32 
coalcos; and he states that it has 14 feet water upon its bar; 
but it is to be observed that probably he did not enter by the 
deepest channel. Besides, it was the month of May, the ordi¬ 
nary dry season, which had succeeded a year of notable 
scarcity of rain. 
Senor Orbegozo found, as well as Senor Ortiz, that it would 
be both easy and advantageous to render the Coatzacoalcos 
navigable as far as the confluence with the Alaman (or Mala- 
tengo); and from this point he proposes a carriage-road to be 
made as far as the lagoons, passing by the Chivela instead of 
by the Portillo de Tarifa, as proposed by Ortiz. 
“ Possibly,” he say, “ it might not be very expensive to 
u excavate a haven on the opposite side of the bar of Santa 
“ Teresa, for vessels drawing 20 and more feet of water, and 
“ also to deepen the principal bar.” 
VIII. 
We must not conclude this enumeration of the data which 
have been collected relative to the topography of the isthmus 
of Tehuantepec, without quoting the opinion of the first 
geographer of our times, the judicious Balbi, who considers 
the Coatzacoalcos “ as the finest port of all the rivers which 
“ discharge themselves into the Gulf of Mexico, not even ex- 
“ cepting the Mississipi itself.” 
