trees, and originally covered with interlacing vines
and thorny shrubs, and inhabited only by reptiles,
beasts and poisonous insects.
It has been stated that Columbus entered Navy bay, and called the place after himself, Colon. This seems to me hardly probable. In the first place, none of the early voyagers make any mention of such an event ; and in the next place the great admiral could have found many spots more interesting and import- ant than this to bear his name. Whether Rodrigo de Bastidas or Columbus touched at Chagres, their records do not state. The first mention history makes of that famous place, it will be remembered, is in the adventures of Diego de Nicuesa along these shores in 1508. A relative of this cavalier, Cueto by name, having command of another ship than that in which Nicuesa sailed, and becoming separated from his com- mander in a storm, was forced, while seeking him, to harbor his worm-eaten ship at the mouth of the river Chagres, so called by the natives, but to which, from the multitudes of allio-ators that swarmed in its little bay, he gave the name of Lagartos.
Probably there was not in all the world where man dwells a more loathsome spot than this town of Aspinwall, with its hybrid population and streets of intersecting stagnant pools. A bed of slime and decaying vegetation reeking pestilence, alive with crawling reptiles, given over of nature to the vilest of her creations, man for money makes a place of to live in, or rather to die in, for premature death is plainly written on the face of every European inhab- itant. Travel the world over and in every place you may find something better than is found in any other place. Searching for the specialty in which Aspin- wall excelled, we found it in her carrion birds, which cannot be anywhere surpassed in size or smell. Man- zanilla island may boast the finest vultures on the planet. OriginaRy a swamp, the foundations of the buildings were below the level of the ocean, and dry
