April 3 was a day to be long remembered. Barbadoes to Jamaica is as Champagne or Mecklenburg compared to Switzerland or Tyrol, and now for the first time the dream of tropical nature became a reality. At six p.m. we passed Port Royal, and about seven had cast anchor at Kingston. The first impression on landing here is unfavourable. The buildings are mean, the thoroughfares and side-paths out of repair, the people in the streets seem to have nothing to do and to be doing it, the general air that of listlessness and neglect. Altogether the place contrasts disadvantageously with the ports of Spanish America, to say nothing of our own colonies. But Kingston was not to detain us, and the overpowering attraction was towards the range of the Blue Mountains, on which my eyes had been fixed all the morning as we approached the shore. We were told that we must return to the ship at five o’clock, so that it was hopeless to attempt to reach even the middle zone of the mountains, and all that could be done with advantage was to engage a carriage to a place called Gordontown, in a valley which is the ordinary route to Newcastle and other places in the mountains. After a delay which to our impatience seemed unreasonable, I started in a tolerable carriage with W – , an old friend who was proceeding to Lima as commissioner from the Court of Chancery to receive evidence in an important pending lawsuit, and who, although not a naturalist, gave effective and valuable help on this and other subsequent occasions in the work of plant-collecting.
EXCURSION IN JAMAICA.
For a distance of four or five miles the land slopes very gently from the coast towards the roots of the hills. This tract is partly occupied by sugar-plantations; but our road lay for some time among small country houses, each surrounded by pleasure-ground or garden. As the dry season was not yet over, the country here looked parched; but I saw many trees and shrubs new to me, many of them laden with flowers, and found it hard to keep my resolution not to stop the carriage until we should reach Gordontown. The excitement increased as we entered the valley, and the road began to wind up the slopes above the right bank of the torrent, where at every yard some new object came into view. It was near eleven a.m. when we reached the little inn, which, with four or five houses, make the station of Gordontown, where the carriage road ends, and horses are hired by those bound for Newcastle or other places in the hills. No time was to be lost, and we were speedily on our way to ramble up the valley, keeping as near as might be to the banks of the torrent.
The first effect upon one accustomed only to the vegetation of the temperate zone is simply bewildering. As I expressed it at the time, it seemed as if the inmates of the plant-houses at Kew had broken loose and run scrambling up the rocky hills that enclose the valley. These are of a red arenaceous rock, rough and broken, but affording ample hold for trees as well as smaller plants. The torrent at this season was shrunk to slender dimensions, but is never wholly dry; and I was somewhat surprised to find that on the steep slopes exposed to the full sunshine the vegetation was much less parched than one commonly finds it in summer in the Mediterranean region, and even to gather a good many ferns on exposed banks. It would appear that, even in the dry season, the air must here be nearly saturated with aqueous vapour, and that abundant dews must supply the needs of delicate plants. Not many species were in flower, but yet there was more than sufficient to occupy the short time available. Malvaceæ and Convolvulaceæ were the most prominent forms; but to a new-comer the most lively interest attaches to groups never before seen in a wild state, such as Passiflora– of which two species were found in flower – a first solitary representative of the great tropical American family of Melastomaceæ, or the gorgeous Amaryllid, Hippeastrum equestre, hiding in shady places by the stream.
VEGETATION OF GORDONTOWN.
Although Gordontown can scarcely be so much as a thousand feet above the sea-level, the climate is very sensibly cooler than that of Kingston. When we left the town the thermometer stood at 83° in the shade, while here at midday the sea-breeze felt positively cold, and I was glad to have with me an extra garment. A light luncheon of ham and eggs, with guava sweetmeat for dessert, was soon despatched; and, as I wished to halt at several spots on the way, we started about half-past two, laden with the spoils of the excursion, and reached the steamer before five o’clock. Great was my disgust to find that there was no intention of starting until nine a.m. the next morning, and this was changed to indignation when it came to be known that we had been deprived of the priceless pleasure of a trip to the mountains by the deliberate misstatement of the company’s superintendent, who had arranged to embark on the following morning three hundred negroes going to work on the Panama Ship Canal.
