The Isthmus of Panamà, or Darien, may be considered as extending from the meridian of 77° to that of 81° west of Greenwich; with a breadth swelling out at the two extremities, and not less than thirty miles, even where narrowest, opposite the city of Panamà. Its whole extent is not, however, comprised within the Spanish American province; the Mandingo Indians to the N.E. maintaining a fierce and often turbulent independence to the present day.
I. Physical Geography.
The Cordillera, or great chain of mountains, which for the most part traverses the whole continent of America, is twice broken within the above limits.—
The northern Cordillera exhibits the first indication of depression in Nicaragua; but again rears itself, for a time, in the province of Veragua, ans is there crowned with a very fine plain, called La Mesa (the table). In the eastern part of the province it breaks into detached mountains of considerable height, and of the most abrupt and ragged formation;—thence, proceeding still to the eastward, innumerable sugar-loaf mountains appear, not above three or four hundred feet high, with their bases surrounded by plains and savannahs;—and finally, about Chagres on the one side, and Chorrera on the other; these also disappear for a few miles, and the country becomes almost uninterruptedly low and fiat. Presently, however, the sugar-loaf mountains again thicken, and becoming connected, form a small cordillera, running from about opposite Porto-Bello, to the Bay of Mandingo; where is the second break. The land then continues low through the province of Darien and Choco; and is most abundant in rivers, those on the north side tending to the Gulph of Uraba or Darien, and those on the south, to that of St. Miguel; beyond which point the cordillera again raises itself on an extended scale, and enters South America.
The general direction of the mountains in the vicinity of Panamà is north-east and south-west; elsewhere they vary, maintaining some relation to the line of coast, though not always parallel to it. Near Panamà they do not exceed one thousand or eleven hundred feet in height; east of Porto-Bello they are greatly higher; and are generally covered with thick and almost impenetrable wood, growing on an extraordinary fruitful soil of great depth.
The prevailing rock is limestone, skirted on the north side with coral rock, on the south with indurated clay. The coral rock is
