Yet it is simply to determine the bearings of that
notch in the Cordilleras, to fix the positions of the leading features
of the intervening country, and to verify the latitude and longitude of
the old man's flag-staff itself, as a point of departure for future
explorations, that the group of strangers is gathered on the top of
Conchagua.
And now, O reader, run your finger due north from the Bay of Fonseca,
straight to the Bay of Honduras, and it will pass, in a figurative way,
through the notch I have described, and through the pass of which we
were in search. You will see, if your map be accurate, that in or near
that pass two large rivers have their rise; one, the Humuya, flows
almost due north into the Atlantic, and the other, the Goascoran,
nearly due south into the Pacific,--together constituting, with the
plain of Comayagua, a great transverse valley extending across the
continent from sea to sea. Through this valley, commencing at Port
Cortes, on the north, and terminating on the Bay of Fonseca on the
south, American enterprise and English capital have combined to
construct a railway, designed to afford a new, if not a shorter and
better route of transit across the continent, between New York and San
Francisco, and between Great Britain and Australia.
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