adding two or three varieties of very toothsome fish to their bill of
fare, though these fish were rarely caught with the hook, but usually
shot, or knifed by an alert native, as they basked in the shallows.
These parties also obtained occasionally a _danta_ (tapir) or a
manatee.
On the river it was possible to obtain a fine string of fish with hook
and line, then there was the huge tarpon to be had for the spearing,
and fish pots sunk in suitable places were sure to yield a mess of
fresh water lobsters. Ducks were also occasionally shot.
The forms of life are even more numerous in the vegetable than in the
animal kingdom. The effect of these wonderful forests is indescribable,
and though many writers have essayed a description, I have yet to see
one that does the subject justice. Only a simple enumeration of
component parts will be attempted here. First comes the grand body of
the forest, huge almendro, havilan, guachipilin, cortez, cedar,
cottonwood, palo de leche trees, and others rising one hundred and
fifty or two hundred feet into the scintillant sunshine. The entire
foliage of these trees is at the top and their great trunks reaching up
for a hundred feet or more without a branch offer a wonderful variety
of studies in types of column. Some rise straight and smooth, and true,
others send out thin deep buttresses, and others look like the
muscle-knotted fore-arm of a Titan, with gnarled fingers griping the
ground in their wide grasp.
But whatever the form of the tree trunks may be, the shallow soil upon
the hills and the marshy soil in the lowlands, has taught them that
there is greater safety and stability in a broad foundation than in a
deeply penetrating one, and so almost without exception the tree roots
spread out widely, on, or near, the surface. Beneath the protecting
shelter of these patriarchs, as completely protected from scorching sun
and rushing wind as if in a conservatory, grow innumerable varieties of
palms, young trees destined some day to be giants themselves, and
others which never attain great size. Still lower down, luxuriate
smaller palms, tree ferns, and dense underbrush, and countless vines.
These latter, however, are by no means confined to the underbrush, many
of them climb to the very tops of the tallest trees, cling about their
trunks and bind them to other trees and to the ground with the toughest
of ropes. With one or two exceptions these vines are an unmitigated
nuisance. To them more than to anything else is due the
impenetrableness of the tropical thicket. Of all sizes and all as tough
as hemp lines, they creep along the ground, catching the traveler's
feet in a mesh from which release is possible only by cutting. They
bind the underbrush together in a tough, elastic mat, which catches and
holds on to every projection about the clothes, jerking revolvers from
belts, and wrenching the rifle from the hand, or, hanging in trap-like
loops from the trees, catch one about the neck, or constantly drag
one's hat from the head. The one exception noted above is the _bejuco
de agua_ or water vine. This vine, which looks like an old worn manilla
rope, is to be found hanging from or twined about almost every large
tree upon elevated ground, and to the hot and thirsty explorer it
furnishes a most deliciously cool and clear draught.
Seizing the vine in the left hand, a stroke of the _machéte_ severs it
a foot or two below the hand, and another quick stroke severs it again
above the hand; immediately a stream of clear, tasteless water issues
from the lower end and may be caught in a dipper or _á la native_
directly in the mouth. A three-foot length of vine two inches in
diameter will furnish at least a pint of water. The order of cutting
mentioned above must invariably be adhered to, otherwise, if the upper
cut be made first, the thirsty novice will find he has in his hand only
a piece of dry cork-like rope.
It is practically impossible to judge of the age of the huge trees in
these forests. Mighty with inherent strength, stayed to the ground and
to their fellows by the numerous vines, sheltered and protected also by
their fellows from the shock of storms, their huge trunks have little
to do except support the direct weight of the tops, and they rarely
fall until they have reached the last stages of decay. Then some day
the sudden impact of a ton or two of water dropped from some furious
tropical shower, or the vibrations from a hurrying troop of monkeys, or
the spring of a tiger, is too much for one of the giant branches heavy
with its load of vines and parasites, and it gives way, breaking the
vines in every direction and splitting a huge strip from the main
trunk. With its supports thus broken and the whole weight of the
remaining branches on one side, the weakened trunk sways for a moment
then bows to its fate. The remaining vines break with the resistless
strain, and the old giant gathering velocity as he falls and dragging
with him everything in his reach, crashes to the earth with a roar
which elicits cries of terror from bird and beast, and goes booming
through the quivering forest like the report of a heavy cannon. A patch
of blue sky overhead and a pile of impenetrable debris below, mark for
years the grave of the old hero.
