Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-02-19
THE ISTHMIAN DITCH.
Work of the Nicaragua
Canal Expedition Begun.
SURVEYING PARTIES SET OUT.
How the photographic and En-
.ginpering Sections Will Pros
ecute Their LabOrs.

ecute Their LabOrs.
A correspondent of the New York
Herald attached to the Nicaragua
Canal Expedition writes from Grey
town as follows:
The preparations for work in the
interior are now C mpleted. The
preliminary arrangements have been
concluded without hitch, and every
man in the expedition is enthusiastic.
The Nicaragua officials continue to
extend their heartiest cooperation,
and even the Jamaica negroes are
convinced that they have no grounds
for alarm.
Before these laborers we're landed
from the Hondo there was intense ex-
element on board among them,
caused by a report that three hundred
Spaniards, armed with "machete"
knives, were awaiting their arrival.
These Nicaraguan half-breeds were
pictured to the negroes as blood
thirsty and desperate men, outraged
because the Jamaicans, for whom no
great love has ever existed on this
coast, had come into the country to
take the bread out of their mouths.
Many of the darkies were frightened
out of their wits, but the whole affair,
like many other sensational stories,
proved a canard, for since our arrival
native and foreign labor have quietly
worked side by side, arranging outfit
and stores for our camp life in the
interior. This has been no easy task,
for upon the thorough preparation to
meet every conceivable emergency
will depend the lives OF the engineers,
and therefore the success of the expe-
dition. To venture into the depths OF
q Central American wilderness, cut of
from all communication with tn civil
lized world, not fully prepared to
battle with fevers, snake bites, and
the sting of poisonous insects, would
be as suicidal as a search for the
North Pole without proper equipment.
WHAT THE NATIVES SAY OF SNAKES.
Fears of the fever, however, have
paled before the stories the natives
tell of the snakes and other reptiles in
the forests. Even in towns these un-
welcome visitors crawl into houses to
escape the heavy dews of the night,
and, seeking the warmest place, nat
orally stow themselves under the bed
clothes. Whether they will find our
tents and hammocks sufficiently COM
Portable to suit their warm Southern
blood 1 may be able to chronicle in
my next report.
These accounts are magnified and
distorted each day by peculiar class
of Central Americans known as the
Rubber Hunter Caouchero. This is
the time of the year when that indi-
vidual returns from the woods appar.
emily to join the bosom of his family
during the holidays, but really to have
a Christmas carousal, spend the little
earnings that represented months oi
hardship and danger hunting the
precious rubber, and 60 away from
home again in debt, leaving his fam
lily at the tender mercy of the "com.
merciante, who holds him in state
of abject slavery, from which he will
probably never emerge until death.
Should he ever come back it will be
to find, after the employer has clothed
his ragged form, decked him out in
all the colors Of the solar spectrum
and deducted from the account his
family expenses, that he may have a
few pennies left to drown the night
mare of the prat.
Thus this strange type of being ex-
lists until the deadly miasma of the
tropical swamp or the fatal. sting OF
some venomous snake relieves him OF
himself.
And yet the rubber hunter seems
happy!
Certain it is that no dude ever
walked Fifth avenue with more self
satisfaction than these fellows strut
about town, the beau ideals of the fair
sex.
In one respect the impulsive maiden
of the tropics differ from her more
cool and calculating sister of the
North, for the wild and dangerous
life of caouchero has for the former
a peculiar charm, and she will bestow
her affections upon this reckless fellow
with no thought of the morrow, while
at her feet the rich Commentaries of
the village plead in vain. On Christ
mas there will be grand wedding
near here, when one of these hunters,
who boasts as many snake bites as
he does years, will marry the prettiest
Indian girl in the country.
The weather at Greytow wn at present
is not what the natives call warm, but
t. one fresh from the piercing north
east winds of New York Decemb r.,
the transition is as much a revelation
as are the customs of the country.
The wet and dry seasons regulate the
'decollete cut of the gown of Nicar-
.aguan Indian lady, and 'hough the
extreme type is very little more pro.
nounced than one sees every opera
night in New York, this near approach
to modern civilization is more the re-
sult of climatic than other causes.
When, however, the course of the
canal brings this female within the
radial lines Of social influence she
will, doubtless, long for "sphere,'
and the rubber hunter become a crea-
ture initiated into the mysteries OF a
white shirt and collar.
REFRESHING RAIN.
We are supposed to be now near
the commencement of the dry season,
and yet it has rained, day and night,
every fifteen minutes since our ar
-:,oI orJ kbo xxorI ooroo1v docs s,,c-
tice to the physical act, for it seems
as if there are no drops, but that all
the sluices and foodgates of the heav-
ems are opened at intervals and the
water permitted to flow in one solid
mass. However, as the saying goes,
t'it's an ill wind that blows no one
good" for the recent heavy rains have
almost submerged Greytown, and
driven even the mosquitoes and
snakes to the woods for self-protection.