A stranger can scarcely fail to observe a marked difference between the negro population of Jamaica and that of Barbadoes. In the larger island, while no way deficient in physical qualities, they appear decidedly inferior in intelligence, activity, and courtesy towards their white neighbours. It is said that the independent class, who live by cultivating small patches of land on which they have squatted, has of late years much improved, and that the increasing desire for purchasable comforts and luxuries has begun to develop habits of steady industry; but as regards the mass of the people who live by wages, there are many indications of a sullen dislike towards the descendants of their former masters which some trifling provocation may at any time inflame to a pitch of wild ferocity. Some who have lived in the island maintain that a general rising with a view to the massacre of the white population is not an impossible occurrence, and, however improbable it may appear, there is ample reason for constant vigilance on the part of those responsible for the government of the island. Such vigilance, it must be remembered, is quite as much requisite to prevent acts of real or apparent injustice towards the inferior race, as to repress the first beginnings of violence if some spark should fire the mine of suppressed hatred.
After a too short visit to this beautiful island, we were under way before ten a.m. on April 4th, and before midday the outline of the Blue Mountains of Jamaica was fast fading in the northern horizon. Throughout the greater part of the run from Kingston we encountered a moderately brisk breeze, which gradually veered from south-east to south-west, and this, according to our experienced captain, commonly occurs at this season. It may be conjectured that the great mountain barrier extending on the south side of the Caribbean Sea through Venezuela and Colombia deflects the current of the north-east trade-wind until it finally flows in an exactly contrary direction. Whatever its origin may be, it might be supposed that the interference of a current from the south-west with the course of the regular trade-wind would give rise to storms of dangerous violence. These, however, rarely if ever occur during the spring months. It may be that, on the meeting of contrary currents of unequal temperature, the ordinary result is that the warmer current rises and flows over the cooler one without actual interference.
ISTHMUS OF PANAMA.
Before sunrise on the morning of the 6th we reached Colon, and, after a little inevitable delay, took leave of our excellent commander, and set foot on the American continent at a spot which seems destined to become familiar to the civilized world as the eastern termination of the Panama Ship Canal. People who love to paint in dark colours had done their best to make us uncomfortable as to the part of the journey between the arrival at Colon and the departure from Panama. The regular train crossing the isthmus starts very early from Colon, and we should be forced to remain during the greater part of the day breathing the deadly exhalations of that ill-famed port. In point of unhealthiness Panama is but little better than Colon, and as the weekly steamer of the Pacific Navigation Company bound southward would have departed one or two days before our arrival, we were sure to be detained for five or six days, equally trying to the health and temper. Fully believing these vaticinations to be much exaggerated, we had no opportunity of testing them. A free use of the telegraph on the morning of our arrival at Jamaica, and the courtesy of the officials of the various companies concerned, relieved us from all anxiety, and reduced our stay within the shortest possible limits. It was true that the regular train had been despatched before we could land, but a special engine was in readiness to convey us across the isthmus, and the agent for the Pacific mail steamer at Panama had detained the ship bound for Lima until the same evening in order to enable us to continue our voyage.
Since the commencement of the works connected with the canal, Colon must have undergone much improvement. The bronze statue of Columbus presented by the Empress Eugénie, which for many years had lain prostrate in the mud of the sea-beach, has been cleansed and placed upon a stone pedestal. A number of stores, frail structures of wooden planks, were arranged in an irregular street, and displayed a great variety of European goods. It was rather surprising to find the prices of sundry small articles purchased here extremely moderate. One might suppose that the only inducement that could lead people to trade in a spot of such evil repute would be the hope of exorbitant profits enabling them soon to retire from business.
