was soon finished. One 

 of our most difficult problems here was to build and maintain a fire. 

 Matches, even when kept well covered, soon absorb sufficient mois- 

 ture to become unreliable under forest conditions during the rainy 

 season. The natives of the region use flint and steel to generate the 

 spark, which is projected into a small charred roll of cotton cloth 

 kept dry and carefully guarded for the purpose. A smouldering 

 fire in a point of the cloth is used to ignite kindling, and charred 

 remains are always preserved for future use. The only material we 

 found dry enough to burn was the hard heartwood of certain trees, 

 and as we carried only machetes the securing of this firewood 

 entailed considerable labor. Moreover, when gathered, it burned so 

 slowly that the fire barely sufficed for our scanty cooking operations, 

 leaving practically no surplus for drying purposes. I kept one suit 

 of clothing dry for wear in camp, but was obliged each morning to 

 don wet garments for work in the forest. 



Wishing to reach as high an elevation as possible on the mountain, 

 the contours of which were difficult to determine, our camp being on 

 the main stream in the bottom of a gorge, a trail was cut through 

 the forest along a narrow ridge between two tributaries whose size 

 indicated distant sources and that the ridge was a spur of the main 

 range. Slopes of varying steepness were encountered and an altitude 

 of about 2,000 feet was reached at a point from which Cerro Brujo, 



