The Panama Canal Part 1

The Panama Ca.n.a.l.

by J. Saxon Mills.

PREFACE.

The literature on the subject of the Panama Ca.n.a.l is rather dispersed. A full and entertaining history of the project will be found in Mr. W. F.

Johnson's "Four Centuries of the Panama Ca.n.a.l" (Ca.s.sell and Co., 1907), a work to which I am greatly indebted. Dr. Vaughan Cornish has given the results of much research and several visits to the ca.n.a.l in "The Panama Ca.n.a.l and its Makers" (T. Fisher Unwin, 1909), and in several lectures, especially one before the Royal Colonial Inst.i.tute, June 11, 1912. An inexhaustible mine of information will be found in Mr. Emory R.

Johnson's Official Report on Panama Ca.n.a.l Traffic and Tolls (Was.h.i.+ngton, 1912). The Report on the Trade and Commerce of the Republic of Panama for the year 1911, by Mr. H. O. Chalkley, Acting British Consul at Colon, contains useful information. A valuable series of articles on the Panama Ca.n.a.l appeared in _The Times_ of 1912. The _National Geographic Magazine_ of February 1911 contains an authoritative article by Colonel G. W. Goethals, Chief Engineer of the Ca.n.a.l, and the number for February 1912 an interesting appreciation by Mr. W. J. Showalter. In _Scribner's Magazine_ for February 1913, Mr. J. B. Bishop, Secretary of the Isthmian Ca.n.a.l Commission, writes a very useful paper on the Sanitation of the Isthmus. In his recent work on South America Mr. Bryce devotes one of his delightful chapters to the Isthmus of Panama. A chapter on the Panama Ca.n.a.l will be found in Mr. A. E. Aspinall's "The British West Indies," and many references in Mr. C. G. Murray's "A United West Indies." I must thank Mr. G. E. Lewin, the Librarian of the Royal Colonial Inst.i.tute, for his unfailing help and courtesy.

BUSHEY, 1913.

CHAPTER I.

THE SECRET OF THE STRAIT.

It was either very careless or very astute of Nature to leave the entire length of the American continent without a central pa.s.sage from ocean to ocean, or, having provided such a pa.s.sage at Nicaragua, to allow it to be obstructed again by volcanic action. This imperviousness of the long American barrier had, as we shall see, important economic and political results, and the eventual opening of a waterway will have results scarcely less important. The Panama Ca.n.a.l will achieve, after more than four centuries, the object with which Columbus spread his sails westwards from the port of Palos--the provision of a sea-route westwards to China and the Indies. The capture of Constantinople in 1453 by the Turks interrupted the ancient trade routes between East and West.

Brigands held up the caravans which plodded across the desert sands from the Euphrates and the Indus, and pirates swarmed in the Mediterranean and Red Sea, intercepting the precious cargoes of silks and jewels and spices consigned to the merchants of Italy. The eyes of all Europe were turned to the Atlantic, and an ocean route westwards to India and the Orient, the existence of which had been fabled from the days of Aristotle, became an economic necessity.

Columbus, as every one knows, died in the belief that he had discovered this route, and that the lands he had visited were fringes and islands of the Eastern Asiatic continent. The geographers of those days greatly exaggerated the eastern extension of Asia, with the result that the distance from Europe to China and India was underestimated by at least one-half. This was a fortunate mistake, for it is improbable that if Columbus had known that Cathay and c.i.p.angu (j.a.pan) were a good 12,000 miles westwards from the coast of Spain he would have ventured upon a continuous voyage of that length in the vessels of his time.

