Panama and the Canal in Picture and Prose
CHAPTER XX. DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS OF THE CANAL 399
Our Reckoning with Colombia--Our Commercial Interests in South America--Mutual Interests of the United States and Great Britain--What the Canal has and will Cost--New Work for the Interstate Commerce Commission--The Moral Lesson of the Panama Canal.
LIST OF COLORED ILLUSTRATIONS
1 MAP OF PANAMA CANAL AND CANAL ZONE _Facing title page_
FACING PAGE
2 DUKE STREET, KINGSTON, JAMAICA 16
3 GOING TO MARKET 40
4 A NATIVE VILLAGE 72
5 OLD FRENCH CANAL AT MOUNT HOPE 104
6 ANCON HILL FROM THE HARBOR OF PANAMA 128
7 THE WASHING PLACE AT TABOGA 152
8 A NATIVE BAKERY 176
9 THE RIVER AND VILLAGE OF CHAGRES 192
10 THE CULEBRA CUT 216
11 AVENIDA B, PANAMA CITY 232
12 PANAMA BAY FROM ANCON HOSPITAL 256
13 A TYPICAL NATIVE HUT 280
14 VENDOR OF FRUIT AND POTTERY 304
15 OLD LANDING AT TABOGA 336
16 SWIMMING POOL AT PANAMA 368
17 SANTA ANA PLAZA, PANAMA 392
LIST OF BLACK AND WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
1 The Sentinel Tree 5
2 Scene on Otoque Island, Panama Bay 6
3 The Rank, Lush Growth of the Jungle 7
4 Ruins of Old Panama 8
5 Tree Growing out of a Chimney in Jamaica 9
6 Cane River Falls 10
7 The Road to Market 11
8 Sports on Shipboard 12
9 The “Oruba” 12
10 Bog Walk, Jamaica 13
11 Government Buildings, Kingston 14
12 King Street, Kingston, Jamaica 15
13 Jamaica, Where Motoring is Good 16
14 Women on the Way to Market 17
15 A Yard and its Tenants 18
16 Coaling Steamships 19
17 Market Women and their Donkeys 20
18 One Way of Carrying Bananas 21
19 “Gwine to de Big Job” 22
20 Toro Point Light 23
21 Toro Point Breakwater 24
22 The New Cristobal Docks 24
23 “Palms Which Blend With the Sea” 25
24 Colon in 1884 26
25 Fire-Fighting Force at Cristobal 27
26 The New Washington Hotel 28
27 The Only Stone Church in Colon 28
28 Nature of Country near Colon 29
29 Panama Pottery Sellers 30
30 Hindoo Laborers on the Canal 30
31 San Blas Boats at Early Dawn 31
32 San Blas Indian Boys 31
33 San Blas Lugger Putting Out to Sea 31
34 The Atlantic Fleet Visits the Isthmus 32
35 Roosevelt Avenue, Cristobal, About to Lose its Beauty 33
36 The De Lesseps Palace 34
37 The National Game--Cock-Fighting 34
38 How the Jungle Works 35
39 “Bottle Alley” 36
40 D Street, Colon, Paved 37
41 Bachelor Quarters at Toro Point 38
42 A Colon Water Carrier 39
43 An Open Sewer in a Colon Street 39
44 By a Coclé Brook 40
45 The Mangroves Marching on Stilt-like Roots 40
46 A Picturesque Inlet of the Caribbean 41
47 Childish Beauty Without Art 42
48 A Corner of Mount Hope Cemetery 42
49 The Soulful Eyes of the Tropics 43
50 Market Day at David 43
51 Scene on Almirante Bay 44
52 Modern Porto Bello from Across the Bay 45
53 Typical Native Hut in Porto Bello District 46
54 Entrance to Porto Bello Harbor, from Spanish Fort 47
55 Bullock Cart on the Savanna Road 47
56 Modern Indian, Darien Region 48
57 Native Family in Chorrera 49
58 Seventeenth Century Ruin at Porto Bello 50
59 Street in Modern Porto Bello 51
60 Ancient Trail from Porto Bello 52
61 Spanish Fort at Entrance to Porto Bello Harbor 53
62 A Group of Cholo Indians 54
63 Natives Grinding Rice in a Mortar Owned by All 55
64 Family Travel on the Panama Trail 56
65 Deserted Native Hut 57
66 What They Still Call a Road in Panama 58
67 Outdoor Life of the Natives 59
68 Native Hut and Open-Air Kitchen 60
69 Cocoanut Grove on the Caribbean Coast 61
70 Canal Commission Stone Crusher, Porto Bello 61
71 Native Huts near Porto Bello 62
72 An Indian Family of the Darien 62
73 Ruined Spanish Fort at Porto Bello 63
74 San Blas Luggers at Anchor 64
75 The Teeth of the Tropics 64
76 Native Bridge in the Darien 65
