TREASURES OF THE DEEP—THE SAN PEDRO ALCANTARA—MARGARITA—SEEKING
LOST TREASURE—OCEAN MINING-NAVY BAY, COLON—INTER-OCEANIC
COMMUNICATION—GOMARA’S PROJECT—NELSON’S SCHEME—THE NICARAGUA
ROUTE—THE ACANTI-TUPISI ROUTE—INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION.
The dream of Clarence has occupied the waking thoughts of many since
Shakespeare’s time, and in the West Indies, as well as off our own coast,
it has been the ambition of treasure-hunters to find the Spanish gold
which here and there paves the sea. Near Carthagena we passed a vessel
engaged on a diving expedition, and not far from Cumaná we had seen
another ship, which was said to be in search of the vast treasure sunk in
the San Pedro Alcántara.
The history of this unfortunate vessel is an interesting one. In 1815,
Ferdinand VIII. of Spain, dispatched from Cadiz a number of transports
with men, money, and provisions, for the supply of the fleet, which was
then stationed in the Caribbean Sea. These ships sailed under the convoy
of the San Pedro Alcántara, a three-decked line of battle-ship mounting
seventy-four guns. On board were 1,400 soldiers, under the command of
General Morillo, and in the treasure-chests were between three and four
million dollars. When the San Pedro Alcántara arrived at La Guaira, the
revolution had so far progressed that the Spanish citizens of that town
and of Carácas, fearing the loss of their personal property, transferred
their gold and jewels to the man-of-war. This act was soon imitated by
the convents and churches of Venezuela, and the vessel was laden with
an immense treasure of jewels, gold and silver altar plate, valuable
pictures, coin, and costly ornaments. The jewelled tiara of the Virgin of
Guadaloupe, which was sent from Valencia, was alone of almost priceless
value.
From La Guaira the San Pedro Alcántara sailed up the coast to the island
of Margarita—now known as Nueva Esparta—where the troops disembarked and
defeated the Venezuelan forces stationed there. The brave Margaritans,
who, during the War of Independence, proved themselves to be as truly
patriotic as the Llaneros, retired to the hills and inaugurated a
guerilla warfare which harassed the Spaniards beyond measure. Still their
towns were open to attack, and Asuncion, Pampatar, Norte, and others,
were sacked and destroyed by the invaders. Thus the wealth of the San
Pedro was again added to, and, as there was much treasure in these towns,
it is supposed that little was saved from the sudden descent of the
conquerors.
After the plundering of the last town, orders were received that the
San Pedro should sail at once to Cumaná. To celebrate their successes a
grand revel was held on board one night; casks of wine and spirits were
broached, and success to the ensuing expedition was so eagerly drunk
that it is doubtful whether there was a single sober man in the vessel.
Then arose an alarm of fire. How the fire originated is unknown, but
it speedily reached a cask of brandy, which burst, and the deck was
instantly deluged with liquid fire. The flames were soon darting through
the hatchways and lapping the sails, and so quickly did the conflagration
spread that nothing could have checked it, even if sober men had tried
to stem the danger. As it was, the wild mob, mad with drink and fear,
thought only of flight. With difficulty the boats were lowered, and men
sought to reach them, either by jumping into them from the deck, or
battling with each other in the water to clutch their sides. Of the few
boats that there were, all except one were either capsized or stove in.
In the meantime the fire made its way to the powder-magazine. Suddenly
a tremendous explosion rent the air, a lucid light hung for a moment
over the doomed vessel, and the air was filled with mangled corpses and
fragments of the ship. The after-half of the San Pedro Alcántara had
been blown to pieces, and the forward half quickly sank beneath the
waves. Over a thousand men perished in the fire and ocean on that night.
The magazine had been situated beneath the strong chambers wherein were
stored the Spanish treasure-chests, the riches of the people and churches
of Venezuela and the plunder of the towns. All was now scattered and
buried in the sea.
In a paper describing this disaster, it is said that in 1816 an American
Captain visited the scene of the wreck, one mile from the island of
Cuagua, and succeeded in securing about 30,000 dollars in silver.
Again in 1845 a company was organized in Baltimore for the purpose of
seeking the lost treasure. The remnant of the wreck was easily found,
but owing to the lack of proper diving apparatus the attempt proved a
failure. A few months later the same company sent out another expedition.
