Marie Rogers Vail P.S. Same evening. I hope sister H. Jane or someone else will start a letter soon after you get this. I will look for it then about a month after I get there. I wish to have letters crossing each other's path at the Isthmus. I have not yet suffered exceedingly from heat. The thermometer stood at 84 degrees yesterday, and today at 9 AM. We expect it will be warm on the land, but God is my Guardian and Physician, He will direct me. You will keep all our friends advised of my welfare. So good-by till I get to Panama, James. P.S. Here we are, running along a beautiful coast. We made land about 4 AM, a mile or two south of Chagres. We have had breakfast. I feel like taking a ride in a little canoe today, after almost 14 days in a big canoe. I think a row up the Chagres will afford a pleasant variety. How green everything looks! All is freshness. James. On October 30,1849, James landed at the mouth of the Chagres River, on the east coast of our present Canal Zone. In the months that followed, he was to recall with irony the "three days" of wet feet which he had anticipated while crossing the Isthmus. Only his boyhood training as a pioneer in a new country enabled him to survive conditions in which many perished. CHAGRES, WHERE ROGERS LANDED FOR THE ISTHMUS-CROSSING Lithograph by Stringer & Townsend, New York, 1850 The New-York Historical Society