228 
EXPLORING FOR CASTILLOA RUBBER 
THIRD LETTER. 
Camp Iguana — Close Quarters— Provisions Low — Lucas Cruz — The Forest 
Primeval — Bees and Rubber — The Natives’ Horror of Gold — A Land Without 
Law— Breaking Camp— Mountain Climbing— At Las Minas— The Plantation 
"Las Marghartias” — Fourth of July Fiesta — On Board the Quartos Hermanos 
Panama, Colon, and New York. 
T HE ride to Iguana, as I was saying when my last letter came to 
a close, was delightful. Part of the way lay through dense 
forest, where some of the trees measured from ten to twelve 
feet in diameter, then perhaps it was through an abandoned Indian farm, 
grown up to jungle, but still producing mangoes, bananas, and alligator 
pears ; by climbing hills that seemed to go straight up in the air, and 
sliding down others that were even straighter; frightening big iguanas 
and little lizards ; stepping gingerly over six-inch-wide columns of leaf 
carrying ants ; always on the lookout for wild pigs, deer, or turkeys to 
replenish our larder; we proceeded, the whole journey full of variety 
and incident. The hut at Iguana, with a little repairing, gave us barelv 
room to stretch out comfortably at night, and had any one man chosen 
to stretch himself diagonally across the pole bed, there would have been 
no room for the rest. The hut was open on three sides, was about nine 
feet wide, seven feet high in front, and five feet in the rear, roofed with 
palm, and had an earth floor. We used our navy bags as hold-alls 
by day and pillows by night, and slept peacefully, except when our 
feet went through the side of the hut, or a leak in the roof let in too much 
water. 
Our first meal there seemed the most delicious I had ever eaten. 
It consisted of canned smoked beef (the edges of the slices were too 
far spoiled to eat, but the middle was good), fried bread sweetened with 
condensed milk, boiled rice, and coffee. The meat was cooked over an 
open fire and served on big, wild banana leaves. Nor shall I forget 
the first night — the almost deafening chirping of the crickets and tree 
frogs, the queer cries of the night birds, the steady drip of the dew from 
the trees like a slow rain, and the fireflies — how big and beautiful they 
were, and how still the air was, so that the flame of the candle went 
straight up with never a quiver. 
To assist in the exploration of this part of the tract was Lucas Cruz, 
an old rubber cutter, the builder of the hut in which we were installed. 
