A Trip to Panama and Darien. 303 



many of its tributaries one can travel many miles inland before 

 ground sufficiently solid to land upon can be found. The vegeta- 

 tion within this low lying area is thick and closely matted 

 together, and this fact taken in connection with the swampy char- 

 acter of the ground, makes travel on foot through any portion of 

 it exceedingly difficult. Therefore the various rivers, which 

 form a very complex system and penetrate everywhere are the 

 natural highways of the country. The chief rivers on the Pacific 

 side are the Tuyra and Boyano with their numerous tributaries 

 and on the Atlantic watershed is the Atrato. 



A peculiarity noticed at Real de St. Marie, which is at the junc- 

 tion of the Pyrrhi and Tuyra rivers and at which point the tide has 

 a rise and fall of twelve or fifteen feet, was that at low tide it was 

 impossible to enter the mouth of the Pyrrhi with a boat, while 

 five or six miles up the stream there was always a good supply of 

 flowing water and at double that distance it became a mountain 

 torrent. 



Outside of the swampy area the character of the country is 

 rough and mountainous. The valleys are narrow and the ridges 

 exceedingly sharp, the natural result of a great rain fall. The 

 hills are able to resist the continued wasting effect of the vast 

 volumes of descending water only by their thick mantle of accu- 

 mulated vegetation, and were it not for this protection the many 

 months of continuous annual rain would long ago have produced 

 a leveling effect that would have made unnecessary the various 

 attempts of man to pierce the Isthmian mountains and form an 

 artificial strait. 



The ridges are sometimes level for a short distance, but are 

 generally broken and are made up of a succession of well rounded 

 peaks. These peaks are always completely covered with trees 

 and from the top of the sharpest of them it is impossible to get 

 a view of the surrounding country. The highest point climbed 

 was about 2,000 feet above sea level and the highest peak in 

 Darien is Mt. Pyrrhi which is between three and four thousand. 



Darien has been the scene of a great deal of surveying and ex- 

 ploration from the time that Columbus, in 1503, coasted along its 

 shores, hoping to find a strait connecting the two oceans, up to 

 the present time. Balboa, in 1510, discovered the Pacific by 

 crossing the Darien mountains from Caledonia Bay. This dis- 

 covery taken in connection with the broad indentations of the 

 land noted by Columbus, led the old world to believe in the exist- 



