HYDE0GEAP1IIC EEPOETS. 
exploration in November, 1841), and was thus enabled to prose- 
cute my labors. Setting out on the morning of the 17th from 
the Paraca Nicolas, we reached a huge rock in the river, called 
the Piedra Magare, thirty-three and a half miles above Mai Paso, 
and camped for the night. In descending to this point there are 
three tributaries to the Bio del Corte, viz. : the Milagro, Iscui- 
lapa, and Coyoltepec. Before reaching the first of these, there 
are fourteen rapids, many of them strong and dangerous, with 
narrow channels filled with sharp rocks — the river in many 
places not exceeding thirty feet in width, and varying in depth 
from two to fifteen feet, with a bottom of slate overlaid by sand 
and pebbles. In this part of the river, which has a mean direc- 
tion of S. "W., the inclination of its surface to the Gulf is verv 
perceptible, while the current has an average strength of four 
miles per hour. The banks are generally high and thickly 
wooded, with occasional low strips of ground, upon which are 
numerous milpas, and two small plantations of cotton and to- 
bacco. The Milagro, at its confluence with the Rio del Corte 
(four and a half miles below the point of embarkation), runs east 
and west for a short distance, with low cultivated margins and 
a narrow entrance. Three miles below this, on the same (left) 
bank, at a sharp bend in the river, the Iscuilapa joins, running 
W. S. W., and in point of size is very similar to the Milagro ; 
the main river, in the mean time, pursuing a southwesterly 
course, and its banks exhibiting nearly the same characteristics 
as above; the evidences of cultivation, however, diminishing 
with the increase of distance from Santa Maria Chimalapa — 
there being but nine milpas between the Milagro and the Iscui- 
lapa. The current is also feebler, and the stream wider — some- 
times three hundred feet. The rapids are likewise less frequent, 
and the depth more uniform. The Coyoltepec enters with a cas- 
cade six and a half miles lower down, and is but a small stream, 
branching off from the Iscuilapa some distance in the interior. 
Between the two last-named tributaries the Rio del Corte pre- 
sents no features worthy of note except the Piedra Alta, a high 
perpendicular cliff of limestone rock, on the right bank. Here 
the passage is narrow, and the water, which has worn a com- 
plete archway along the base of the precipice, twenty feet deep. 
