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448 would be downright infatuation. The maps on which Strain had implicitly relied proved utterly trustless. The Indians were no better than Gisborne's maps; and thrown wholly upon his own resources, he had, from the meagre facts in his possession, to determine what course to pursue. To have gone in search of a road of whose existence he was ignorant, or to have followed the banks of the Savana toward impassable swamps to find a station he had never heard of, would have been the act of a madman. Under the circumstances he took the wisest course beyond a doubt.

After having determined to continue down the river, Strain felt it important to impress on the men the necessity of great frugality in the use of provisions. He endeavored to prove to the sailors and other members of the party, that the idea that men needed such a liberal supply of food was entirely a popular fallacy; and in order to give his views a more practical bearing, declared that a man could live very comfortably three days without food, and eight with very little suffering. The men rolled their tobacco quids in their mouths, and tried to look their assent to this entirely new doctrine promulgated there on the Isthmus, in the midst of famine, but it was evident Strain could not count much on his converts. The resolution to go on being made, the order to march was given; and now, without a guide, they wound down the crooked banks of the stream.

Soon after leaving the place where the council was held, they passed a river which entered from the eastward, and which corresponded with one put down on Mr. Gisborne's map as an upper branch of the Iglesias.

Subsequent investigations led to the belief that this river was the Asnati (see chart), which Colonel Codazzi in his recent maps has shown to be a branch of the Sucubti, upon information compiled from old Spanish manuscripts, and from conversations held with the Indians. During the afternoon a few plantains were found by the men, and urged upon Strain, who refused, wishing the men to keep them. He and Truxton killed eight birds during the day (though one was an owl and another a woodpecker), which were divided among the party, and none felt the want of the ration, which had given out. This was the first time Strain had fired his carbine at game, and the men, seeing what a dead shot he was, requested him to shoot for the party. While their pieces were echoing through those rarely trod solitudes, a little incident occurred which caused a thrill of feeling to pass through the band. On looking up they saw a large flock of birds high in the air, and sweeping with great velocity to the west. Down in the forest all was still, but far up heavenward the trade-wind was fiercely blowing, and on the wings of the gale those birds were drifting to the Pacific, now the goal of their own efforts, and the only hope of their salvation. An unknown and toilsome way was before them, while those buoyant forms, borne apparently without effort on, would soon feel the spray of the Pacific. Many an envious glance and envious wish was sent after those birds in their flight. Still the party kept up good spirits, and whiled away the time with jokes and stories. At this camp, and that of the night before, they were first annoyed by sand-flies, and this was the first camp where they met mosquitoes. Fire-flies, too, filled the wood, enlivening the otherwise monotonous gloom. The next morning, January 28th, at half past eight, they continued their journey, and although they had no provisions on hand the party was in fine spirits. The river widened and deepened in parts so much that they were obliged to cut their way across some bends through the undergrowth of the forest. Mr. Truxton shot three birds and caught some fish—among them one cat-fish, six inches long. In the afternoon they had come upon a plantain and banana field, and after eating as many ripe ones as they could obtain, filled their haversacks. Finding that Messrs. Castilla and Polanco, the Granadian commissioners, were very much fatigued, they encamped at about half past three, having made only about five miles. In this camp mosquitoes and sand-flies were met in swarms; and for the first time they heard, what is familiar to every woodsman, the falling of forest trees alone, resembling in the distance the reports of guns.

On the morning of the 20th they left camp at nine o'clock, many of the party with legs and hands much swollen from the bites of mosquitoes and sand-flies, and one of the engineers completely speckled with their bites and badly swollen. About two miles from camp they found some dilapidated huts, which had evidently been deserted for a long time, and fields of plantains and bananas. As the Chuquna Indians apparently do not frequent this portion of the country, these plantations probably owe their origin to the Spaniards, who had a garrison in this vicinity about the middle of the last century.

In the afternoon Corporal O'Kelly and Strain together shot a large iguana on the opposite bank of the river, which sunk. Holmes (landsman) jumped in to bring it ashore, but finding the water deeper than he anticipated, he threw off one of his boots, which sank to the bottom. The recovery of this was of more importance than the iguana, and after feeling around for it in vain, one of the men stripped and dived again and again for it, but unsuccessfully, its dark color rendering it invisible. To this apparently trivial circumstance this poor fellow's death after was partly attributable. This was Sunday. Fatigued with the weight of plantains and bananas, which filled every haversack, and with climbing through gulches and struggling through thickets, they went into camp about four o'clock, having accomplished, with hard work, a distance of only seven miles and a half. Opposite to the camp was a plantain field, with its whole vicinity swarming with mosquitoes of such enormous size, that the officers jocosely christened it "The camp of the mosquitoes elephantes." This afternoon Strain took off his boots for the first time since