When Cortez, in the year 1530, made the observation that the two great
oceans could be seen from the peaks of mountains, he, in those remote
days, preoccupied himself with the question to cut through the
Cordilleras.
Therefore, the idea of an interoceanic canal is by no means a modern
one, as travelers and navigators observed that there was a great
depression among the hills of the Isthmus of Panama. As Professor T.E.
Nurse, of the U.S.N., says in his memoirs:
"This problem of interoceanic communication has been justly said to
possess not only practical value, but historical grandeur. It clearly
links itself back to the era of the conquest of Cortez, three and a half
centuries." [1] It is a problem which has been left for our modern era
to solve, but nevertheless its history is thereby rendered still more
interesting, having needed so many centuries to bring it to an issue.
[Footnote 1: From Prof. Nurse's historical essay. See Survey of
Nicaragua Canal, by Com. Lull.]
Spain, which acquired through her Columbus a new empire, lying near, as
it was supposed, to the riches of Asia, could not be indifferent, from
the moment of her discoveries, to the means of crossing these lands to
yet richer ones beyond.
India, from the days of Alexander and of the geographers, Mela, Strabo,
and Ptolemy, was the land of promise, the home of the spices, the
inexhaustible fountain of wealth. The old routes of commerce thither had
been closed one by one to the Christians; the overland trade had fallen
into the hands of the Arabs; and at the fall of Constantinople, 1453,
the commerce of the Black Sea and of the Bosphorus, the last of the old
routes to the East, finally failed the Christian world. Yet even beyond
the fame of the East, which tradition had brought down from Greek and
Roman, much more had the crusaders kindled for Asia (Cathay) and its
riches an ardor not easily suppressed in men's minds.
The error of the Spanish Admiral in supposing that the eastern shores
of Asia extended 240 degrees east of Spain, or to the meridian of
the modern San Diego, in California--this error, insisted on in his
dispatches and adopted and continued by his followers, still further
animated the earlier Spanish sovereigns and the men whom they sent into
the New World to reach Asia by a short and easy route.
Nobody in Europe dreamt that Columbus had discovered a new continent,
and when Balbao, in 1513, discovered the South Sea, then it was known
that Asia lay beyond, and navigators directed their course there. On
his deathbed, in 1506, Columbus still held to his delusion that he had
reached Zipanga, Japan. In 1501 he was exploring the coast of Veragua,
in Central America, still looking for the Ganges, and announcing his
being informed on this coast of a sea which would bear ships to the
mouth of that river, while about the same time the Cabots, under Henry
VII., were taking possession of Newfoundland, believing it to be part of
the island coast of China.
Although these were grave blunders in geography and in navigation, the
discoveries really made in the rich tropical zones, the acquirement of
a new world, and the rich products continually reaching Europe from it,
for a time aroused Spain from her lethargy. The world opened east and
west. The new routes poured their spices, silks, and drugs through new
channels into all the Teutonic countries. The strong purposes of having
near access to the East were deepened and perpetuated doubly strong, by
the certainties before men's eyes of what had been attained.
Balbao, in 1513, gained from a height on the Isthmus of Panama the first
proof of its separation from Asia; and Magellan enters the South Sea
at the southern extremity of the country, now first proven to be thus
separate and a continent. Men in those days began to think that creation
was doubled, and that such discovered lands must be separate from India,
China, and Japan. And the very successes of the Portuguese under Vasco
da Gama, bringing from their eastern course the expectancy of Asia's
wealth, intensely excited the Spaniards to renew their western search.
The Portuguese, led around the Cape of Good Hope, had brought home vast
treasures from the East, while the Spanish discoverers, as yet, had not
reached the countries either of Montezuma or of the Inca. Their success
"troubled the sleep of the Spaniards."
Everything, then, of personal ambition and national pride, the thirst
for gold, the zeal of religious proselytism, and the cold calculations
of state policy, now concurred in the disposition to sacrifice what
Spain already had of most value on the American shores in order to seize
upon a greater good, the Indies, still supposed to be near at hand. And
since it was now certain that the new lands were not themselves Asia,
the next aim was to find the secret of the narrow passage across
them which must lead thither. The very configuration of the isthmus
strengthened the belief in the existence of such a passage by the number
of its openings, which seemed to invite entrance in the expectancy that
some one of them must extend across the narrow breadth of land.
