scowling Parques than venture to invoke a hint thereof from that
furrow-browed being from the Land of Bruskness.

Meanwhile, as if it had been thus planned to give me such
opportunity, I stood at the very vortex of canal interest and
fame, with nearly an entire day before the evening train should
carry me back to Corozal. I descended to the "observation
platform." Here at last at my very feet was the famous "cut" known
to the world by the name of Culebra; a mighty channel a furlong
wide plunging sheer through "Snake Mountain," that rocky range of
scrub-wooded hills; severing the continental divide. At first view
the scene was bewildering. Only gradually did the eye gather
details out of the mass. Before and beyond were pounding rock
drills, belching locomotives, there arose the rattle and bump of
long trains of flat-cars on many tracks, the crash of falling
boulders, the snort of the straining steam-shovels heaping the
cars high with earth and rock, everywhere were groups of little
men, some working leisurely, some scrambling down into the rocky
bed of the canal or dodging the clanging trains, all far below and
stretching endless in either direction, while over all the scene
hovered a veritable Pittsburg of smoke.

All long-heralded sights--such is the nature of the world and man
--are at first glimpse disappointing. To this rule the great
Culebra "cut" was no exception. After all this was merely a hill,
a moderate ridge, this backbone of the Isthmus the sundering of
which had sent its echoes to all corners of the earth. The long-
fed imagination had led one to picture a towering mountain, a very
Andes.