Upon leaving Panama and its famous Canal--whose great works rapidly fade into the haze of distant shore and mountain, reminding us how small the greatest human mark on the face of Nature really is--we have passed the Pacific coast of Colombia, which does not present any very noteworthy features. It is shut off from the interior by the high mountains, and is often unhealthy and but thinly populated, notwithstanding that it affords certain resources and potentialities that in the future should be valuable. At the principal port of Buenaventura it is unlikely that our steamer will call. The settled and prosperous Colombia--the old viceregal colony of New Granada--lies in the highlands, whose means of access are from beyond the Isthmus of Panama, upon the "Spanish Main," as we shall see elsewhere. However, Buenaventura is the port for the beautiful Cauca Valley, the garden vale of Colombia, with its pleasing town of Cali, and a line of railway has painfully made its way up this steep littoral thereto. Buenaventura was reached by the first Spaniard to sail this sea, Andagoya, who named it the Port of Good Fortune, but the great prize of discovery lay in Peru, which he did not reach: the prize which fell to the more fortunate and adventurous Pizarro. The port has been described as perhaps the most beautiful on the Pacific coast, but the traveller who desires in addition material comforts will not prolong his stay thereat. Our vessel, pursuing its way, will shortly have sighted the coast of Ecuador, and may, if conditions concerning quarantine be favourable, have to enter the great indentation which forms the Gulf of Guayaquil. The Guayas River, with the Island of Puna at its mouth, is of considerable width, but narrows as the ocean steamer ascends it so much that passage at times is difficult. Memories of Pizarro centre about the island. The seaport of Guayaquil lies over thirty miles upstream, and its aspect on approaching is a striking one; its buildings clustered along the water-front, backed by verdure-clad hills, and the shipping in the harbour, and, at night, the rows of lights of the streets, give an impression of considerable importance to this tropical seaport. The river off Guayaquil has been likened to the Mississippi at New Orleans. In early times the town was frequently sacked by buccaneers--French, English and others, among them the ubiquitous Dampier. Its dreadful reputation for malaria and yellow-fever has caused travellers to shun the place, but these matters have experienced some improvement of recent years, especially since the building of the Panama Canal.