July is at the height of the wet season, on the Isthmus.

At intervals the rain would pour down in streams, followed in not many minutes by a blazing, tropical summer's sun.

These alternate changes, from rain to sunshine, were continuous in the afternoons.

I wondered how any person could live many months in Aspinwall, and wondered still more why any one tried.
In the summer of 1852 the Panama railroad was completed only to the point where it now crosses the Chagres River.

From there passengers were carried by boats to Gorgona, at which place they took mules for Panama, some twenty-five miles further.