From the breakwater they were taken to the entrance of the channel opened by the dredges for the canal, and the location of the proposed new port was pointed out. Then they proceeded up the great ditch for two or three miles, and landed where the canal and railway were close together. Two hand-cars were standing on the track and evidently waiting for them. The gentleman to whom they had brought the letter was there, and also one of the officials of the railway. At the invitation of the latter, the party was soon distributed on the vehicles, three on one and three on the other. Comfortably seated on the front of the hand-cars, which were propelled by natives in very scanty dress, our friends rolled easily over the level track, in the direction of the high ground, and also of Panama. Frank and Fred thought they had never taken a more delightful ride. The air was delicious; there was the luxuriant vegetation of the tropics all around them; birds were abundant in the trees; monkeys occasionally chattered above them, or swung from the limbs, as if inviting the strangers to stop and visit their relatives; the speed was just enough for comfort; their vision was unimpeded, and there was no locomotive in front of them to poison the air with fumes of burning coal or shower them with cinders. Then, too, their guide was a cyclopædia of knowledge, as he had been for a long time connected with the railway and was thoroughly conversant with its history. [Illustration: SURVEYING UNDER DIFFICULTIES.] "It was one of the most difficult roads to build that I ever heard of," said he, "and three times the work was suspended on account of the impossibility of getting enough laborers or bringing forward the necessary material. Everything had to be brought from New York or some other American or European city, as there was no labor worth having to be found on the Isthmus itself. Between Aspinwall and Monkey Hill the engineers had sometimes to wade up to their waists while laying out the line, and after the road was completed the track repeatedly sank down out of sight. It happened several times that two or three hundred feet of road would thus disappear in a single night, and then the whole force of the road was put to work to fill up the cavities. There are some places that were filled two or three times before the road-bed was solid enough to stay. Since the canal company began operations here it has built some new tracks, and occasionally meets with the same trouble, but the old part of the line is all right now. [Illustration: NATIVE VILLAGE ON THE ISTHMUS.]