For this the Spanish government, in 1514, gave secret orders to
D'Avilla, Governor of Castila del Oro, and to Juan de Solis, the
navigator, to determine whether Castila del Oro were an island, and to
send to Cuba a chart of the coast, if any strait were possible. For
this, De Solis visited Nicaragua and Honduras; and later, led far to the
south, perished in the La Plata. For this, Magellan entered the straits,
which, strangely enough, he affirmed before setting out, that he "would
enter," since he "had seen them marked out on the geographer Martin
Behaim's globe." For this, Cortez sent out his expeditions on both
coasts, exposing his own life and treasure, and sending home to the
emperor, in his second relation, a map of the entire Gulf of Mexico
(Dispatch from Cortez to Charles V., October 15, 1524). For this great
purpose, and in full expectancy of success in it, the whole coast of
the New World on each side, from Newfoundland on the northeast, curving
westward on the south, around the whole sweep of the Gulf of Mexico,
thence to Magellan's Straits, and thence through them up the Pacific to
the Straits of Behring, was searched and researched with diligence.
"Men could not get accustomed," says Humboldt, "to the idea that the
continent extended uninterruptedly both so far north and south." Hence
all these large, numerous, and persevering expeditions by the European
powers.
Among them, by priority of right and by her energy, was Spain. The great
emperor was urgent on the conqueror of Mexico, and on all in subordinate
positions in New Spain, to solve the secret of the strait. All Spain was
awakened to it. "How majestic and fair was she," says Chevalier, "in the
sixteenth century; what daring, what heroism and perseverance! Never had
the world seen such energy, activity, or good fortune. Hers was a will
that regarded no obstacles. Neither rivers, deserts, nor mountains far
higher than those in Europe, arrested her people. They built grand
cities, they drew their fleets, as in a twinkling of the eye, from the
very forests. A handful of men conquered empires. They seemed a race of
giants or demi-gods. One would have supposed that all the work necessary
to bind together climates and oceans would have been done at the word of
the Spaniards as by enchantment, and since nature had not left a passage
through the center of America, no matter, so much the better for
the glory of the human race; they would make it up by artificial
communication. What, indeed, was that for men like them? It were done
at a word. Nothing else was left for them to conquer, and the world was
becoming too small for them."
Certainly, had Spain remained what she then was, what had been in vain
sought from nature would have been supplied by man. A canal or several
canals would have been built to take the place of the long-desired
strait. Her men of science urged it. In 1551, Gomara, the author of the
"History of the Indies," proposed the union of the oceans by three of
the very same lines toward which, to this hour, the eye turns with hope.
"It is true," said Gomara, "that mountains obstruct these passes, but if
there are mountains there are also hands; let but the resolve be made,
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 obtained is the spice
trade, what is possible is easy.
But the sacred fire suddenly burned itself out in Spain. The peninsula
had for its ruler a prince who sought his glory in smothering free
thought among his own people, and in wasting his immense resources in
vain efforts to repress it also outside of his own dominions through all
Europe. From that hour, Spain became benumbed and estranged from all
the advances of science and art, by means of which other nations, and
especially England, developed their true greatness.
Even after France had shown, by her canal of the south, that boats could
ascend and pass the mountain crests, it does not appear that the
Spanish government seriously wished to avail itself of a like means of
establishing any communication between her sea of the Antilles and the
South Sea. The mystery enveloping the deliberations of the council of
the Indies has not always remained so profound that we could not know
what was going on in that body. The Spanish government afterward opened
up to Humboldt free access to its archives, and in these he found
several memoirs on the possibility of a union between the two oceans;
but he says that in no one of them did he find the main point, the
height of the elevations on the isthmus, sufficiently cleared up, and
he could not fail to remark that the memoirs were exclusively French or
English. Spain herself gave it no thought. Since the glorious age of
Balbao among the people, indeed, the project of a canal was in every
one's thoughts. In the very wayside talks, in the inns of Spain, when a
traveler from the New World chanced to pass, after making him tell of
the wonders of Lima and Mexico, of the death of the Inca, Atahualpa,
and the bloody defeat of the Aztecs, and after asking his opinion of El
Dorado, the question was always about the two oceans, and what great
things would happen if they could succeed in joining them.
