The Sapo Mountains and the Sambu Valley: A Biological Reconnaissance in Southeastern Panama
1923; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 13; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/208448
ISSN1931-0846
AutoresTammy Barbour, W. Sprague Brooks,
Tópico(s)Botany and Geology in Latin America and Caribbean
ResumoSoutheastern Panama is not easy of access. Regular communication between the city of Panama and Darien ceased some years ago with the closing down of the gold mine at Santa Cruz de Cana. This famous old mine, the source of infinite wealth in earlier colonial days had been reopened towards the end of the last century, and while it was in operation there was steamboat service between the capital and the chief settlementsthe village of Yavisa on the Rio Chucunaque and El Real de Santa Maria and other small towns on the Rio Tuyra. From Marraganti, the head of steamboat navigation, canoes were taken for Boca de Cupe, whence a small railway of sorts extended forty miles to the mine. Today communication with the exterior is generally limited to the great carricaballo dugout schooners which still bring bananas to Panama from the coast ports of Darien.' These vessels, however, sail very badly, are miserably handled, and make poor time on their coastwise voyages. Once in a while an auxiliary schooner makes a trip to La Palma at the mouth of the Tuyra estuary. Nor is any amelioration in prospect. Since, owing to chicanery and bad management, the Cana mine has closed, the population of the Tuyra valley has dwindled. The constantly shrinking price of ivory nuts has also played its part in the economic decline of the region, making more miserable the unhappy lot of the scattered and neglected population of negroes and mestizos who form what may be called the Panamanian population of the extreme eastern portion of the country. The ruling classes who reside in the capital consider any visit to the provinces as arduous or even dangerous and have no desire to explore. Even within a few score miles of the canal locks at Gatun and Miraflores are large areas populated with primitive Indians and almost, if not really, less known than they were during the days of the early conquistadores. To the biologist eastern Panama offers almost a virgin terrain. Only two parties of naturalists have previously worked here. E. A. Goldman, of the United States Biological Survey, with a Costa Rican assistant, spent some months of fruitful collecting on the slopes of Mt. Pirre and the headwaters of the Rio Tuyra, using the mines at Cana as a most convenient
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