65 
ACROSS THE ISTHMUS OF PANAMA'. 
and gaining as many views of the surrounding country as I possibly could, 
by climbing the highest trees with a small tomahawk, particularly noticing 
the direction and figure of the Cordillera to the east and west. 
The more direct line from Porto Velo to Panamfi, passing through the river 
Chagres at a place called Calle Limon, is laid down from a manuscript fur- 
nished by a Spaniard, who with a circumferentor and a cord of 200 varas crossed 
from Porto Velo to Panama as nearly north and south as possible. 
It is generally supposed in Europe that the great chain of mountains which 
in South America forms the Andes and in North America the Mexican and 
Rocky Mountains, continues nearly unbroken through the Isthmus. This 
however is not the case : the northern Cordillera breaks into detached moun- 
tains on the eastern side of the province of Veragua. These are of consider- 
able height, extremely abrupt and rugged, and frequently exhibit an almost per- 
pendicular face of bare rock. To these succeed numerous conical mountains 
rising out of savannahs and plains, and seldom exceeding from 300 to 500 feet 
in height. Finally, between Chagres on the Atlantic side, and Chorrera on the 
Pacific side, the conical mountains are not so numerous, having plains of 
great extent interspersed, with occasional insulated ranges of hills of incon- 
derable height and extent. From this description it will be seen that the spot 
where the continent of America is reduced to nearly its narrowest limits, is 
also distinguished by a break for a few miles of the great chain of mountains, 
which otherwise extends, with but few exceptions, to its extreme northern and 
southern limits. 
This combination of circumstances points out the peculiar fitness of the 
Isthmus of Panama for the establishment of a communication across. 
On the east of the line from Panama to the Bay of Limon, the mountains 
again commence, gradually thicken, and become more elevated until they con- 
nect and form Cordilleras extending from Porto Velo to the Bay of Mandinga, 
from whence there is another break in the province of Darien and Choco, after 
which the land rises into a Cordillera on a very extended scale and of very 
great elevation. 
Two lines are marked on the map, commencing at a point near the junction 
of the rivers Chagres and Trinidad, and crossing the plains, the one to Chorrera 
and the other to Panama. These lines indicate the directions which I consider 
MDCCCXXX. 
K 