During the whole of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Spain
had need of the best mode of conveyance for her treasures across the
isthmus. Yet those from Peru came by the miserable route from Panama to
the deadliest of climates. Porto Bello and her European wares for
her colonies toiled up the Chagres river, while the roughest of
communication farther north connected the Chimalapa and the Guasacoalcos
in Mexico, and the trade there was limited sternly to but one port on
each side. As late as Humboldt's visit, in 1802, when remarking upon the
"unnatural modes of communication" by which, through painful delays, the
immense treasures of the New World passed from Acapulco, Guayaquil,
and Lima, to Spain, he says: "These will soon cease whenever an active
government, willing to protect commerce, shall construct a good road
from Panama to Porto Bello. The aristocratic nonchalance of Spain, and
her fear to open to strangers the way to the countries explored for her
own profit, only kept those countries closed." The court forbade, on
pain of death, the use of plans at different times proposed. They
wronged their own colonies by representing the coasts as dangerous and
the rivers impassable. On the presentation of a memoir for improving the
route through Tehuantepec, by citizens of Oaxaca, as late as 1775,
an order was issued forbidding the subject to be mentioned. The
memorialists were censured as intermeddlers, and the viceroy fell under
the sovereign's displeasure for having seemed to favor the plans.
The great isthmus was, however, further explored by the Spanish
government for its own purposes; the recesses were traversed, and the
lines of communication which we know to-day were then noted.
In addition to the fact that comparatively little was explored north or
south of that which early became the main highway, the Panama route,
there is confirmation here of the truth that Spain concealed and even
falsified much of her generally accurately made surveys. No stronger
proof of this need be asked than that which Alcedo gives in connection
with the proposal by Gogueneche, the Biscayan pilot, to open
communication by the Atrato and the Napipi. "The Atrato," says the
historian, "is navigable for many leagues, but the navigation of it is
prohibited under pain of death, without the exception of any person
whatever."
The Isthmus of Nicaragua has always invited serious consideration for
a ship canal route by its very marked physical characteristics, among
which is chiefly its great depression between two nearly parallel ranges
of hills, which depression is the basin of its large lake, a natural and
all-sufficient feeder for such a canal.
In 1524 a squadron of discovery sent out by Cortez on the coast of the
South Sea, announced the existence of a fresh water sea at only
three leagues from the coast; a sea which, they said, rose and fell
alternately, communicating, it was believed, with the Sea of the North.
Various reconnoissances were therefore made, under the idea that here
the easy transit would be established between Spain and the spice lands
beyond.
It was even laid down on some of the old maps, that this open
communication by water existed from sea to sea; while later maps
represented a river, under the name of Rio Partido, as giving one of
its branches to the Pacific Ocean and the other to Lake Nicaragua. An
exploration by the engineer, Bautista Antonelli, under the orders of
Philip II., corrected the false idea of an open strait.
In the eighteenth century a new cause arose for jealousy of her
neighbors and for keeping her northern part of the isthmus from their
view. In the years 1779 and 1780 the serious purposes of the English
government for the occupancy of Nicaragua, awakened the solicitudes of
the Spanish government for this section. The English colonels, Hodgson
and Lee, had secretly surveyed the lake and portions of the country,
forwarding their plans to London, as the basis of an armed incursion,
to renew such as had already been made by the superintendent of the
Mosquito coast, forty years before, when, crossing the isthmus, he took
possession of Realejo, on the Pacific, seeking to change its name to
Port Edward. In 1780, Captain, afterward Lord Nelson, under orders from
Admiral Sir Peter Parker, convoyed a force of two thousand men to San
Juan de Nicaragua, for the conquest of the country.
In his dispatches, Nelson said: "In order to give facility to the great
object of government, I intend to possess the lake of Nicaragua, which,
for 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 post to insure passage to the
Southern Ocean, and by our possession of it Spanish America is severed
into two."
The passage of San Juan was found to be exceedingly difficult; for the
seamen, although assisted by the Indians from Bluetown, scarcely forced
their boats up the shoals. Nelson bitterly regretted that the expedition
had not arrived in January, in place of the close of the dry season. It
was a disastrous failure, costing the English the lives of one thousand
five hundred men, and nearly losing to them their Nelson.
At this period, Charles III., of Spain, sent a commission to explore the
country. These commissioners reported unfavorably as regarded the route;
but fearing further intrusion from England, forbade all access to the
coast; even falsifying and suppressing its charts and permanently
injuring the navigation of the San Juan and the Colorado by obstructions
in their beds.
