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'National Geographic Magazine. 



followed, ever alert to strike some drowsy beauty of a fish in the 

 clear water ; the soiirce of the stream was generally reached in 

 a day, and never did we make preparations to sleep on some bed 

 of clean, yellow sand washed down by the stream in flood times, 

 but what I had a plump turkey hanging from my belt, and my 

 hulero several fine fish. 



Much has been written about the climate of Nicaragua and its 

 effect upon the inhabitants of more northerly countries when ex- 

 posed to it. 



It would seem that the experience of the numerous expeditions 

 sent out by the United States, and the reports of the surgeons at- 

 tached to those expeditions would have long since settled the 

 matter. To those who cannot understand how there can be such a 

 difference in climate between two localities so slightly removed as 

 Panama and Nicaragua, and the former possessing a notori- 

 ously deadly climate, the experience of the recent surveying ex- 

 pedition must be conclusive. 



Only five members of that expedition had ever been in tropi- 

 cal climates before, and the rod men and chainmen of the party 

 were young men just out of college who had never done a day's 

 manual labor, nor slept on the ground a night in their lives. Ar- 

 riving at Greytown during the rainy season, the first work that 

 they encountered was the transporting of their supplies and 

 camp equipage to the sites of the various camps. This had to be 

 done hj means of canoes along streams obstructed with logs and 

 fallen trees. Some parties were a week in reaching their des- 

 tination, wading and swimming by day, lifting and pushing their 

 canoes along, and at night lying down on the ground to sleep. 

 One party worked for six months in the swamps and lagoon 

 region directly back of Greytown, and several other parties 

 worked for an equal length of time in the equally disagreeable 

 swamps of the valley of the San Francisco. Several of these 

 officers are down there yet, as fresh as ever. In making tours of 

 inspection of the different sections I liave repeatedly, for several 

 days and nights in succession, passed the days traveling in the 

 woods through swamps and rain, and the nights sleeping as best 

 I could, curled up imder a blanket in a small canoe, while my 

 men paddled from one camp to the next. 



In spite of all this exposure not only were there no deaths in 

 the expedition but there was not a single case of serious illness, 

 and the ofiicers who have returned up to this time, were in better 

 health and weight than when they went away. 



