B OUR CANAL BY ALBERT EDWARDS Our SECOND ARTICLE Predecessors on the Job ALBOA had no sooner seen the Pacific from the mountain peak of Darien than he wanted to set sail on it. Within three years he had performed the incredible feat of carrying two ships-in pieces-across the Isthmus and launching them. Washington Irving considers this one of the most remarkable accomplishments of the Spaniards in the New World. great. It was probably less than twenty miles from navigable water to navigable water where Balboa crossed. The difficulty consisted in the appalling density of the jungle. To-day the most frequented passes outside of our Canal Zonepresent the worst trails in the world. With Indian guides and horses it is hard to make ten miles a day on some of the routes marked on the Government The distance across the land is not maps camino real-main roads. To one who has tried them Balboa's expedition is almost unbelievable. Irving says: "The timber was felled on the Atlantic seaboard; and was then, with the anchors and rigging, transported across the lofty ridge of mountains to the opposite shores of the Isthmus. Several Spaniards, thirty Negroes, and a great number of Indians were employed for the purpose. They had no other roads but Indian paths, straggling through almost impervious forests, across torrents, and up rugged defiles broken by rocks and precipices. In this way they toiled like ants up the mountains, with their ponderous burdens, under the scorching rays of a tropical sun. Many of the poor Indians sank by the way and perished under this stupendous task." "We can readily imagine," Irving continues after several pages more of description of appalling obstacles and discouragements, "the exultation of this intrepid adventurer, and how amply he was repaid for all his sufferings, when he first spread a sail on that untraversed ocean, and felt that the range of an unknown world was open to him." Balboa's ships, once afloat, carried him to the Pearl Islands, where he found rich treasure, and richer tales of Peru, to the south. After this news reached Madrid, the mountains and the jungles of the Isthmus proved an ineffectual barrier indeed. Panama City grew to great size as the outfitting post for the conquest of Peru, and, in time, a paved road was constructed from sea to sea. Almost immediately the project of a canal began to be discussed. It was a surprise to me to find out what a venerable tradition this Canal of ours has. The schemes of the early Spaniards were naturally fantastic. Many considered the idea of altering God's plan of the universe decidedly impious. The Inquisition persuaded the Spanish King, Philip II, to forbid its discussion. In 1699 the project was revived by a Scotchman named Paterson. He founded a colony on the Caribbean Sea-near the old Spanish town where Balboa was beheaded. He made a personal, although crude, survey of the Isthmus and pronounced the scheme feasible. But his enterprise succumbed to fever and bad finance. All that is left of it is the name "Caledonian Bay," which still clings to a harbor on the north coast. In 1735 the French Government sent an astronomical expedition to Central America; on their return they began to advocate the Lake Nicaragua route. Lord Nelson-when he was only plain Horatio-tried to secure this territory for the English. In 1788 the Spanish Government took an interest in the matter and ordered a survey of the Darien route. In the beginning of the nineteenth century new impetus was given to the discussion by the great naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. He wrote that a canal was practicable, and its construction was "calculated to immortalize a government occupied with the true interests of humanity." This account fired the imagination of Goethe. In his conversation with Eckermann and Soret of February 21, 1827, is recorded this remarkable prophecy: "I therefore repeat that it is absolutely indispensable for the United States to effect a passage from the Mexican Gulf to the Pacific Ocean; and I am certain that they will do it. . . . I should like to see another thing-a junction of the Danube and the Rhine; but this undertaking is so gigantic that I have grave doubts of its completion. . . . And, thirdly and lastly, I should wish to see England in possession of a canal through the Isthmus of Suez. Would I could live to see these three great works! It would well be worth the trouble to last some fifty years more for the very purpose !" In 1814 the Spanish Government again took up the project, but before anything could be accomplished the series of revolutions had begun in South and Central America which drove Spain from the mainland of this continent. The first diplomatic envoy from the liberated Central American States in 1825 took up the matter with Henry Clay, who was then our Secretary of State. In the same year "the Central American and United States Atlantic and Pacific Canal Company" was organized, with De Witt Clinton-of Erie Canal fame as one of its directors. One scheme followed another, our Government taking little interest in the matter beyond barking like a dog in the manger about the Monroe Doctrine whenever any foreigners started anything. However, in 1835 the Senate voted to construct a canal by way of Nicaragua. The expedition sent out as a result of this vote reported that the canal could be opened for twenty-five million dollars ! Louis Napoleon, before he became Emperor, was vastly interested in the subject, and wrote a flamboyant pamphlet about how it was the destiny of France to perform this great service to the race. With the middle of the last century the "scientific spirit " which was rejuvenating all human thought found its way to the Isthmus. The fantastic stories that the Pacific Ocean was twenty feet higher than the Atlantic, that the lowest pass was 957 feet high (von Humboldt's estimate), that the same pass was only 31 feet high (Moret's statement), and so forth, began to give place to exact information. The discovery of gold in California in '49 resulted in a great addition to our knowledge of Isthmian routes. Not since the early Spanish days had such a rush of humanity crossed Panama. This sudden burst of traffic was the inspiration of the romantic band of American railway men who built the Panama Railroad. It was started in 1850 and completed in 1855, and is one of the proud accomplishments of our National spirit. The reports of the day contain the statement that one man died for every tie laid in the forty miles of track. That is undoubtedly an immense exaggeration, but the mortality among the railway men was awful; their courage and determination were superb. We have no record of the number of travelers who, moved by the rumor of Californian gold, crossed at Panama before the opening of the railway. But during the first four years of its operation the company sold 121,820 passenger tickets. The freight traffic jumped in those days from almost nothing to infinitely more than the railway could handle. The steamer trade around the Horn also grew to large proportions. The advantages which would accrue from an Isthmian Canal which had before appealed to the speculative imaginations of such men as Goethe now began to impress business men and politicians. President Buchanan laid hold of the idea, and in 1857 despatched two lieutenants— Craven of the navy and Michler of the army-to make surveys. A dozen names could be cited of our military men who did valiant service in tearing the facts out of the heart of the jungle. Rear-Admiral Davis stands pre-eminent among them. Immediately after the Civil War he began to urge the construction of a canal by our Government. And from then on the history of the Canal is a tangle of diplomatic intrigue, Nicaragua and Colombia playing against each other at Washington-the whole thing complicated by our entanglement with England. As the balance of favor in Washington seemed to be swinging towards the Nicaragua route, the Bogota Government, in a pet, gave a concession to a young French lieutenant, Lucien Napoleon Bonaparte Wyse. It is hard to determine whether he was a too optimistic engineer or a more than usually successful swindler. Many of his maps are now in existence. They are beautifully drawn-and inaccurate. In his writings he vastly underestimated the difficulties of the undertaking, and he succeeded in organizing in France a speculative company, which shortly after sold out to the gang of financiers who had entrapped de Lesseps. The tragedy of Ferdinand de Lesseps |