1C2 
HYDKOGEAPH1C KEPOETS. 
an excellent mule-road, which lies for four miles over high and 
undulating prairies. This point is, without doubt, one of the 
most salubrious, and for agricultural purposes, one of the most 
advantageous on the Isthmus. While here, I made a recon- 
naissance of the river, in the direction of the Gulf, for thirteen 
miles, and found, as the least depth in the channel, nineteen 
feet. Subsequently, on a second visit, in company with Mr. 
Avery, this examination was extended for twelve miles above 
the Hacienda, with such results as are marked in the sketch 
appended to the accompanying map. 
Passing some four days at the Hacienda in making recon- 
naissances in various directions, I returned again to the Paso 
and continued the survey of the ITspanapa. From the entrance 
of the Arroyo de los Urgells, the river bends, gradually, from 
E. 15° S. to S. 12° W., forming a broad reach, called the Torno 
Bonito, the shores of which are thickly wooded with valuable 
timber. From the left bank an extensive sandy shoal stretches 
to nearly half the width of the stream, and in many places is 
bare in the dry season. But a good and sufficiently wide chan- 
nel, admitting a draught of six feet, exists under the right bank. 
At the distance of two and a half miles from the arroyo, on the 
east side of the river, is the Banclio Maria del Carmen, a bluff 
above overflow, and surrounded by a forest of india-rubber trees. 
This point is a most valuable site, and the land throughout its 
vicinity incomparably rich. Here a cross-section of soundings 
to the opposite shore showed a continuous depth of eight feet at 
all seasons. Leaving the Rancho, the river continues a south- 
westerly course for two miles, until reaching a high perpendicular 
barrancas of ferruginous clay, known as El Tamulte, back of 
which is an immense forest of guapaque, mahogany, palo-amarillo, 
and india-rubber. At this point there is a sudden depression or 
break in the bank, through which a small creek drains the waters 
of a neighboring lagoon. Between this point and the Rancho, the 
least depth of water in the channel is five feet, over a hard, white, 
6andy bottom. The river now pursues a southerly course for a 
mile, and then forming a sharp elbow, bends round to the same 
direction again for a mile and a half further, with low marshy 
banks, and a depth in channel of eleven feet, which soon after 