Of the works connected with the Ship Canal little was to be seen from the railway cars. For its eastern termination the mouth of the Chagres river, which reaches the sea close to Colon, has been selected. I am not aware whether it is proposed to divert the course of that stream from the channel of the canal, but, to judge from the appearance of its banks and the extensive mangrove swamps on either side, it appears to bear down a great amount of fine alluvial mud, which, if discharged into the canal, must be a source of future difficulty. What chiefly struck the eye of the passing traveller was the broad band which had been cleared across the isthmus to mark the line of the future canal. It is fully a hundred metres in width, and seemingly carried in a nearly straight line through the forest and over the hills that lie on the western side near to Panama. This clearing does not appear a very serious undertaking, but in a region where the energy of vegetation is so marvellous, must have cost an immense amount of labour, and to keep the line open, if that be found expedient, will demand no small yearly expenditure. There is here, properly speaking, no dry season. The rains recur at frequent intervals throughout the year, and to keep back the ever-encroaching sea of vegetation the axe is in constant requisition.
PANAMA SHIP CANAL.
In the interest of the human race, it is impossible not to desire the success of the Ship Canal, but it must not be forgotten that the project is of a character so gigantic that all previous experience, such as that of the Suez Canal, fails to give a measure of the difficulties to be encountered, or of the outlay required to overcome them. Engineers may doubtless calculate with sufficient accuracy the number of millions of cubic yards of rock or earth that must be removed, and may estimate approximately the cost of labour and materials; but the obstacles due to the climate and physical conditions of this region are a formidable addition whose amount experience alone can fully determine. The only race combining physical strength with any moderate adaptation to the climate is apparently the African negro, and even with these the amount of sickness and mortality is said to be alarmingly great. The field from which negro labour can be recruited, though large, is by no means unlimited, and it is to be expected that the rate of wages must be considerably increased as time advances. The conditions of the problem have no doubt been carefully studied by the remarkable man to whom its existence is due, and by the able assistants whom he has consulted; but it may not be too rash to hazard the prediction that, apart from any international difficulties, its success may depend upon the more or less complete realization of two desiderata – first, the extensive application of labour-saving machinery, for which perhaps the heavy rainfall may supply the motive power; secondly, the possibility, by completely clearing the summits of some of the higher hills near the line, of establishing healthy sites whence workmen could be conveyed to the required points during the day and brought back before nightfall.
EQUATORIAL VEGETATION.
Nothing in our brief experience suggested the idea of an especially unhealthy region, and the feelings of a botanist at being whirled so rapidly through a land teeming with objects of curiosity and interest are better imagined than expressed. For more than half the distance the line is simply a trench cut through the forest, which is restrained from invading and burying the rails only by constant clearing on either side. The trees were not very large, but seemed to include a vast variety of forms. More striking were the masses of climbers, parasites, and epiphytes, to say nothing of the rich and strange herbaceous plants that fringed the edge of the forest. Our train, being express, gave but a single chance of distinguishing anything amid the crowd of passing objects – during a brief halt at a station about half-way across the isthmus, round which was a cluster of small houses or huts, inhabited by Indians. Their features were much less remote from the European type than I had expected – less remote, I thought, than those of many Asiatics of Mongol stock. Ten minutes on the verge of the surging mass of vegetation that surrounded us gave a tantalizing first peep at the flora of Equatorial America. Many forms hitherto seen only in herbaria or hot-houses – several Melastomaceæ, Heliconia, Costus, and the like – were hastily gathered; but the summons to return to the train speedily calmed the momentarily increasing excitement. Although the sky was almost completely free from clouds, and the sun very near the zenith, the heat was no way excessive. My thermometers had been stowed away in the hurry of leaving the steamer, but I do not believe that the shade temperature was higher than 84° Fahr. On the western side of the isthmus the land rises into hills some five or six hundred feet in height, and between these the railway winds to the summit level, thence descending rather rapidly towards Panama. What a crowd of associations are evoked by the first view of the Pacific! What trains of mental pictures have gathered round the records of the early voyagers, the adventurers, the scientific explorers! Strangely enough, the most vividly impressed on my memory was a rough illustration in a child’s book, given to me on my seventh birthday, representing Vasco Nuñez, as, from the summit of the ridge of Darien, he, first of all western men, cast his wondering eyes over the boundless, till then unsuspected, ocean. He has climbed the steep shattered rocks, and, as he gains the crest of the ridge, has grasped a projecting fragment to steady himself on the edge of the dizzy declivity. Even now, after looking on the gently swelling hills, so completely forest-covered that without extensive clearing a distant view would be impossible, I find it hard to believe that that picture does not represent some portion of my actual past experience.