It was in his fourth voyage (1502) that Columbus first reached and explored the coastline of the isthmus and Central America. He was apparently not the first to land on the isthmus. That distinction belongs either to Alfonso Ojeda, who is said to have reached "Terra Firma" earlier in 1502, or to Rodrigo de Bastidas, who, we are told, set sail from Cadiz with La Cosa in 1500, and, reached the isthmus somewhere near Porto Bello. About the doings of Columbus on the mainland we get some detailed information from the Portuguese historian and explorer of the sixteenth century, Galvano. It is interesting to read that the great navigator visited the exact spot where the newly-constructed ca.n.a.l starts from the Caribbean coast. From the Rio Grande, we read, Columbus "went to the River of Crocodiles which is now called Rio de Chagres, which hath its springs near the South Sea, within four leagues of Panama, and runneth into the North Sea." It was this same river, as we shall see, that became the feeder of the ca.n.a.l when the high-level scheme was adopted. So far out of his reckoning was Columbus that at Panama he imagined himself to be ten days' journey from the mouth of the Ganges! One of his objects, as we know from his own journal, was to convert the Great Khan of Tartary to the Christian faith, and this entanglement in what he called "the islands of the Indian Sea" was a sore hindrance to that and all his other purposes. He began that search for the strait which engaged the attention and tried the temper of Spanish, Portuguese, and English navigators for the next thirty years.

He had heard from the natives of the coast of "a narrow place between two seas." They probably meant a narrow strip of land as at Panama. But Columbus understood them to mean a narrow waterway, and rumours of such a pa.s.sage no doubt existed then, as they still do among the isthmian tribes. He must also have heard accounts of the great ocean only thirty miles away, and it is rather surprising he should not have made a dash across and antic.i.p.ated Balboa and Drake. In May 1503, however, he quitted the "Terra Firma" without solving the great secret, and he never returned to the mainland. He died in 1506, still in complete ignorance of the nature of his discovery. He knew nothing of the continent of America or of that seventy million square miles of ocean beyond, to which Magellan gave the name of "Pacific."

The Holy Grail itself was not pursued with more persistence and devotion than this mythical, elusive strait by the navigators of the early years of the sixteenth century. The isthmian governor sent out from Spain went with urgent instructions to solve the "secret of the strait." In 1513 Balboa set himself to the great enterprise. If he could not discover a waterway he would at least see what lay beyond the narrow land barrier.

From Coibo on the Gulf of Darien he struck inland on September 6 with a hundred Indian guides and bearers. It is eloquent of the difficulties of the country which he had to traverse that it was not until September 26 that he won, first of European men, his distant view of the nameless and mysterious ocean.[1] It was he, and not Cortez, who "with eagle eyes, stared at the Pacific."

"And all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise, Silent upon a peak in Darien."

Cortez was himself a persistent searcher for the mythical strait. He wrote home to the King of Spain saying, "If the strait is found, I shall hold it to be the greatest service I have yet rendered. It would make the King of Spain master of so many lands that he might call himself the lord of the whole world."

These vain attempts had very important results. They led incidentally to the exploration of the whole coastline of the American continent. For example, Jacques Cartier, who was sent out by the King of France about this time to find "the shorter route to Cathay," searched the coast northwards as far as Labrador and thus prepared the way for the planting of a French colony in Canada. At last, in 1520, a sea-pa.s.sage from the Atlantic to the Pacific was actually discovered by the first great circ.u.mnavigator, Magellan, but it was far away from the narrow lands between North and South America. Through the perilous straits that have ever since borne his name at the southern extremity of the continent, Magellan pushed his venturous way into the great ocean beyond. But even Magellan had no idea that a few miles south of his strait the land ended and Atlantic and Pacific mingled their waters in one great flood. That truth was accidentally discovered by the English Drake more than fifty years afterwards (1579). Drake had been driven southward by stormy weather when he made the discovery which almost eclipsed in its importance even Magellan's exploit. In his exultation, we are told, he landed on the farthest island, and walking alone with his instruments to its extremity threw himself down, and with his arms embraced the southernmost point of the known world. From that point Drake sailed up the western coast of South America, engaged mainly in his favourite pursuit of "singeing the King of Spain's beard"--capturing, that is, the treasure-s.h.i.+ps bound to Panama. But he did not forget the more scientific duty of searching for the strait. Far northward he held his course, past the future California, till he must have been off the coastline of what is now British Columbia, ever hoping to find the Pacific outlet of the famous North-West Pa.s.sage. But always the coast trended to the north-west, and Drake, giving up the quest, turned his prow westward and continued his voyage of circ.u.mnavigation.

