uth of the Atrato;
the centre of the bottom of the Gulf being in the meridian of 76 deg. 55'
W. longitude.

The next and last point to the southward and the eastward of Chagre is
by the river of Chopo, about 25 miles to the eastward of Panama.
Narrow as the land in this quarter has been held to be, still the
charts and maps lately published by individuals, and by the authority
of the Admiralty, show that it is much narrower than what has hitherto
been calculated upon; and in the particular point under consideration,
very narrow indeed. From the mouth of the River Chopo, opposite the
little island Chepillo in the Pacific, to the bottom of the Gulf of
St. Blas or Mandinga on the Atlantic, is only about 20 miles (some
maps make it still less). In this space, the mountains to the eastward
of the high chain S. of Point Manzanillo and Porto Bello, which give
rise to the Chagres, and its tributary streams, running first (p. 090)
westward and then north-west into the Atlantic, are again, according
to Captain Lloyd, interrupted and broken, affording thereby a readier
communication between the two great oceans, the Atlantic, and the
Pacific. In an apparently good Spanish map of the Isthmus, upon a
large scale, the River Chopo or Bayano is represented as being formed
by two branches, one under the name of the Rio Canizas, springing to
the southward of the Pico de Carti, a hill only four miles from the
Atlantic, in the Bay of Mandinga; the whole course of the river to the
Pacific on a general south bearing, being only 22 miles. The source of
the Chagres comes within 15 miles of the lower course of the Chopo;
and some good maps lay down a river which joins the Chopo, near its
mouth, as coming from the N. E., its sources likewise being within a
very few miles of the Atlantic. Here, certainly, is a point from
which, and on which a communication could be opened up at any rate by
a good road, so as to afford a speedy conveyance for passengers,
mails, and goods, between the two seas; while it is also exceedingly
probable that, even in this short space, great facilities and
assistance could be obtained by canal navigation, and by the rivers
just mentioned.

The points, however, where a canal could be cut of sufficient depth to
admit the passage of large ships, and thus save the delay and the
expense which loading and unloading cargoes would occasion, where
roads of any description remain the only means of communication, and
where