As regards the insect and reptile pests of the country it has been my
experience that both their numbers and capacity for torment have been
greatly exaggerated. Mosquitoes, flies of various sizes, wasps and
stinging ants exist, and the first in some places in large numbers; yet
to a person who has any of the woodsman's craft of taking care of
himself, and whose blood is not abnormally sensitive to insect poisons,
they present no terrors and but slight annoyances. At our headquarters
camp on San Francisco island, we had no mosquitoes from sunrise to
sunset, and even after sunset they were not especially numerous. At
another camp only a few miles away there were black flies only and no
mosquitoes, at another both, while at the camps up in the hills there
were neither. It was only at camps in the wet lowlands and near swamps,
that they became an almost unendurable annoyance. Even here it was
those who remained in camp that suffered most. Men out in the thick
brush were but little annoyed by them, and when on their return to camp
they had finished their dinner and gotten into their mosquito bars they
were out of their reach. As to snakes, the danger from them even to a
European, is practically nothing. Not a man of the several hundred that
have been engaged in the various expeditions in that country has ever
been bitten, and in hundreds of miles of tramping through the worst
forests of the country, either entirely alone or if accompanied by
natives, with them some distance in the rear, I have never fancied
myself in danger. The poisonous snakes are invariably sluggish, and
unless actually struck or stepped upon are apt to try to get out of the
way, if they make any move. The only snake that is at all aggressive,
as far as my observations go, is a long, black, non-poisonous snake.
This will sometimes advance upon the intruder with head raised a couple
of feet from the ground, or if coiled about a tree will lash at him
with its tail.
The floral exhibit of these forests is apt to be disappointing to one
whose ideas have been formed by a perusal of books. An occasional
scarlet passion flower; now and then the fragrant cluster of the _flor
del toro_; a few insignificant though fragrant flowering shrubs; and in
muddy sloughs near the streams, patches of wild callas; are about all
that meet the eye of the non-botanical wanderer in the deep forest.
There is not light enough for flowers beneath the dense canopy of
trees, and they, like the smaller birds, seek the tree tops and the
banks of the river where sunlight and air are abundant. In the tree
tops the orchids and other flowering parasites run riot. Many of the
trees are themselves flowering, and if one can look down upon the tree
tops of a valley in March or April, he sees the green expanse enlivened
by blazing patches of crimson, yellow, purple, pink, and white.
The river banks are the favorite home of the flowering vines, and there
they form great curtains swaying from the trees in bright patterns of
yellow, pink, red and white. The grassy banks and islands, and the
shallow sand spits also bring forth innumerable varieties of aquatic
plants.
So much for the Atlantic slope of the country.
On the west side between the Lake and the Pacific the work is very
different. There it is possible to ride mule-back to the top of a
commanding hill, sit down and make the reconnaissance sketch at
leisure. The secondary reconnaissances may also be made mule-back, and
everywhere the rolling country and the cleared and cultivated fields,
permit the engineer to see where he is going and how he is going.
His surroundings are also different. He moves camp in an oxcart instead
of a canoe. His eyes instead of being confined by the impenetrable veil
of the tropical thicket, feast upon views of the distant mountains, the
crisp waves of the Lake, and the blue expanse of the Pacific. During
the day he meets black-eyed and brown-limbed señoritas, instead of wild
hogs and turkeys, and at night as he turns in, he hears, not the scream
of tigers, but the songs of the _lavandera's_ ecru daughters floating
across the stream which supplies their wash-tubs and his camp.
The first grand natural feature which arrests attention in the most
cursory examination of the map of Nicaragua is the Great Lake. This
lake with an area of some three thousand square miles and a water-shed
of about eight thousand square miles, is unique in the large proportion
of its own area to that of its water-shed. A result of this large
proportion of water surface to drainage area, at once evident, is the
very gradual changes of level of the lake and their confinement within
very narrow limits. The difference between the level of the lake at the
close of an abnormally dry season and its level at the close of an
abnormally wet season is not more than ten feet, and the usual annual
fluctuation is about five feet.
The next features that arrest attention are, first, the very narrow
ribbon of land intervening between the western shore of the Lake and
the Pacific, and second, the entire absence of lateral tributaries of
any size to the upper half of the San Juan River. The river is in fact,
as it was originally most aptly named, simply the "Desaguadero" or
drain of the Lake.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO HIGHLANDS--RIVER SAN JUAN. _Julius Bien &
Co._]
The length of this river is one hundred and twenty miles, from the Lake
to the Caribbean Sea, and its total fall from one hundred to one
hundred and ten feet. Nature has separated the river into two nearly
equal divisions, presenting distinct and opposite characteristics.
