We were much interested in the banana cultivation, as it supplied cargoes for our steamers sailing between Port Limon and New York, a trade which has since developed into gigantic dimensions. We had all the anxiety of finding the capital necessary to finance both the banana industry and the railway, and like most pioneers we did not secure the reward; it went to an American company, who reaped where we had sown. My daughter and I had a charming trip to Cartago, and ascended the volcano of Iritzu, 13,000 feet, and from the summit had a view of both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. We made also a trip to the Pacific coast on horseback; it was a long journey, and in order to escape the heat of the sun we travelled chiefly by night. We passed innumerable waggons drawn by bullocks and laden with coffee for shipment from the Pacific coast. It required some vigilance on our part to prevent our horses being struck by the long horns of the bullocks as we passed by. We had eventually to leave the high road and strike through the bush, the Indians going before cutting down with their _machettes_ the vines and tree branches which blocked the path. We returned only a few days later, yet such is the rapid growth of tropical vegetation that the Indians had again to clear the track. We stayed the second night at the village of Esperanto, and early next day reached the Trinidad gold mines, situated on the mountain side looking down on the Pacific coast. I shall never forget the view which stretched out before us. There was the Pacific Ocean lying opalescent in the bright beams of the morning sun, and studded with little blue islands, looking like so many blue beads upon a silvered mirror. On our way out from Jamaica to Limon we spent two days at Colon. The works on the Panama Canal were in active operation. We went a little way up and saw enough to convince me that the French would never make the canal. The waste of money was prodigious. We saw a train of trucks loaded with cases side-tracked into the bush and completely grown over. The sickness was also terrible. Every day a funeral train came down to Colon from the works with bodies for interment, and grave spaces in the cemetery were so scarce that they were let at a rental of so much a month. Now, thanks to the researches of the Liverpool Tropical School of Medicine, these pestiferous swamps have been rendered innocuous. JAMAICA. I made a voyage to Jamaica in 1864, the year of the rebellion, and had the pleasure of staying with Governor Eyre. The rebellion at one time assumed a very grave aspect, and the governor got into serious trouble, because, to save the situation, he shot several of the rebel ringleaders, after a trial by drumhead court-martial. I fully believed from what I knew of the circumstances that he was justified in doing so, and his action prevented a serious outbreak, but he was made the scapegoat.