We were to have a special train (the cost of crossing the isthmus was something enormous—the actual amount I do not now remember); and as we were most desirous to see as much of the country as possible, an open goods-truck was appropriated to our use, in which we could stand, and have a full peep at everything as we steamed along. Whilst the train was getting ready, I took a turn over the Company’s wharf and round the town. The Wharf, built on piles driven into the coral reef, extends about a thousand feet in length, and forty in width, with a depth of water at its landing-end sufficient to float the largest ship. The piles are from the forests of Maine, and have to be coppered above high-water-mark, to resist the destroying power of a boring worm (_Teredo fimbriata_), that would otherwise destroy them in a very few months. The Freight Department is a handsome stone structure, three hundred feet long by eighty wide, through the arched entrance to which is a triple line of rails. Man, it is said, differs from all other animals, in being ‘a tool and a road-making animal,’ the truth of which was well exemplified in the curious assemblage of products collected from all parts of the world, and stowed in this huge house, brought by man’s ocean highways, and awaiting removal by his iron roads and horses. Ceroons of cochineal and indigo from Guatemala and San Salvador, cocoa from Eçuador, sarsaparilla from Nicaragua, coffee from Costa Rica, hides from the North and South Pacific coasts, copper-ore from Bolivia, linen goods from the French and English markets, beef, pork, hard bread, cheese from the States, and silks from China. The town of Colon, as everybody perhaps does not know, stands on a small island called Manzanilla, cut off from the mainland by a narrow frith; the entire island being about one square mile in extent, composed of coral reefs, and only raised a few feet above highwater-level. It has no supply of fresh water but what is obtained during the heavy rains; this, collected in immense iron tanks, that hold over four thousand gallons, supplies the inhabitants during the dry seasons.