160 
DOTTINGS ON THE BOADSIDE. [Chap. X.— B.S. 
stages being observable. At ten a.m. we found our¬ 
selves off Jesus-Maria, an estate at that time belonging 
to Dr. Kratocbwill, a German physician, and the only 
one in the whole Isthmus where agricultural operations 
are carried on in a proper manner. There was none of 
that extreme untidiness about it so characteristic of 
everything with which Spaniards or people of Spanish 
descent have to do. The buildings were substantial, 
the gardens and sugar-fields well kept, and the yards 
stocked with fowls of every description. The estate 
is twenty-eight miles from the mouth, but our steamer, 
plans, it will be perceived that the whole length of the route from 
ocean to ocean is only thirty miles. On the north there is the admi¬ 
rable, spacious, and deep harbour of San Bias, and on the south the 
channel leading into the Bay of Panama has not less than eighteen feet 
of water at mean low tide, while the ordinary rise of tide is sixteen 
feet. I give these figures from Mr. Kelly’s survey, but I must observe 
that the result of the examination by his engineer of the entrance of 
the Bayano is entirely unexpected, and does not accord with the Ad¬ 
miralty charts. But the most striking feature of the project, as of Mr. 
Garella, is a tunnel, similar in its length and other respects to the 
great tunnel through the Alps at Mont Cenis, in which the progress is 
so satisfactory that the period of its completion can be definitely fixed. 
When the tunnel through Mont Cenis, and the still greater one through 
Mont St. Gothard, are finished and in use, such undertakings will cease 
to be regarded with the aversion now felt towards them. It must be 
observed, however, with regard to Mr. Kelly’s survey, that, owing to 
its being a private affair, it was necessarily accomplished at the least 
possible expense, and with the utmost expedition. It pursued a single 
line, without deviating to the right or left, although the surveyors were 
satisfied that they saw evidence of greater depression to the westward 
of their course; and there can be no doubt whatever that a deliberate 
examination, made under such advantages as would pertain to a go¬ 
vernmental survey, would lessen the difficulties, and perhaps lead to 
the discovery of such a route through the valleys as would render a 
resort to tunnelling unnecessary. 
