Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 
5 
were not found at Eden. Many photographs were taken in and 
around Bluefields, and we continued to take pictures during our 
entire stay in Nicaragua, so that when we returned we had about 
seven hundred negatives. 
Before leaving Philadelphia, Mr. Charles R. Miller, Vice-Pres¬ 
ident of the Eden Mining Company, offered to take us on the 
schooner that was to carry him from Port Lamon, Costa Rica, to 
Prinzapolka, and continue in his party up the river in pitpans to 
Eden. This kindness of Mr. Miller’s simplified our travelling very 
much, shortening the time spent on the river, besides giving us the 
greatest possible comfort and enjoyment. It was therefore a great 
pleasure to us when we joined Mr. Miller and Mr. Blackburn on 
board the “Ultramar” at the Bluff, at noon on March 13. The 
“Ultramar” is a fifty foot, two-masted schooner, of about 40 tons, 
fitted with an auxiliary engine. At eight o’clock, with a beautiful 
moon over head, we left the Bluffs, crossed the bar under our auxil¬ 
iary, then hoisted our sails, and set a course for Prinzapolka, ninety 
miles up the coast. The trade wind was blowing strong, and the 
sea very rough, so we stayed close to our mattresses spread on top 
of the engine house. Many times during the night the mattress 
slid with the pitching of the schooner, and I thought that I would 
land in the scuppers, or on the back of the big black hog that roamed 
the deck as a mascot. 
There is very little water on the bar at the entrance to the 
Prinzapolka River and in crossing we struck several times. Large 
steamers that load mahogany logs anchor well off the coast, and the 
logs are rafted and towed off to them by power boats. We reached 
the wharf of the Tunky Transportation Company at ten o’clock, 
and our equipment was immediately transferred to a pitpan. 
All the arrangements for the river journey of 180 miles to Eden 
having been made by Captain Osmond Thompson, we were free 
to observe and collect a few birds. Two pitpans each fifty feet 
long, five and one-half feet wide, and hollowed from a single ma¬ 
hogany log, with a canvas cover over the middle long enough to 
shelter our air-mattresses from the rain, were lashed on either side 
of a gasoline power boat. Mr. Miller and Mr. Blackburn occupied 
one pitpan; Mr. Street and myself the other. Captain Osmond 
Thompson, a cook, and ten Moskito Indians, made up the balance 
of the party. We left the wharf of the Tunky Transportation 
