The common method of navigation of small streams by the native Panamans is by 

 means of the cayuca or dugout, which varies in length from 8 to 35 feet and is cut from a 

 single tree. These boats are used by the natives for bringing fruit and produce to market, 

 and it is a common sight to see them loaded with sugar-cane cut in sections 8 or 10 feet in 

 length. 



are green with long-leaved plants, the in- 

 tervening pools bearing purple clumps of 

 drifting water hyacinths (see page i6y) . 



Here, too, are floating islands, with 

 waving grasses and slender reeds, des- 

 tined to live forever, and when anchored 

 by projecting snags or hemmed in be- 

 tween tree trunks, will gradually become 

 great tremulous bogs, unsafe alike for 

 man and all sharp-hoofed animals, but a 

 place of sunshine and of comfort to the 

 coming alligators, a refuge and a feeding 

 place for the herons, ibises, and other 

 water birds, long exiled on the shoreless 

 trees, where little frogs will be speared 

 and many a minnow lifted from along 

 the ragged edges. 



Day after day we explored these un- 

 known wastes, ever alert in avoiding the 

 sudden fall of tree-tops and massive 

 limbs weakened by inward decay or by 

 heavily burdened masses of parasitic 

 plants. Twice we were nearly over- 



whelmed and once the camera and flash- 

 light at the edge of the shore were buried 

 out of sight. 



The anticipated encroachments of the 

 lake resulted in a timely relocation of the 

 Panama Railroad along the Chagres Val- 

 ley (as shown in the comparison maps, 

 pages 180 and 181) ; but most of the 

 foot-trails were obliterated and the nar- 

 row, well-defined canoe routes became 

 lost in a maze of flooded forests, the 

 tortuous channels no longer indicated by 

 wooded banks or rapid currents. 



WHERE A RIVER GOT LOST 



In going up the estuary formed by the 

 flooded valley of the Trinidad, there was 

 no suggestion of the swift stream of 

 former years, once navigable for many 

 miles in a canoe, for now the broad, stag- 

 nant, forested waters were covered here 

 and there by floating vegetation and 

 driftwood that often blocked the old 



163 