From Lake Nicaragua to the mouth of the Rio San Carlos, a distance of
sixty-one miles, in which occur several rapids, the total descent is
fifty feet, quite irregularly distributed however. The surface slopes
of the river vary from as much as 83.38 inches per mile for a short
distance at Castillo rapids, to only .90 inch per mile through the Agua
Muerte, the dead water below the Machuca rapids.
The average width of the river through this upper section is seven
hundred feet, the minimum four hundred and twenty. In some parts of the
Agua Muerte the depth varies from fifty to seventy-five feet.
There are very few islands in this section of the river, the banks are
covered with huge trees matted with vines, and throughout the lower
half of the division, from Toro rapids to the mouth of the San Carlos,
the river is confined between steep hills and mountains.
[Illustration: UPPER CASTILLO--RIVER SAN JUAN. _Julius Bien & Co._]
As a result of the absence of considerable tributaries already noted,
the fluctuations of this portion of the river conform closely to those
of the Lake, and consequently take place gradually and are limited in
range.
Below the Rio San Carlos the San Juan changes its character entirely.
Its average width is twelve hundred and fifty feet, its bottom is
sandy, there are numerous islands, and the slope of the river is almost
uniformly one foot per mile.
The discharge into this section of two large tributaries, the San
Carlos and the Sarapiqui, descending from the steep slopes of the Costa
Rican volcanoes, causes much more sudden and considerable fluctuations
of level than in the upper river.
While the lower portion of the river and especially the delta section
presents very interesting features, yet the peculiar charm of the river
is in the upper section, and the exceptional advantages it offers for
obtaining miles of slack water navigation. This portion of the river
with the lake and the narrow isthmus between it and the Pacific forms a
trio of natural advantages for the construction of a canal, the
importance of which it would be difficult to over estimate.
About three miles below the mouth of the San Carlos, the Caño Machado
enters the San Juan on the north bank. This stream, about one hundred
feet wide and from eight to ten feet deep, is the last of the mountain
or torrential tributaries of the San Juan. It can scarcely be said to
have a valley, but occupies the bed of a rugged ravine extending for
several miles northerly and northwesterly up into the easterly flank of
the cordillera. Every variety of igneous rock, from light porous pumice
to dense metallic green-black hypersthene andesite, may be picked up in
the bed of this stream. Agates also are common and there are occasional
masses of jasper. Farther up, frequent outcrops of trap in situ occur,
interspersed in some localities with numerous veins of agate.
Twelve miles below the Machado the San Francisco enters the San Juan.
This stream, with its several tributaries, drains a large swampy valley
sprinkled with irregular hummocks and hills. For several miles from the
San Juan it is a sluggish, muddy stream between steep slippery banks;
higher up, flowing over a gravelly and then a rocky bed, it finally
disappears in steep ravines filled with huge bowlders. The main San
Francisco comes from the northwest, but a large tributary has its
source to the eastward in a range of hills which separates the San
Francisco basin from the immediate Caribbean water-shed. This range,
unlike the ones already noted, is at heart an uninterrupted mass of
homogeneous hypersthene andesite, and with one exception nothing but
fragments of trap or trap _in situ_, is to be found in any of the
streams descending from either its western or eastern slopes. The one
exception is the Cañito Maria, a tributary of the San Francisco,
entering it but little more than a mile from the San Juan. In the bed
of this stream were abundant specimens of agates, jasper, and petrified
woods of several varieties in a wonderfully good state of preservation.
This range of hills ends at the Tamborcito bend of the San Juan, four
miles below the mouth of the San Francisco, and is the last easterly
projecting spur from the mountain backbone of the interior. Between it
and the coast there are, however, mountain masses of equal or greater
elevation, notably "El Gigante" and the Silico hills, the former some
fifteen hundred feet high, but these are simply isolated mountain
ganglia, their innumerable radiating spurs speedily giving way to
swamps or river valleys.