But we are over-running our dates and must return to events at the isthmus. It was about the year 1530 that the non-existence of a natural waterway became recognized. And no sooner was this fact accepted than projects for an artificial ca.n.a.l began to be put forward. It was clear to the geographers and traders of those days that an isthmian route westward offered great advantages to the routes _via_ the Cape of Good Hope, Magellan Straits, or the problematical North-West Pa.s.sage.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The eminence known as "Balboa Hill" in the American ca.n.a.l zone is certainly not that from which Balboa first sighted the Pacific, though very likely a tradition to that effect will now gradually be established.

CHAPTER II.

Ca.n.a.l PROJECTS.

It appears that the honour of first conceiving and proposing the project of an artificial waterway through the isthmus belongs to alvaro de Saavedra Ceron, a cousin of Cortez, who had been with Balboa at Panama.

Ceron had been for twelve years engaged in the search for the strait, and had finally begun to doubt its existence. His thoughts turned to the isthmus at Panama, where the narrowness and low elevation of the land seemed to offer the likeliest chance of an artificial ca.n.a.l. We learn from the old historian Galvano that Ceron prepared plans for the construction of a waterway there--almost precisely along the route chosen for the American ca.n.a.l nearly four hundred years later. Ceron's death, however, put an end to this early project.

It is interesting to find the Portuguese historian Galvano, who flourished in the middle of the sixteenth century, mentioning four possible routes for the ca.n.a.l--namely, Darien, Panama, Nicaragua, and Tehuantepec. The choice, however, quickly confined itself to the Panama and Nicaraguan lines. The reader may feel some surprise that at such an early date as this an engineering project should be seriously considered which was only accomplished in the end by the wealth and mechanical resources of one of the greatest of modern Powers. The explanation is that the tiny vessels of the early sixteenth century could have taken advantage of the natural rivers and lakes in the isthmus, especially those on the Nicaraguan route, and that far less artificial construction would have been necessary than in these days of the mammoth liner and wars.h.i.+p.

Charles V., King of Spain, seems to have been quite alive to the importance of these ca.n.a.l projects. In 1534 he directed the Governor of Costa Firme, the old name for the Panama district, to survey the valley of the Chagres, the river which supplies the water for the upper reaches of the American ca.n.a.l. This gentleman, however, seems scarcely to have shared the royal enthusiasm. He may be supposed to have known the isthmus at these points very well, and his scepticism about the prospect of ca.n.a.l construction there in those days was not wholly groundless. The Spanish historian Gomara, who wrote a history of the Indies in 1551 and dedicated it to Charles V., declared a ca.n.a.l to be quite feasible along any of the four routes mentioned by Galvano. It is true he recognized obstacles. "There are mountains," he wrote, "but there are also hands.

If determination is not lacking, means will not fail; the Indies, to which the way is to be made, will furnish them. To a king of Spain, seeking the wealth of Indian commerce, that which is possible is also easy."

But Charles V. died without making any practical advance in this enterprise, and a rather remarkable reaction took place under his successor, Philip II. It should be noted that by this time a permanent roadway had been established across the isthmus from Panama to Porto Bello, along which the Spanish treasure-convoys pa.s.sed from sea to sea without much interruption. The rapidly growing power of the English at sea made Philip fear that, if a ca.n.a.l were built, he would be unable to control it, and would probably lose his existing monopoly of isthmian transit. So he issued a veto against all projects of ca.n.a.l construction.

He even persuaded himself that it would be contrary to the Divine purpose to link together two great oceans which G.o.d had set asunder, and that any such attempt would be visited by a terrible nemesis.[2] So his Majesty not only forbade all such schemes but declared the penalty of death against any one who should attempt to make a better route across Central America than the land-route between Panama and Porto Bello.