I do not know whether, in connection with the vivid recollection either of actual scenes or illustrations dating from early life, attention has been sufficiently called to the curious tricks which the brain not seldom performs in discharging its function of keeper of the records. In my experience it is common to find, on revisiting after many years a spot of which one believes one’s self to have a vivid and accurate recollection, that the mental picture has undergone some curious changes. The materials of the scene are, so to say, all present, but their arrangement has been unaccountably altered. The torrent, the bridge, the house, the tree, the peak in the background, are all there, but they are not in their right places. The house has somehow got to the wrong side of the torrent, or the peak rises on the right of the tree instead of the left. A picture vividly retained in the mind is one that has been frequently recalled to memory. If at any time, when it has been long dormant, the actual recollection has become somewhat imperfect, the imagination fills up by an effort the incomplete portion. When next summoned by some train of association, the image present to the mind is no longer the original picture, but the altered version of it in the state in which it was left after being last retouched.
GRAND HOTEL OF PANAMA.
In about four hours from Colon we reached the Panama terminus, and found a large waggonette, or roofless omnibus, waiting to convey us to the Grand Hotel. A pair of small ragged horses, rushing at a canter down the steep slopes and scrambling up on the other side over the rough blocks that form the pavement, made our vehicle roll and jolt in a fashion that would have disquieted nervous passengers. It would be difficult to find elsewhere in the world a stranger assemblage than that to be found at the Grand Hotel of Panama. The ground floor, with several large rooms, is occupied day and night for eating, drinking, smoking, and loud discussion by the floating foreign population of the town. At the present time the engineers and other officials connected with the Ship Canal formed the predominant element; but, along with a sprinkling of many other nationalities, the most characteristic groups consisted of refugees from all the republics of Central and South America, who find substantial reasons for quitting their homes, and who resort to Panama as a sanctuary whence some new turn in the wheel of revolution may recall them to some position of distinction and profit.
We were fortunate in having in our company Mr. W – , a gentleman of Polish descent, to whose lively conversation we had owed much information and amusement during the voyage from Southampton. Now the owner of a large estate in Ecuador, he had long known this region, and appeared to be on terms of familiar acquaintance with all the strange visitors gathered in the saloons at Panama, from the ex-President of Peru to the negro head-waiter. The latter, as we learned, was not the least important member of the assemblage. In one of the numerous revolutions at Panama he had played a leading part, and had attained the rank of colonel. His party being then out of office, he had for the time returned to private life, but may possibly at the present day be again an important person in the state.
For the first time since leaving England the heat at Panama during the midday hours was felt to be oppressive, and we were content with a short stroll, which, to any one familiar with old Spain, offered little novelty. Unlike such mushroom spots as Colon, Panama has all the appearance of an old Spanish provincial town. It has suffered less from earthquakes than most of the places on the west coast, and a large proportion of the buildings, including a rather large cathedral, remain as they were built two or three centuries ago.
As the anchorage for large steamers is about three miles from the town, we had an early summons to go on board a small tender that lay alongside of a half-ruined wharf, but were then detained more than an hour, for no apparent reason other than as a tribute to the habits of the population of this region. The time was not wholly wasted, as even the least observant passengers were struck with admiration at the performances of a swarm of small birds, many hundreds in number, that seemed to have selected the space over the shallow water opposite the town for their evolutions. For more than half an hour they continued to whirl in long loops or nearly circular sweeps, with no other apparent motive than the pleasure of the exercise. Seen from a distance, the appearance was that of a wreath; nearer at hand, the arrangement was seen to be constantly varying. Sometimes the birds were so close together that it seemed as if their wings must jostle; sometimes they were drawn out into long curves, looking silvery white when the sun fell upon their breasts, and of a darker tint at other incidences. Mr. W – asserted that the bird is a kind of snipe, but I have no doubt that it is a tern.