This search was prosecuted under an agreement with the government of
Venezuela. During the first three months quantities of copper, huge
rusty anchors and guns, were dragged up, but only about 1,500 dollars in
silver coin were recovered. The search had been confined to the immediate
vicinity of the sunken wreck, and the divers became so dissatisfied by
the ill results of their labour that they refused to continue unless
those in charge of the explorations would test the theory they formed,
which was that the force of the explosion had hurled the treasure-chests
some distance away from the spot where the ship went down. They were
humoured, and the vessel was anchored in another place. The first time
the diving bell went down on the new ground, 750 dollars were picked up
in two hours, and this success continued so well that in six months about
200,000 dollars in silver had been recovered. Then the major portion of
the divers and crew having surreptitiously possessed themselves of such
portions of the treasure as they could secrete, stole a boat and set sail
for La Guaira. The remainder of the party returned to Baltimore, having
been unable to pursue the exploration for want of divers.
In 1849 another American barque recovered several thousand dollars
in silver, but how much is not known, as the Captain suddenly hauled
his anchor on board and set sail for the Horn, bound for the new El
Dorado on the Pacific coast. In 1856, 28,000 dollars were recovered,
and, in 1858, 30,000 more. In April, 1877, a Captain Folingsby went to
Venezuela to obtain permission from the government to search for the
lost millions, and effected a contract whereby, in consideration of the
payment of five per cent on all sums he might recover, he was granted
the exclusive right to drag, dredge, and dive for the sunken treasures
of the San Pedro Alcántara for the period of six years. Armed with this
contract, Captain Folingsby organized an expedition for the thorough and
exhaustive exploration of all the ocean bed over which the treasure might
have been scattered by the explosion of the ship. He has had extensive
experience as a diver, and having been in the employ of the Baltimore
company in 1845 and 1846 in their searches, is thoroughly familiar with
the ground on which he is to work. He believes that the strong boxes
which held the gold, jewels, and church plate were not burst by the
explosion, but simply tossed away to a greater distance than seekers have
hitherto deemed it worth while to go from the wreck. No gold has as yet
been found, but simply silver, and this he accepts as evidence of the
correctness of his theory. He thinks that he can go over all the ground
in about eight months. His dredges and drags are of the most approved
patterns, fitted with special appliances such as chair-nettings, to let
sand escape, but to hold everything else. As 500,000 dollars are about
all that have hitherto been recovered, he has the hope of finding at
least four or five millions and, with every requisite that knowledge
and unrestricted capital can supply, he confidently expects to achieve
success. As he was to sail from New York early in 1878, the vessel we
saw near Cumaná must have been his. With that idea we cordially wished a
prosperous finale to the ocean-mining of the enterprising Captain.
From Savanilla onwards to Panama the little we saw of the coast was
uninteresting. We were seldom near enough to appreciate the colour-chords
on beach, hill and savanna, and the sombre monotone of the land seemed
but an extension of the yellow green sea. The nights were calm and
beautiful, and as we sailed on and on through the great star-chamber,
the vessel appeared to plunge through a sea of fire. Long gleams of
blue, green and purple crested the waves that were only raised by the
vessel’s bow, and the teeming phosphorescent life made the starry waters
more brilliant even than the sky. But pleasant as the nights were, the
French Mail Company interfered with our entire enjoyment of them, by a
silly order which forbade passengers to take their pillows on deck. They
might sleep there if they chose—and everyone did choose—but under no
circumstances were pillows allowed. Various were the devices made use
of to disguise the forbidden articles, but those who indulged in them
were generally awakened by a polite reminder from one of the officers or
stewards that the pillows must be taken below. Then the different _ruses_
had to be repeated. The pillow-prohibition was the only fault that could
be found with this comfortable vessel.
Our little voyage along the Spanish Main had been slow and deliberate,
but as the old Spanish proverb says “step by step goes a long way,” and
at last we entered a pretty horse-shoe bay surrounded by low misty hills,
and were presently moored alongside one of the fine wharfs at Colon. Here
we were at the narrowest point of that narrow isthmus, to cross which
by water has been a problem to the great nations of the world for three
centuries and a half. The project of connecting the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans by a canal is a scheme of such vast commercial importance that
it may be interesting to take a rapid glance at a few of the numerous
surveys made with a view to inter-oceanic communication. As early as
1513 the Spanish explorers believed in the existence of a narrow strait
leading across to the Pacific. In the following year, the Spanish
Government gave a secret order for the preparation of a coast-chart to
determine whether such a strait really existed. In the hope of finding
such a passage, Cortez sent out his expeditions and prepared a map of
the Gulf of Mexico, which he sent to Spain in 1524. Then the European
Powers explored and searched the whole coast-line of the New World,
and at length realized the fact that from Colon the continent extended
uninterruptedly north and south. Just as the Suez Canal is only an
enlargement of the plan conceived and executed by the Pharaohs 4,000
years ago, so the Panama or Darien route, when completed, will be the
practical result of a project contemplated as far back as three centuries
and a half.