In course of time the king's beard was so horribly singed by English navigators and adventurers in the Caribbean Sea that the Atlantic end of the overland trail became almost useless, and the Spanish argosies were compelled to sail homewards round the far Magellan Straits. But in 1579, as we have seen, Sir Francis Drake ("El Draque" as he was called by the terrified Spaniards) had suddenly attacked, captured, and scattered the Spanish s.h.i.+ps off the Pacific coast of South America. So the isthmian land-route was once more resumed, and it took the Spaniard all his time to hold that open.

For many years no progress was made with the idea of an isthmian ca.n.a.l.

War between England and Spain was the natural order of things in these Central American regions. In 1655 the English seized Jamaica, and soon afterwards established themselves on the coast of Honduras and Nicaragua. The old city of Panama, of which only a picturesque church-tower remains to-day, had been founded by a Spanish governor named Pedrarias in 1519. In 1671 the city was destroyed by that wicked Welsh buccaneer, Sir Henry Morgan. The town was rebuilt two years later by Alonzo Mercado de Villacorta, five miles west of the old site.

The project of a ca.n.a.l across the isthmus was never allowed entirely to disappear. In 1694 a very determined attempt was made to plant a British colony on the isthmus at Darien, a little east of the Panama route. The pioneer was William Paterson, a Scotsman, who founded "the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies." Sir Walter Scott, in his "Tales of a Grandfather," thus describes the project:--

The produce of China, j.a.pan, the Spice Islands, and Eastern India, brought to the Bay of Panama, were to be transferred across the isthmus to the new settlement, and exchanged for the commodities of Europe. In Paterson's enthusiastic words, "This door of the seas and key of the universe will enable its possessors to become the legislators of both worlds and the arbitrators of commerce. The settlers at Darien will acquire a n.o.bler empire than Alexander or Caesar, without fatigue, expense, or danger, as well as without incurring the guilt and bloodshed of conquerors."

So 1,200 settlers set sail from Leith in July 1698, no doubt with a high hope and courage. In November the expedition arrived and established itself at a point of the coast still called Puerto Escoces, or Scotch Port, in Caledonian Bay, also named from the same event. "New Edinburgh"

and "New St. Andrews" were founded, but the settlers soon got into difficulties. The climate was intolerable, and the project was opposed from the outset by the English and Dutch East India Companies, who were alarmed on the score of their own exclusive rights, while Spaniards and Indians were a perpetual menace. Broken down by these adversities the original settlers left the place, but were succeeded at once by another company which, after some successful fighting with the Spaniards, were compelled by the superior forces of the enemy to evacuate the settlements in the year 1700. It is possible that if this attempt at colonization had been made after and not before the Union of Scotland and Ireland it would have met with much less opposition in England, perhaps would have received government sympathy and support. In that case the isthmus would have been added to the British dominions, and a waterway might have been constructed under the British flag. It should be added that Paterson, who had personally surveyed the isthmus, positively declared that the construction of a ca.n.a.l was a feasible undertaking.

During the eighteenth century, though surveying was carried out in many parts of the isthmus by European engineers, the project of a ca.n.a.l was never seriously taken up. It may be remembered that in 1780 our own Nelson was at Nicaragua, annexing the lake and getting control of the interoceanic route in this region, but doing little more than injuring his own health. With the nineteenth century, however, events began to move at the isthmus. The great scientist, Alexander von Humboldt, spent the first few years of the new century in Mexico and Central America. In his "Political Essay on New Spain" he described the impervious isthmus, "the barrier against the waves of the Atlantic," as for ages "the bulwark of the independence of China and j.a.pan."

The absence of any water communication at the isthmus between the two oceans has indeed had highly important political and economic results.