BIRDS IN PANAMA BAY.
At last the little tender glided from the wharf, and for the first time we gained a general view of the town, which has a full share of that element of picturesqueness which is so strangely associated with decay. The old ramparts fast crumbling away, here and there rent by earthquakes, and backed by time-stained buildings, would offer many a study to the painter. Sunset was at hand when we reached the steamer Islay, anchored under the lee of one of the small islands of the bay, and were fortunate in finding among the not too numerous passengers several whose society added to the interest of the voyage.
One of the effects of the habitual use of maps on a small scale is that untravelled persons, even though conversant with the facts of geography, feel it difficult to realize the great dimensions of the more distant parts of the world as compared with our diminutive European continent. Thus it came on me with something of surprise that the Bay of Panama is fully a hundred and twenty sea miles across from headland to headland, and that the run from Panama to Callao, which is scarcely one-third of the length of the South American continent, is rather longer than that from Bergen to the Straits of Gibraltar. The case, of course, is much worse with those accustomed to use maps on Mercator’s projection. It profits nothing to explain, even to the most intelligent youth, the nature and amount of the errors involved in that mode of representing a spherical surface on a plane. I verily believe that all the mischief done by the stupidity, ignorance, and perversity of the writers of bad school-books is trifling compared to the amount of false ideas spread through the world by the productions of that respectable Fleming.
The steamers of the Pacific Mail Company employed for the traffic between San Francisco and Valparaiso are as perfectly suited to the peculiar conditions of the navigation as they would be unfit for long sea-voyages in any other part of the world. In the calm waters of this region, rarely ruffled even by a stiff breeze, the fortunate seamen engaged in this service know no hardships from storm or cold. Their only anxiety is from the fogs that at some seasons beset parts of the coast. In each voyage they pass under a vertical sun, but the air and the water are cooler than in any other part of the equatorial zone; and all that is needed for their physical comfort, and that of their passengers, is free ventilation and shade from the sun. These desiderata are fully secured. The main-deck is open to the air, and the steerage passengers, who are encamped amidships and on the fore-deck, are satisfied at night with the amount of privacy secured by hanging some piece of stuff to represent a curtain round each family group. On the upper deck are ranged the state rooms of the first-class passengers, each with a door and window opening seaward. Above this, again, a spar-deck carried flush from stem to stern affords ample opportunity for exercise, and is itself sheltered from the sun by an awning during the hot hours. In such conditions, where merely to breathe is to enjoy, the only danger is that of subsiding into mere lotus-eating. From this I was fortunately preserved by the rather troublesome task of drying in satisfactory condition the plants which I had hastily gathered in Jamaica and in crossing the isthmus.
PACIFIC COAST STEAMERS.
I had supposed that the distinctly green colour of the water in Panama Bay, so different from the blue tint of the open Atlantic, might be due to some local peculiarity; but on the following day, April 7, while about a hundred miles from land, I observed that the same colour was preserved, and I subsequently extended the observation along the coast to about 5° south, where we encountered the antarctic current. Farther south I should describe the hue of the water as a somewhat turbid dark blue, reminding one of the water of the North Atlantic as seen in approaching the British Islands.