It is, however, a relief here to learn that when Humboldt visited the
New World, he could say: "The time is passed when Spain, through a
jealous policy, refused to other nations a thoroughfare across the
possessions of which they kept the whole world so long in ignorance.
Accurate maps of the coasts, and even minute plans of military
positions, are published." It is also true that the Spanish Cortes,
in 1814, decreed the opening of a canal, a decree deferred and never
executed.
It was reserved for our century to see this great project carried into
execution, and it is but just that as a chronicler of events I should
connect with the Canal of Panama the name of a family who have done much
to bring the scheme, so to say, into practical execution.
As early as the year 1836, Mr. Joly de Sabla turned his views toward the
cutting of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. He resided at the time
on the Island of Guadeloupe, one of the French West India Islands,
where he possessed large estates. Of a high social position, the
representative of one of France's ancient and noble families, with large
means at his disposal and of an enterprising spirit much in advance of
his time, he was well calculated to carry out such a grand scheme.
He soon set about procuring from the Government of New Granada (now
Colombia) the necessary grants and concessions, but much time and many
efforts were spent before these could be brought to a satisfactory
condition, and it was not until the year 1841 that he could again visit
the Isthmus, bringing with him this time, on a vessel chartered by him
for the purpose, a corps of engineers and employes, medical staff, etc.,
etc. After two years spent in exploring and surveying a country at that
time very imperfectly known, he returned to Guadeloupe to find his
residence and most of his estates destroyed by the terrible earthquake
that visited the island in February, 1843.
Undaunted by this unexpected and severe blow, Mr. De Sabla persisted in
his efforts, and in the same year obtained from the French government
the establishment of a Consulate at Panama to insure protection to the
future canal company, and also the sending of two government engineers
of high repute (Messrs. Garella and Courtines), to verify the surveys
already made and complete them.
After receiving the respective reports of Garella and Courtines, Mr.
De Sabla decided upon first constructing a railway across the Isthmus,
postponing the cutting of the canal until this indispensable auxiliary
should have rendered it practicable and profitable. He then presented
the scheme in that shape to his friends in Paris and London, and formed
a syndicate of thirteen members, among whom we may recall the names of
the well known Bankers Caillard of Paris, and Baimbridge of London,
of Sir John Campbell, then Vice President of the Oriental Steamship
Company, of Viscount Chabrol de Chameane, and of Courtines, the
exploring engineer.
A new contract was then entered upon with New Granada in June, 1847, and
early in 1848, the Syndicate was about to forward to the Isthmus the
expedition which was to execute the preliminary works, while the company
was being finally organized in Paris, and its stock placed.
The success of the undertaking seemed to be assured beyond peradventure,
when the unexpected breaking out of the French revolution in February,
1848, dashed all hopes to the ground. Several of the prominent
financiers engaged in the affair, taken by surprise by the suddenness of
the revolution, had to suspend their payments and of course to withdraw
from the Panama Canal and railroad scheme. Others withdrew from
contagious fear and timidity. Finally the term fixed for carrying out
certain obligations of the contract expired without their fulfillment
by the company, and the concession was forfeited. Another contract was
almost immediately applied for and granted with unseemly haste by the
President of New Granada to Messrs. Aspinwall, Stephens and Chauncey,
which resulted in the construction of the actual Panama Railroad.
These gentlemen acted fairly in the matter, and in 1849, calling Mr.
De Sabla to New York, offered him to join them in the new scheme.
Unfortunately they had decided upon placing the Atlantic terminus of the
railroad upon the low and swampy mud Island of Manzanillo, while Mr.
De Sabla insisted on having it on the mainland on the dry and healthy
northern shore of the Bay of Limon. They could not come to an
understanding on this point, and Mr. De Sabla, whose experience and
foresight taught him the dangers that would result to the shipping from
the unprotected situation of the projected part (now Colon--Aspinwall),
and who well knew the insalubrity of the malarial swamp constituting
the Island of Manzanillo, withdrew forever from the undertaking, after
having devoted to it without any benefit to himself, the best years of
his life and a large portion of his private means.
One of his sons, Mr. Theodore J. de Sabla, after having actively
co-operated with Lieutenant Commander Wyse, in the original scheme
of the present canal company, is now one of Count de Lesseps's
representatives in the City of New York, and a director of the Panama
Railroad Company.
* * * * *