77 Choco Indian Girls 66
78 Indian Huts near Porto Bello 67
79 Country Back of Porto Bello 68
80 Native Women of the Savannas Bearing Burdens 68
81 Camina Reale, or Royal Road near Porto Bello 69
82 A Lady of the Savanna 70
83 Native Children, Panama Province 70
84 Bull-Rider and Native Car at Bouquette, Chiriqui 71
85 The Indians Call Her a Witch 72
86 A Cuna Cuna Family near Porto Bello 72
87 A Trail near Porto Bello 73
88 A Cholo Mother and Daughter 73
89 A Group of Cuepa Trees 74
90 Mouth of the Chagres River 75
91 Mouth of the Chagres from the Fort 76
92 The Sally-Port at San Lorenzo 77
93 Church at Chagres 78
94 Old Spanish Magazine 79
95 Spanish Ruins, Porto Bello 79
96 Our Guide at San Lorenzo 80
97 The Author at San Lorenzo 80
98 Looking Up the Chagres from San Lorenzo 81
99 The True Native Social Center 82
100 Tropical Foliage on the Caribbean 83
101 On the Upper Chagres 84
102 Native Panama Woman 84
103 A Character of Colon 85
104 Woman of the Chagres Region 85
105 Near a Convent at Old Panama 87
106 Casa Reale or King’s House 88
107 The Ruined Tower of San Augustine 89
108 Wayside Shrine on the Savanna Road 90
109 Arched Bridge at Old Panama, Almost 400 Years Old 91
110 Foliage on the Canal Zone 92
111 The Chagres Above San Lorenzo 93
112 In the Crypt of Old San Augustine 94
113 A Woman of Old Panama 94
114 Wash Day at Taboga 95
115 A Street in Cruces 96
116 Breaking Waves at Old Panama 96
117 Old Bell at Remedios, 1682 97
118 The Beetling Cliffs of the Upper Chagres 97
119 The Roots Reach Down Seeking for Soil 98
120 Bluff near Toro Point 99
121 “Whether the Tree or the Wall is Stouter is a Problem” 100
122 San Pablo Lock in French Days 101
123 Part of the Sea Wall at Panama 102
124 The Pelicans in the Bay of Panama 103
125 The Road from Panama to La Boca 104
126 The City Park of Colon 105
127 Children in a Native Hut 105
128 The Water Front of Panama 106
129 The Water Gate of Panama 106
130 Entrance to Mount Hope Cemetery 107
131 Cathedral Plaza, Panama 108
132 Avenida Centrale 109
133 Ancon Hill at Sunset 110
134 Abandoned French Machinery on the Canal 110
135 Overwhelmed by the Jungle 111
136 A Lottery Ticket Seller 112
137 Machinery Seemingly as Hopeless as this was Recovered, Cleaned and set to Work 112
138 The Power of the Jungle 113
139 La Folie Dingler 114
140 Near the Pacific Entrance to the Canal 114
141 Where the French Did Their Best Work 115
142 An Old Spanish Church 116
143 Juncture of French and American Canals 116
144 Part of the Toll of Life 117
145 The Ancon Hospital Grounds 118
146 A Sunken Railroad 118
147 A Zone Working Village 119
148 Negro Quarters, French Town of Empire 120
149 Filth that would Drive a Berkshire from his Sty 121
150 Canal Valley near Pedro Miguel 122
151 Panama Soldiers Going to Church 123
152 The Official Umpire, Cocle 124
153 The Man and the Machine 125
154 Landing Pigs for Market 126
155 The Trail near Culebra 126
156 In the Banana Country, on the Coast near Bocas del Toro 127
157 The Best Residence Section, Colon 128
158 The Old Fire Cistern, Panama 129
159 The Two Presidents: Roosevelt and Amador 130
160 Cholo Chief and His Third Wife 131
161 Native House and Group at Puerta Pinas 131
162 What They Call a Street in Taboga 132
163 Hindoo Merchants on the Zone 132
164 Chamé Beach, Pacific Coast 133
165 French Dry Dock, Cristobal 133
166 What the Work Expended on the Canal Might Have Done 134
167 A Graphic Comparison 134
168 What the Panama Concrete Would Do 135
169 Proportions of Some of the Canal Work 135
170 The “Spoil” from Culebra Cut Would Do This 135
171 In a Typical Lock 135
172 Lock at Pedro Miguel Under Construction 137
173 Range Tower at Pacific Entrance 138
