Produced by Steven Gibbs, Barbara Kosker and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
THE PANAMA CANAL
[Illustration: _Clinedinst--Washington, D.C._
COL. GEORGE W. GOETHALS, U.S.A.,
Chairman and Chief Engineer Isthmian Canal Commission.]
THE PANAMA CANAL
A HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE ENTERPRISE
BY
J. SAXON MILLS, M.A.
BARRISTER-AT-LAW
WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
THOMAS NELSON AND SONS
LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN, MANCHESTER, LEEDS
PARIS, LEIPZIG, MELBOURNE, AND NEW YORK
PREFACE.
The literature on the subject of the Panama Canal 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 Canal" (Cassell 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 canal in "The Panama
Canal and its Makers" (T. Fisher Unwin, 1909), and in several lectures,
especially one before the Royal Colonial Institute, June 11, 1912. An
inexhaustible mine of information will be found in Mr. Emory R.
Johnson's Official Report on Panama Canal Traffic and Tolls (Washington,
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 Canal 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 Canal, 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 Canal 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 Canal 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 Institute, for his unfailing help and courtesy.
BUSHEY, 1913.
CONTENTS.
PREFACE 5
DATE HISTORY OF THE CANAL 11
I. THE SECRET OF THE STRAIT 15
II. CANAL PROJECTS 23
III. THE CLAYTON-BULWER TREATY AND THE SUEZ CANAL 42
IV. THE FRENCH FAILURE 52
V. THE HAY-PAUNCEFOTE TREATY 64
VI. THE UNITED STATES AND COLOMBIA 77
VII. A MINIATURE REVOLUTION 88
VIII. THE BATTLE OF THE LEVELS 112
IX. MAN AND THE GNAT 129
X. LIFE AT THE ISTHMUS 153
XI. THE PROBLEM OF CONSTRUCTION 172
XII. THE CULEBRA CUT 186
XIII. THE LOCKS 195
XIV. THE COMPLETED CANAL 207
XV. PANAMA AND THE ISTHMUS 226
XVI. THE NEW OCEAN HIGHWAYS 242
XVII. THE CANAL AND THE AMERICAS 265
XVIII. THE CANAL AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE 284
XIX. THE NEW PACIFIC 316
APPENDIX I.--HAY-PAUNCEFOTE TREATY 323
APPENDIX II.--PANAMA DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 327
APPENDIX III.--HAY-BUNAU-VARILLA TREATY CLAUSES 1-9 AND 23 332
APPENDIX IV.--PROCLAMATION AS TO CANAL TOLL RATES 343
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Col. George W. Goethals, U.S.A. _Frontispiece_
Chairman and Chief Engineer Isthmian Canal Commission.
Col. William C. Gorgas 144
Medical Department, U.S. Army, Head of the Department
of Sanitation, Ancon.
Culebra Cut, from West Bank 192
Gatun Locks, looking South-West 201
Gatun Upper Lock, looking North 208
Gatun Upper Lock--West Chamber 216
Pedro Miguel Locks 224
DATE HISTORY OF THE CANAL.
Conquest of Constantinople by Turks 1453
Columbus's First Voyage 1492
Columbus discovers Bay of Limon 1497
Rodrigo de Bastidas, Balboa, and La Cosa reach the Isthmus 1500
Columbus's Fourth Voyage, vainly seeks the strait 1502
Balboa sights the Pacific Sept. 25, 1513
Pedrarias founds the old town of Panama 1519
Magellan discovers the straits that bear his name 1519-21
Gonzalez de Avila discovers Lake Nicaragua 1522
The quest of Isthmian Strait given up as hopeless _circa_ 1532
Gomara appeals to Charles V. to construct canal 1551
Drake sights the Pacific 1573
Philip III. directs surveys for Darien Canal 1616
English seize Jamaica 1655
Henry Morgan destroys old Panama 1671
Paterson's settlement at Panama 1698
Spanish surveys of Tehuantepec and Nicaragua 1771 and 1779
Von Humboldt's residence in Central America 1799-1804
Panama declares its independence and joins New Granada 1822
Overtures made by Central America to United States for canal 1825
Goethe's prophecies 1827
Dutch canal concession from Nicaraguan Government 1829
abandoned 1830
British Honduras annexed by Great Britain 1835
United States Treaty with New Granada 1846
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty 1850
Panama Railway opened to traffic 1855
Dickinson-Ayon Treaty between United States and Nicaragua 1868
President Grant recommends canal under United States control 1869
Appoints Interoceanic Canal Commission 1869
Suez Canal opened 1869
La Societe Civile Internationale du Canal Interoceanique founded 1876
Grant's Commission reports in favour of Nicaraguan route 1876
The De Lesseps Company formed 1878
Company starts work 1881
Bankruptcy of French company 1889
New Panama Company formed 1889
Construction work at Nicaragua 1890-3
Ferdinand de Lesseps died 1894
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty 1901
Spooner Act 1902
Panama revolts from Colombia 1903
Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty 1904
American occupation of Isthmus begins 1904
Completion of canal 1914
Formal opening 1915
THE PANAMA CANAL.
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 passage from ocean to
ocean, or, having provided such a passage 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 Canal 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 Cipangu (Japan) 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 canal
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 canal 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 passage 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 anticipated 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-passage from the
Atlantic to the Pacific was actually discovered by the first great
circumnavigator, 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-ships 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 Passage. But always the coast
trended to the north-west, and Drake, giving up the quest, turned his
prow westward and continued his voyage of circumnavigation.
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 canal 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 Passage.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The eminence known as "Balboa Hill" in the American canal 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.