It kept East and West far asunder. It removed the west coast of North America from the colonizing rivalries of the Old World. England and the United States seemed for long ages only semiconscious of their territories on the Pacific which were awaiting colonization. Even in recent times very few emigrants from Europe, who went out with the intention of going far west, penetrated much further than Chicago or Manitoba. Population and industrial enterprise were concentrated in the east of Canada and the United States, and have only begun within modern times to move effectually westwards. England was indeed so indifferent about her territories along a far coast, which could be reached only round the Horn or by an almost impossible land-transit, that in the settlement of the Oregon boundary in the middle of last century she accepted a Canadian frontier-line much further north than would otherwise have contented her. She had at least as good a right to California and the territories to the northwards as the descendants of her revolted colonists. The absence of a waterway at the narrow lands secured to the United States and to England their expansion westwards, but imposed on the westward movement a very slow and gradual pace. One result of the new ca.n.a.l will be a very rapid development of these Pacific slopes, especially those of British Columbia.

The effect on South America of this complete severance of East and West has also been very important. The republics on the Pacific have been sheltered as much as possible from European influences. Immigration has been naturally restricted, the population, especially that of Chile, kept free from negro admixture, and the development of the countries effectually checked. The opening of the ca.n.a.l will, of course, have a contrary effect all along these lines.

But, to return from this digression, Humboldt described six routes in Central America where a ca.n.a.l would be practicable, including that which was afterwards adopted at Panama. He investigated and discussed many physiographical questions in connection with the subject. There had arisen a general belief that the level of the Pacific was much higher than that of the Atlantic, and that a sea-level ca.n.a.l would therefore be impossible. Humboldt declared against this theory. But it is curious to find him favouring the idea that the construction of a tide-level ca.n.a.l might have the effect of diverting the Gulf Stream from our sh.o.r.es, and thus making the climate of our British islands much more rigorous and inhospitable.

The researches of Humboldt in the West Indies and Central America much interested the scientist's great fellow-countryman, Goethe. A pa.s.sage from Goethe's "Conversations with Eckermann" is worth quoting as an example of prophecy wonderfully fulfilled:--

Humboldt [said Goethe] has with great practical knowledge mentioned other points where, by utilizing some of the rivers which flow into the Gulf of Mexico, the end could perhaps be more advantageously attained than at Panama.

Well, all this is reserved for the future, and for a great spirit of enterprise. But so much is certain: if a project of the kind succeeded in making it possible for s.h.i.+ps of whatever lading or size to go through such a ca.n.a.l from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, quite incalculable results would ensue for the whole of civilized and uncivilized humanity. I should be surprised, however, if the United States were to let the opportunity escape them of getting such an achievement into their own hands. We may expect this youthful Power, with its decided tendency westwards, in thirty or forty years to have also occupied and peopled the extensive tracts of land beyond the Rocky Mountains. We may further expect that along the whole Pacific coast, where Nature has already formed the largest and safest harbours, commercial cities of the utmost importance will gradually arise, to be the medium of trade between China, together with the East Indies, and the United States. Were this to happen, it would be not alone desirable but even almost necessary that merchantmen as well as men-of-war should maintain a more rapid connection between the west and east coasts of North America than has previously been possible by the wearisome, disagreeable, and costly voyage round Cape Horn. I repeat, then: it is absolutely indispensable for the United States to effect a way through from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, and I am certain they will compa.s.s it. This I should like to live to see, but I shall not. Secondly, I should like to live to see a connection established between the Danube and the Rhine. But this, too, is an undertaking so gigantic that I doubt its being accomplished, especially when I consider our German means. Thirdly and lastly, I should like to see the English in possession of a Suez Ca.n.a.l. These three great things I should like to live to see, and it would almost be worth while for their sakes to hold out for some fifty years.

Many projects for ca.n.a.l construction, chiefly by the Nicaraguan route, were started and failed during the first half of the nineteenth century.

The second decade of that century witnessed the revolt one by one of all the Spanish provinces in Central and South America. The Colombian Confederation, comprising Venezuela, Ecuador, and New Granada, achieved their independence in 1821. Panama quickly followed, and allied itself with New Granada (now Colombia). In 1825 the Central American envoy to the United States urged the American government to co-operate in the ca.n.a.l enterprise with the states he represented. The result was that Henry Clay, the American Secretary of State, ordered an official survey at Nicaragua, and scheme followed scheme in quick succession. In 1829 the King of Holland was granted a ca.n.a.l concession by the Nicaraguan government. This enterprise was frustrated by the outbreak of the revolution in the Netherlands and Belgium. It would be tedious to enumerate the many projects started during the following years. But it is worth recalling that Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, who was then a prisoner in the fortress of Ham, became interested in the subject, and while still a captive obtained a concession and franchise for a ca.n.a.l company from the Nicaraguan government. He published a pamphlet on the Isthmian Ca.n.a.l question which aroused a good deal of attention, though its author's interest was soon diverted to political events nearer home.