174 Bird’s Eye View of Pedro Miguel Locks 138
175 The Vegetable Martyrs 139
176 Native Street at Taboga 140
177 Gamboa Bridge with Chagres at Flood 141
178 The Y. M. C. A. Club House at Gatun 141
179 Working in Culebra Cut 142
180 Miraflores Lock in March, 1913 143
181 Naos, Perico and Flamenco Islands to be Fortified 143
182 Beginning of New Balboa Docks 144
183 The Old Pacific Mail Docks at Balboa 144
184 The Pacific Gateway 145
185 Completed Canal at Corozal 146
186 Tunnel for the Obispo Diversion Canal 147
187 The Two Colonels 148
188 A Walk at Ancon 149
189 In the Hospital Grounds 149
190 French Cottages on the Water Front, Cristobal 150
191 Pay Day for the Black Labor 151
192 In Wallace’s Time 152
193 The Fumigation Brigade 153
194 Typical Screened Houses 154
195 A Street After Paving 154
196 Stockade for Petty Canal Zone Offenders 155
197 Hospital Buildings, United Fruit Co. 155
198 Beginning the New Docks, Cristobal 156
199 A Back Street in Colon 157
200 Steam Shovel at Work 158
201 The Balboa Road 158
202 A Drill Barge at Work 159
203 Pacific Entrance to the Canal 160
204 Col. Goethals at His Desk 161
205 Railway Station at Gatun 162
206 President Taft Arrives 162
207 Col. Goethals Reviewing the Marines at Camp Elliott 163
208 President Taft and “the Colonel” 164
209 Big Guns for Canal Defence 164
210 Col. Goethals Encourages the National Game 165
211 Old French Ladder Dredges Still Used 166
212 The Colonel’s Daily Stroll 166
213 A Side Drill Crew at Work 167
214 The Colonel’s Fireworks 168
215 A Heavy Blast Under Water 168
216 The Colonel’s Daily Meal 169
217 “The Goethals’ Own” in Action 169
218 Bas Obispo End of Culebra Cut 170
219 Entrance to Gatun Locks 171
220 I. Colon: These Pictures in Order form a Panorama of the Colon Water Front 172
221 II. Colon: Part of the Residential District on the Water Front 173
222 III. Colon: Panama Railroad and Royal Mail Docks 173
223 IV. Colon: The De Lesseps House in the Distance shows Location of New Docks 173
224 South Approach Wall, Gatun Locks 174
225 Gatun Locks Opening into the Lake 174
226 Gatun Lake Seen from the Dam 175
227 Bird’s Eye View of Gatun Dam 175
228 Construction Work on Gatun Dam 176
229 Pumping Mud into the Core of Gatun Dam 176
230 Gatun Upper Lock 177
231 Gatun Center Light 177
232 Emergency Gates 177
233 Spillway Under Construction 178
234 Partly Completed Spillway, 1913 179
235 The Giant Penstocks of the Spillway 180
236 The Spillway at High Water 180
237 Lock Gates Approaching Completion 181
238 The Water Knocking at Gatun Gates 182
239 Wall of Gatun Lock Showing Arched Construction 182
240 Traveling Cranes at Work 183
241 Building a Monolith 183
242 A Culvert in the Lock Wall 184
243 Diagram of Lock-Gate Machinery 184
244 Towing Locomotive Climbing to Upper Lock 184
245 The Heavy Wheel Shown is the “Bull Wheel” 185
246 The Tangled Maze of Steel Skeletons that are a Lock in the Making 186
247 The Chagres, Showing Observer’s Car 187
248 Fluviograph at Bohio, now Submerged 188
249 Automatic Fluviograph on Gatun Lake 188
250 The Village of Bohio, now Submerged 189
251 Steps Leading to Fluviograph Station at Alhajuela 190
252 A Light House in the Jungle 190
253 The Riverside Market at Matachin 191
254 Railroad Bridge Over the Chagres at Gamboa 192
255 A Quiet Beach on the Chagres 192
256 Poling Up the Rapids 193
257 Construction Work on the Spillway 193
258 Water Gates in Lock Wall 194
259 The Lake Above Gatun 194
260 How They Gather at the River 195
261 Washerwomen’s Shelters by the River 196
262 A Ferry on the Upper Chagres 196
263 The Much Prized Iguana 197
264 Cruces--A Little Town with a Long History 198
265 A Native Charcoal Burner 198
266 The Natives’ Afternoon Tea 199