The streams that flow down the eastern slope of the Silico hills are,
from their sources to the lowlands, of almost idyllic beauty. Beginning
as noisy little brooks tumbling over black rocks in a V-shaped ravine
near the summit of the hills, they rapidly gather volume and slide
along in a polished channel of trap, tumbling every now and then as
sheets of white spray over vertical ledges forming here and there deep
green pools, and then after they have passed down among the foot-hills,
rippling in broad shallow reaches over sunlit beds of bright yellow
gravel. The water of these streams is clear and sparkling as that of an
Alpine stream and apparently almost as cool. The insect pests of the
tropics are unknown in the elevated portions of their valleys, and I
have slept more than once beside one of these streams, several hundred
feet above sea level, without a mosquito bar, while the delightful
"trades," rustling through the trees above me, brought the murmur of
the Caribbean surf miles away, to mingle with that of the stream.
The soil of this range consists, to a depth of ten to forty feet, of
clay of various grades and colors, red prevailing. In the valleys this
clay is almost invariably of a very dense consistency, and deep, dark
red in color.
From the foot-hills of the range to the coast, is a low level stretch
of country, a dozen miles wide, interspersed with lagoons and swamps.
Near the hills, where the elevation of the ground will average about
fifteen feet above sea level, the soil is composed almost entirely of
the before mentioned red clay, which occasionally assumes the form of
hummocks. Within about six miles of the coast this stratum of clay
gradually disappears under a layer of sand, which is in turn covered,
by a vegetable mould, to a depth of a few feet. From this point to the
sea the average elevation is barely five feet above the sea level, and
the sand and mould above mentioned are the only materials met. A short
distance from the ocean the vegetable earth-covering disappears and
only the sand is left, extending to an unknown depth and reaching out
into the sea.
West of Lake Nicaragua, from the Rio Lajas to Brito, as we leave the
lake shore, the ground rises almost imperceptibly to the "Divide" among
cleared and gently undulating fields. Then we drop into the sinuous
gorge of the Rio Grande only to emerge, a few miles farther on, into
the upper end of the Rio Grande and Tola basin.
To the right the Tola valley stretches to the northward, and all around
high and wooded hills encircle the valleys except directly in front
where a narrow gateway in the coast hills opens to the Pacific. In the
bottom of this valley are a few farms and through it wander devious
roads. Beyond the narrow gateway in the hills, less than three miles of
level swampy _salinas_ reach to the surf of the Pacific.
The views from the hills which flank the gateway of the Rio Grande, at
La Flor, are wonderfully attractive. I well remember one camp on the
hillside, from which in one direction the eye takes in the fertile
valley of the Tola and Rio Grande, backed by the rolling hills of the
"Divide" and over them the symmetrical peak of Ometepe, its base washed
by the waves of the great lake. In the other direction the Pacific lies
apparently but a stone's throw below, the little port of Brito at one's
very feet.
This same camp inspired one young engineer and enthusiast to express
himself something as follows:
"What if, in this camp, we should, like Rip Van Winkle, sleep for ten
years, and then awakening look about us? We are still at Brito, but
instead of being in the wilderness, we look down upon a thriving city.
In the harbor are ships from all ports of the world. Ships from San
Francisco, bound for New York, about to pass through the canal and
shorten their journey by 10,000 miles. Ships from Valparaiso, headed
for New York, which will take the short cut and save 5000 miles and the
dread storms of Cape Horn. At many a masthead floats the British flag,
and vessels from Liverpool, with their bows turned towards San
Francisco, have shortened their journey by 7000 miles."
"We go aboard one of the many steamers flying the 'stars and stripes'
and start eastward. All along the line the face of the country has
changed; the fertile shores of the Tola basin are occupied by cacao
plantations, fields have replaced forests, villages have grown to
towns, and factories driven by the exhaustless water power furnished by
the canal have sprung up on every available site."
"Along the shore of the lake are immense dry docks, and vessels are
resting in this huge fresh water harbor before setting out again on
their long voyages. The broad bosom of the noble San Juan is quivering
with the strokes of tireless propellors. The roar of the great dam at
Ochoa is heard for a moment and then the eastern section of the canal
is entered. Here the country is scarcely recognizable so greatly has it
changed. Wilderness and marsh have disappeared, and only great fields
of plantains and bananas and dark green orange groves are to be seen. A
day from Brito and the steamer's bow is rising to the long blue swell
of the Caribbean at Greytown."
Well is this picture calculated to excite enthusiasm, for it means the
dream of centuries realized, the cry of commerce answered, and our
imperial Orient and Occident-facing Republic resting content with
coasts united from Eastport to the Strait of Fuca.