At daybreak on April 8 we found ourselves approaching the port of Buenaventura. Long before it was possible to land I was ready, thrilling with interest and curiosity respecting a region so entirely new – an interest enhanced, perhaps, by the extent of ignorance of which I was inwardly conscious. Knowing this place to be the only port of an extensive tract, including much of the coast region of New Granada, lying only a few degrees from the equator, and rich in all sorts of tropical produce, I had formed a very undue idea of its importance. Although the rise and fall of the tide are very moderate on this coast, the ricketty wooden wharf could not be reached at low water. There was nothing for it but to land on the mud, and scramble up the slippery slope to the top of the bank of half-consolidated marl, from twenty to forty feet above the shore, on which the little town is built. It consists of some two hundred houses and stores, nearly all mere plank sheds, but, as usual throughout South America, the inhabitants rejoice in dreams of future wealth and importance to be secured by a railway communicating with the interior. There was no time to be lost; notice had been given that the ship’s stay was to be very brief, and even before landing it was apparent that the tropical forest was close at hand. In truth, the last houses are within a stone’s throw of the skirts of the forest. Just at this point I was attracted by a leafless bush, evidently one of the spinous species of Solanum, with large, yellow, obversely pear-shaped fruits. As I was about cutting off a specimen, the people, who here seemed very friendly, rushed out of the nearest house and vociferated in warning tones, “Mata! mata!” I was afterwards assured that the fruit is here considered a deadly poison. It appears to be one of the rather numerous varieties of Solanum mammosum, a species widely spread through the hotter parts of America.
FIRST VIEW OF A TROPICAL FOREST.
Being warned not to go out of hearing of the steam-whistle that was to summon us back to the ship, I was obliged to content myself with three short inroads into the forest, through which numerous paths had been cleared. The first effect was perfectly bewildering. The variety of new forms of vegetation surrounding one on every side was simply distracting. Of the larger trees I could, indeed, make out nothing, but the smaller trees and shrubs, crowded together wherever they could reach the daylight, were more than enough to occupy the too short moments.
Of the general character of the climate there could be no doubt. In spite of the blazing sun, with a shade temperature of about 85° Fahr., the ground was everywhere moist. Ferns and Selaginellæ met the eye at every turn, with numerous Cyperaceæ; and in an open spot, among a crowd of less familiar forms, I found a minute Utricularia, scarcely an inch in height. But the predominant feature, and that which interested me most keenly, was the abundance and variety of Melastomaceæ. Within the first ten minutes I had gathered specimens of seven species, all of them but one large shrubs. Of the climbers and parasites that give its most distinctive features to the tropical forest, I could in so hurried a peep make out very little. I owe one beautiful species, hitherto undescribed, to my friend W – , who, having wandered in another direction, spied the scarlet flowers of the epiphyte, which I have named Anthopterus Wardii, on the trunk of a tree, which was promptly climbed by the active negro who had accompanied him.1
Too soon came the summons of the steam-whistle. As we called on our way at the office of the Pacific Company’s agent, we were shown a number of the finer sort of so-called Panama hats, which are chiefly made on this part of the coast. Even on the spot they are expensive articles, a hundred dollars not being considered an unreasonable price for one of the better sort.
Some writers of high authority on geographical botany have held that the most marked division of the flora of tropical South America is that between the regions lying east and west of the Andes. It would be the extreme of rashness for one who has seen so little as I have done of the vegetation of a few scattered points in so vast a region to attempt to draw conclusions from his own observations; but, on the other hand, writers in Europe, even though so learned and so careful as Grisebach and Engler, are under the great disadvantage that the materials available, whether in botanical works or in herbaria, are generally incomplete as regards localities. How is it possible to form any clear picture of the flora of a special district when so large a proportion of the plants recorded are merely said to come from “Columbia” or “Ecuador,” the one larger than Spain, France, and the Low Countries put together, the other equal in extent to the Austrian Empire, and both traversed by mountain ranges varying from fifteen thousand to over eighteen thousand feet in height? I shall have later to make some remarks on the climatal conditions of the coast region extending from Panama to the Bay of Guayaquil, but I may here mention that when I afterwards acquired some slight acquaintance with the flora of Brazil, I was struck with the fact that, although separated by an interval of nearly three thousand miles, and by the great barrier of the Andes, the plants seen in and around the forest at Buenaventura were almost all nearly allied to Brazilian forms.