A pa.s.sage from his little book is interesting for its strong advocacy of the Nicaraguan route by the San Juan River and the lakes:--

The geographical position of Constantinople rendered her the queen of the ancient world. Occupying, as she does, the central point between Europe, Asia, and Africa, she could become the entrepot of the commerce of all these countries, and obtain over them immense preponderance; for in politics, as in strategy, a central position always commands the circ.u.mference. This is what the proud city of Constantine could be, but it is what she is not, because, as Montesquieu says, "G.o.d permitted that the Turks should exist on earth, as a people most fit to possess uselessly a great empire."

There exists in the New World a state as admirably situated as Constantinople, and we must say, up to this time, as uselessly occupied. We allude to the State of Nicaragua. As Constantinople is the centre of the Ancient World, so is the town of Leon the centre of the New, and if the tongue of land which separates its two lakes from the Pacific Ocean were cut through, she would command by virtue of her central position the entire coast of North and South America. The State of Nicaragua can become, better than Constantinople, the necessary route of the great commerce of the world, and is destined to attain an extraordinary degree of prosperity and grandeur. France, England, and Holland have a great commercial interest in the establishment of a communication between the two oceans, but England has more than the other Powers--a political interest in the execution of this project. England will see with pleasure Central America becoming a powerful and flouris.h.i.+ng state, which will establish a balance of power by creating in Spanish America a new centre of active enterprise, powerful enough to give rise to a feeling of nationality, and to prevent, by backing Mexico, any further encroachments from the north.

The idea of a trans-isthmian ca.n.a.l seemed likely in the 'fifties of last century to prove a cause of discord, if not of war, between England and the United States. Under the rather "pushful" foreign policy of Lord Palmerston, England rapidly increased her influence and possessions in Central America. In 1835 "British Honduras" was practically const.i.tuted a British colony, and British influence was subsequently extended into Nicaragua and Mosquitia, thus covering the favourite route for an isthmian waterway. The United States were establis.h.i.+ng themselves on the Pacific through their encroachments on Mexico. In 1846 they acquired the states of California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico, and naturally began to attach more importance to the ca.n.a.l project and to feel more sensitive as regards rival ambitions in Central America. Soon after they had acquired these Pacific territories, began the great rush for gold to California, and some shorter way from east to west became necessary than the sea-trail round the Horn or the weary wagon-trek over the broad North American continent. Already in 1846, before the Mexican War and the discovery of gold in California, the United States had made a treaty with New Granada, by which the former secured rights of transit over the isthmus "upon any modes of communication that now exist or may hereafter be constructed," and by which they guaranteed the sovereignty of New Granada over all the territories at the isthmus.

It was under this treaty that the Panama Railway was constructed which brought the town of Colon (formerly Aspinwall) into existence, and was subsequently taken over by the United States government. This railroad made the isthmus for the first time a highway of world-traffic. It had a monopoly of isthmian transportation, and was able to make any charges it pleased. Steams.h.i.+p services to the southern and northern coasts of America from Panama were developed, and the railway succeeded so well that it paid down to 1895 an average dividend of 15 per cent. It was bought by the first French Panama Company for the outrageously high sum of 5,100,000. The existence of the railway really determined De Lesseps' choice of the Panama route, and the immense amount of excavation done by the French had a great deal to do in turn with the American choice of the same route, so that the construction of the Panama Railway was a highly important event at the isthmus. The United States took over the railroad from the French with the unfinished ca.n.a.l, together with a steams.h.i.+p service from Colon to New York, owned by the railroad.