The Isthmus of Tehuantepec. 



159 



for pedestrians. Voyagers in canoes cannot leave them to 

 ramble in the woods. 



Occasionally the traveler sees the solitary hut of a ma- 

 hogany wood hunter with its little patch of maize and rice. 

 Sometimes he sees the hut fire, and, perhaps, remnants of 

 a meal of a voyager who has preceded him. These are the 

 only evidences of human life seen during one week's jour- 

 ney from the sea to the mountains. 



The current of the rivers is so swift, that canoes propelled 

 by two or three men, planting their poles upon the bottom, 

 when the water is not too deep, and against the bank when 

 it is, the men walking from stem to stern, can only make 

 from three to four miles an hour: fifteen miles, up stream, 

 is a good day's journey. 



Huts made of a frame of poles, thatched with ocha leaves, 

 have been built on the river banks, about fifteen miles 

 apart. We could not induce the crew to pass one of these 

 huts. The steersman is captain : he stands in the stern 

 with a long oar. His excuse, for stopping, is, that there 

 is a very strong current, just around the next bend, which 

 his wearied crew cannot stem. The heat of the sun burns 

 the skin. Exposed metal becomes too hot to handle. The 

 less clothing, the more comfort. The nights are cold, 

 about 50°, and, consequently, the dews are heavy. A 

 man who sleeps without shelter, can wring the moisture 

 from his clothes in the morning. The air is, at all times, 

 so damp, that a sail or blanket, continually exposed, will be 

 continually wet: the heat of the sun will not dry it, tho- 

 roughly. The country is swampy. Mist and fog overhang 

 the river banks. 



The climate of the central portion of the isthmus is more 

 like the temperate zone. 



The soil is more barren, and, except in the intervales, or 

 such portions of the valleys as are overflowed annually, 

 contains a large proportion of slate rock. 



