ACROSS PANAMA

Evening Star, Issue 19274, 12 June 1926, Page 17

ACROSS PANAMA

BY THE PAVED TRAIL IX THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE CONQUISTADOJRES. Lieutenant F. W. Kealey and Mr _N. I). Fitzmaurice, an engineer, British explorers, have returned to Panama City, alter following through tho Paved Trad which extended between Old Panama and Porto Bello in tho times of tho Conquistadores. This feat involved a journey of eighty miles through the jungle, and is remarkable in that two white men made it, carrying their own provisions, packs, and arms, with no assistance from native bearers. At the start each carried about 701 b, which at the end of ten days required to reach Nombro do Dios, on the Atlantic coast, had been reduced to about 401 b. The provisions were adequate for a light breakfast, a luncheon of crackers and prunes, and one square meal in the late afternoon each day. At the end of the journey they were down to Jib of rice and a tin of milk. Tho country traversed was unpopulated, no fruits were found along the way, and, armed only with pistols, the men were unable to kill any game, except wild monkeys. In the ten days, they report, they met but three natives. ji early all the way they were able to identify the line of the Paved Trail, although it is now for the most part covered by jungle growth and impassable except by cutting one’s way through with machetes. The trail is described ns of “ man-width,” between 2ft and 3ft, and made of heavy boulders as large as 2ft in diameter, so placed as to have formed originally a fairly close and even surface. For tho most part it followed watercourses, but from one valley to another involved some steep slopes or fairly long traverses along the crests of ridges. At several places the explorers report finding ruins of stone houses. The principal danger encountered, apart from the possibility of starvation as the result of accident or disease, was that of being bitten by snakes. The explorers proceeded on the theory that if they made plenty ■of noise tho snakes would get out of the way. But numbers of snakes failed to move, and in two instances only the quick use of his pistol saved Lieutenant Kealey from being struck. The principal discomforts were from thorns and the sharp edges of leaves, and each day they finished with faces bleeding, and hands raw. The least distance made on any day was about five miles as the crow flies, although a much greater distance had been traversed in doubling trails. Lieutenant Kealey reports seeing many large, tall trees of fine, hard texture, which he thinks would be profitable in exploitation. The journey made to Lieutenant Kealey, is preliminary to another which ho hopes to begin shortly in Panama, when he will try to explore territory now unknown to white men.