316 MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA, WEST INDIES. 



the catchment basin not being more than about 1,000 square miles in extent and 

 75 miles long. 



The Chagres is exceeded both in length and the extent of its basin by the Eio 

 Bavano, which, however, has a smaller volume because it belongs to the drier 

 Pacific slope. It enters the sea through a broad estuary, which is closed by 

 a bar with scarcely two feet at low water. In the Gulf of Panama itself no 

 anchorage is afforded to large vessels for a long distance from the shore. The 

 five-fathom line lies nearly six miles from the mouth of the Baj'ano, and this is 

 itself one of the greatest objections to an interoceanic canal across the San Bias 

 isthmus. 



Of all the isthmian rivers the Tuyra, flowing also to the Pacific, has the largest 

 basin and longest course. It flews for nearly 100 miles parallel with the cordillera 

 of Darien, and after escaping from the densely-wooded uplands, it is joined by 

 the Chucunaque from the north-west, the united stream being 1,000 feet wide 

 and over 30 feet deep, with a mean discharge of 1,100 cubic feet per second. 

 Farther on the river merges gradually in its estuary, and its estuary in the mag- 

 nificent Darien Harbour, which communicates with San Miguel Bay through the 

 two channels of Boca Grande and Boca Chica. The encircling heights are clothed 

 with a glorious forest vegetation, where the tall white stems, 100 feet high, 

 support a continuous canopy of dark verdure. 



On the Atlantic side the largest inlet is that formed by the two bays or lagoons 

 of the Almirante and Chiriqui, which communicate with the open sea through the 

 three deep passages of the Boca del Drago, Boca del Toro, and Boca del Tigre, all 

 accessible to the largest vessels. The Almirante Bay is so named from " Admiral " 

 Columbus, who visited these waters in 1503 ; from him also the wooded island 

 between the Drago and Toro passages has been named Colon, while another islet 

 in the bay takes his Christian name, Cristobal (Christopher). 



Almirante is a vast aggregate of creeks and havens, like the neighbouring 

 Chiriqui, which has an area of no less than 320 square miles. The chain of islets 

 at the entrance is so disposed as to continue the continental coast- line as if they 

 represented a former shore eroded by* the waves. 



East of Chiriqui Bay the coast is continued several miles seawards by a marine 

 bank scarcely 25 fathoms deep and strewn with shoals, reefs, and islets. One of 

 these is the famous Escudo de Veragua, often referred to in diplomatic documents 

 as a debatable land between Costa Rica and Colombia. 



San Bias Bay, which lies at the narrowest part of (he isthmus, presents, like 

 Chiriqui, somewhat the appearance of an indentation made by marine erosion in 

 an old rectilinear strip of coastlands. The San Bias peninsula, enclosing the bay 

 on the north side, is a fragment of the primitive shore, and is continued eastwards 

 by hundreds of reefs and islets forming the Muletas or Mulatas archipelago. 

 None of these cays have any hills or cliffs, being merely sandy stretches resting 

 on a coralline base and rising a few feet or perhaps yards above the surface. The 

 intervening channels are deep enough to admit large vessels, to which they afford 

 safe anchorage in smooth water. All are covered with forests or cocoanut groves. 