In 1551, a Spaniard of the name of Gomara proposed that a canal should be
constructed to connect the oceans, and suggested three of the same routes
that have been under the consideration of modern engineers. “It is true,”
said the proud Castilian, “that mountains obstruct the passes, but if
there are mountains there are also hands; let but the resolve be made,
and there will be no want of means; the Indies, to which the passage will
be made, will supply them. To a King of Spain, with the wealth of the
Indies at his command, when the object to be attained is the spice trade,
what is possible is easy.” But soon Spain fell from her high estate,
religious intolerance benumbed her energies, and the project of the
canal became at last a mere legend.
In 1780 the Nicaragua route was first projected, and Captain—afterwards
Lord—Nelson conveyed a force of 2,000 men to San Juan de Nicaragua for
the conquest of the country, and in one of his despatches said, “In
order to give facility to the great object of Government, I intend to
possess the great lake of Nicaragua, which at the present may be looked
upon as the inland Gibraltar of Spanish America. As it commands the
only water-pass between the oceans, its situation must ever render it
a principal port to ensure passage to the Southern Ocean, and by our
possession of it Spanish America is severed in two.” The expedition was a
failure, however, and nothing came of Nelson’s project.
In 1814, the Spanish Cortes decreed the opening of a canal, but the
matter was deferred and the decree never executed. In 1825, after the
Central American States had secured their independence, they asked the
co-operation of the United States in constructing a canal. In 1828, the
King of the Netherlands proposed to undertake the work, and sent over
General Verveer with instructions to build the canal. The General found
Central America engaged in one of its regular half-yearly revolutions,
and the matter was deferred until 1830, when the revolution in his own
country put an end to the plans. In 1836, Mr. John Bailey made some
preliminary surveys for a route across Nicaragua, which were brought
to a close by the dissolution of the “Confederation of the Centre.” In
1850, under appointment from the Atlantic and Pacific Ship-canal Company,
Mr. Childs, of Philadelphia, began a survey on the Pacific side, and
after examining several routes chose the line which terminated in Brito
Harbour, giving very strong reasons against the Lake Managua route, which
have been confirmed by every subsequent survey. British capitalists
were interested in this route, and would have adopted Mr. Child’s plans
if favourable arrangements could have been made with Nicaragua. But
the Nicaraguan Government finally killed the scheme, as far as British
capital was concerned, by demanding twenty-five per cent of profits.
In 1873, President Grant appointed an Inter-oceanic Canal Commission, to
examine the various proposed routes and report on the most feasible. The
Commission considered the following surveys: the Isthmus of Tehuantepec;
the Nicaragua route, _viâ_ Lake Nicaragua; the Isthmus of Panama; the San
Bias and Chepo route; the Caledonian and North routes; the Caledonian
and Sucubti route; the Cacarica and Tuyra route; the Atrato and Truando
route; and the Atrato-Napip route. The Commission unanimously reported
that the Nicaragua route possessed, both for construction and maintenance
of a canal, greater advantages, and offered fewer difficulties from
engineering, commercial, and economic points of view, than any one of
the routes shown by surveys to be practicable. This route, beginning
on the Atlantic side, at or near Greytown, would run by canal to the
San Juan River, thence following its left bank to the mouth of the San
Carlos River, at which point navigation of the San Juan begins, and by
the aid of three short canals of an aggregate length of three and a
half miles reach Lake Nicaragua. Thence across the lake and through the
valleys of the Rio del Medio and the Rio Grande to what is known as the
Port of Brito, on the Pacific coast. No doubt exists as to the entire
practicability of constructing this canal, the cost of which, with all
the necessary adjuncts—locks 400 feet in length and 26 feet depth of
water—may be set down as at least twenty million pounds sterling.
The last survey of the several routes has very lately been completed by
Lieutenant-Commander Wyse of the French Navy. After an exhaustive survey,
he judges that the best route for a canal is what he describes as the
Acanti-Tupisa route. This starts from the Gulf of Darien on the Atlantic
side, following the Atrato River for a short distance and passing through
the valley of the Tupisa to the Tuyra River, which flows into the Gulf
of San Miguel. Commander Wyse has proposed that M. de Lesseps should be
President of an International Commission that shall assemble before long
to examine the different lines that have been surveyed, and to select
whichever will be, in their judgment, the easiest and most desirable to
construct. It is probable that the choice of routes will rest between
the Acanti-Tupisa and that of Nicaragua, but when work will actually be
commenced on either is doubtful. Before the Atlantic and Pacific join
hands across the Isthmus another century may elapse, and the problem
propounded four hundred and fifty years before may still be unsolved.