Although in the tropics, we have enjoyed till now cool and extremely pleasant weather with beautiful star and moonlight nights and the bright expanse of ocean round us, with our vessel like a thing of life moving along upon its bosom, and in the dark, at twilight before the moon is up, what splendid sight is revealed to the traveller of the sea. I mean the bright brilliant sparks and flashes which emit from the spraying sheets which our cutwater sends off at both sides of our vessel—caused by friction upon the phosphorescent matter contained in the water of the ocean. May second. This morning the land, consisting of detached ranges of mountains, again came in sight, and now, five o'clock P.M. we are abreast of an island to the left. This isle is very heavily timbered; the whole of it is a mountain of about one hundred and fifty feet high with a small point of level country at the Eastern end of it. May third. We came up to another island this morning, thickly covered with timber and vegetation of tropical growth. We kept now in sight of land all the time, numbers of islands being to our left and towards evening the Bay of Panama came in sight. This Bay is of large dimensions and very secure, being well sheltered by islands and the main coast. We passed Tobanga Island where the W. S. M. Company has a station where they repair and clean their vessels when at Panama. We entered the Bay and dropped anchor twenty minutes past seven o'clock A.M. The next morning at four we took the ferry boat for the wharfs, arrived there, took the cars across the Isthmus of Darien to Aspinwall on the Gulf of Mexico. All the section of country we crossed over on the cars offered a most beautiful sight. It is more or less mountainous and covered with one emerald sheet of thick and almost impenetrable highly perfumed tropical vegetation. I could not discover any trees nor plants of the moderate zones—all being the products of the tropics. This country, but for the extreme heat and the malaria it must necessarily create from its numerous swamps, would be almost a Paradise to live in. If Americans should ever possess it and be able to live there, they in truth will make it indeed what it seems intended for by nature—one of the loveliest spots the world knows. Aspinwall is a new place and traces its origin to the discovery of the gold mines in California and the subsequent travel across the Isthmus. It is principally inhabited by natives of Central America, some French and some Americans. The latter, however, being the only influential portion of the community. They have made it and named it what it is this day. They own the railroad and a large depot three hundred by one hundred feet, fire proof, and a very commodious dock for the handling of the mail steamers and offices to carry on their business.