Collector,” and did not purport to have been enacted by any superior authority. Indeed, the present situation of the town, over-awed as it constantly is by one or two British vessels, is anomalous in the extreme. If, as it is pretended, this port belongs to the supposititious Mosquito King, it is difficult to understand how a second party can exercise sovereignty over it; or upon what principles of international law the consuls of one nation can assume municipal and general administrative authority in the ports of another. The simple fact is, that Great Britain, having secured possession of this important port, under a pretext which deceives nobody, no longer cares to stultify herself by affecting to conform to that pretext. The thing is too absurd to be continued. The River San Juan reaches the ocean by several mouths. The divergence takes place about twenty miles from the sea, forming a low delta, penetrated by numerous canals, or, as they are called on the Lower Mississippi, _bayous_, and lagunas. The principal branch is the Colorado, which carries off at least two-thirds of the water of the river, and which empties into the ocean some ten or fifteen miles to the southward of the port. There is an almost impassable bar at the entrance, which would preclude the ascent of vessels, even if the depth of water above permitted of their proceeding after it was passed. The little steamer “Orus,” nevertheless, after repeated trials, succeeded in passing it in August last. There is another small channel called the _Taura_, which reaches the sea midway between the port and the mouth of the Colorado. The branch flowing into the harbor, the one through which the ascending and descending boats pass, carries off only about one-third of the water of the river. It has also a bar at the mouth, that is, at its point of debouchure into the harbor, upon which, at low tide, there are but three or four feet of water. This passed, the bed of the river is wide and studded with low islands; but excepting in the channel, which is narrow and crooked, the water is very shallow. It has been suggested that the Colorado branch might be dammed, and a greater column of water thrown into the other, or San Juan branch. But this suggestion can only be made by those who are wholly unacquainted with the subject. Allowing it to be possible to build a dam, the stream would find a new channel to the sea; or if it took the direction of the harbor, fill it up, during the first rainy season, with mud, or at once destroy the sandy barriers which now form and protect it. As will be seen, when I come to speak of the practicability of a canal, the utmost that can be done with the river is to dredge out the channel to the Colorado, and remove some of the obstacles at the various rapids above, after which it might be navigated by small steamers. It cannot be made navigable for ships or vessels of any kind, except of the lightest draught, by any practicable system of improvements.