CHAPTER IX. 



The Inhabitants of the Isthmus — What Nature has done for them— 

 Their Food — Clothing — Means for travelling — Mestizoes — Their 

 Character — Distinction from the Boatmen — Sas Bias Indians — Men- 

 dingoes— Their jealousy of Foreigners—Their Productions and Trade 

 — Their method of catching Fish and removing the shells from Tur- 

 tles — The Landholders and their Landmarks — Rosas — Native Ho- 

 tels — Dress of the Women— Smoking-— Their Children — Their Ideas 

 of the Future. 



Probably no class of mankind are more perfectly 

 satisfied with themselves, and contented in their situa- 

 tion, than the native inhabitants of this country. 

 Nature has lavished upon them some of her richest 

 gifts ; has given them a climate of constant summer, 

 thus enabling them to adopt the simplest habits of 

 life ; and not only planted, but rears and ripens, un- 

 aided, some of her choicest productions for their use. 

 So bountifully are these people provided for, in this 

 way, that they seem to be altogether free from any 

 care for the future ; and thus relieved so entirely from 

 that powerful and necessary incentive to action — 

 self-preservation, they lead a life of listless indiffe- 

 rence, emphatically the spoiled children of a too in- 

 dulgent parent, 



