ever clianging scenery which affords the observer con-
stant deUght, as the journey is now made.
Chao;res at this time was a town of about seven hundred native inhabitants, dwelling in some fifty windowless, bamboo huts, with thatched, palm-leaf roofs, and having open entrances, and the bare ground for a floor. The town was surrounded by heaps of filthy offal, and greasy, stagnant pools bordered with blue mud. It is situated on a small but exceedingly picturesque and almost land-locked bay, well nigh buried by the foliage that skirts its banks and rolls off in billowy emerald toward the hills beyond. Be- tween the shore and mountains stretch away for miles in every direction broad, open savannahs, cut into farms, covered with chaparral, and stocked with cattle. Where the river and ocean meet rises a bold bluff, crowned by the castle of San Lorenzo, whose ruined fortress and battlements, gnawed to a skeleton by the teeth of time, gaze mournfully out upon the sea which lashes its waves against its steep foundations, as if determined to uproot in all these inhospitable parts the last vestige of the olden time. Fallen to the bottom of the cliff were parapet and guns ; screaming sea-birds occupied the crumbling, moss-covered watch- tower ; while within the dismounted cannon, bearing, with the royal arms of Spain, the date of 1745, were slowly changing into rust. Remnants of the old paved road which ascends the hill were there, and the draw- bridge over the moat — once wide and deep, but now rank with vegetation — leading to the main gateway ; likewise the drawbridge to the citadel on the verge of the cliff, whence a charming view of sea and land may be had. At Chagres, passengers were accustomed to stay no longer than sufficed to engage boats and start on their journey. This region is specially noted for the insalubrity of its climate.
Aspinwall, or Navy bay, where the first blow upon the railway was struck, occupies a small swampy mud- reef called Manzanilla island, fringed with mangrove