267 Piers of the Abandoned Panama Railway 200
268 Working on Three Levels 201
269 The Original Culebra Slide 202
270 Slide on West Bank of the Canal near Culebra 203
271 Attacking the Cucaracha Slide 204
272 Diagram of Culebra Cut Slides 205
273 A Rock Slide near Empire 205
274 The Author at Culebra Cut 206
275 Cutting at Base of Contractors Hill 206
276 A Rock Slide at Las Cascades 207
277 Slicing Off the Chief Engineer’s Office 208
278 How Tourists see the Cut 208
279 Jamaicans Operating a Compressed Air Drill 209
280 Handling Rock in Ancon Quarry 209
281 In the Cucaracha Slide 210
282 Brow of Gold Hill, Culebra Cut 211
283 A Dirt-Spreader at Work 212
284 “Every Bite Recorded at Headquarters” 212
285 A Lidgerwood Unloader at Work 213
286 The Track Shifter in Action 213
287 One of the Colonel’s Troubles 214
288 The Sliced-off Hill at Ancon 214
289 A Lock-Chamber from Above 215
290 When the Obispo Broke in 215
291 Ungainly Monsters of Steel Working with Human Skill 216
292 Building an Upper Tier of Locks 217
293 Traveling Cranes that Bear the Brunt of Burden Carrying 217
294 The Floor of a Lock 218
295 Excavating with a Monitor as Californians Dig Gold 218
296 A Steam Shovel in Operation 219
297 Bird’s Eye View of the Miraflores Locks 220
298 The Rock-Break that Admitted the Bas Obispo 220
299 An Ant’s Nest on the Savanna 221
300 A Termite Ant’s Nest 221
301 Deep Sea Dredge at Balboa 222
302 Proportions of the Locks 222
303 The Great Fill at Balboa Where the Culebra Spoil is Dumped 223
304 Panama Bay from Ancon Hill 224
305 Santa Ana Plaza 225
306 Panama from the Sea Wall; Cathedral Towers in Distance 226
307 The Bull Ring; Bull Fights are now Prohibited 227
308 The Panama Water Front 227
309 The Lottery Office in the Bishop’s Palace 228
310 San Domingo Church and the Flat Arch 228
311 Chiriqui Cattle at the Abattoir 229
312 The President’s House; A Fine Type of Panama Residence 229
313 The Fish Market 230
314 San Blas Boats at the Market Place 230
315 The Vegetable Market 230
316 The Market on the Curb 231
317 Where the Flies get Busy 231
318 Cayucas on Market Day 231
319 Panama from the Bay; Ancon Hill in the Background 232
320 Pottery Vendors near the Panama City Market 233
321 From a Panama Balcony 234
322 The First Communion 235
323 Marriage is an Affair of Some Pomp 235
324 The Manly Art in the Tropics 236
325 A Group of National Police 236
326 Taboga, the Pleasure Place of Panama 237
327 Santa Ana Church, 1764 237
328 The Panama National Institute 238
329 The Municipal Building 239
330 The National Palace and Theater 239
331 Salient Angle of Landward Wall 240
332 Boys Skating on Sea Wall 240
333 Vaults in the Panama Cemetery 241
334 Ruins of San Domingo Church 242
335 Some Carnival Floats 243
336 The Ancient Cathedral 244
337 The Police Station, Panama 245
338 Church of Our Lady of Mercy (La Merced) 245
339 Young America on Panama Beach 246
340 Ready to Control the Pacific 246
341 The Flowery Chiriqui Prison 247
342 The Market for Shell Fish 248
343 The Cathedral and Plaza 249
344 In a Panama Park 250
345 Salvation Army in Panama 250
346 Costume de Rigueur for February 250
347 Bust of Lieut. Napoleon B. Wyse 251
348 On Panama’s Bathing Beach 252
349 Quarantine Station at Pacific Entrance to Canal 252
350 Col. W. C. Gorgas 253
351 What Col. Gorgas Had to Correct 254
352 Administration Building, Housing the Sanitary Department 254
353 Dredging a Colon Street 255
354 The War on Mosquitoes. I 256
355 The War on Mosquitoes. II 256
356 The War on Mosquitoes. III 257
357 The War on Mosquitoes. IV 257
358 Sanitary Work in a Village 258
359 The Mosquito Chloroformer’s Outfit 259
360 The Mosquito Chloroformer at Work 259
361 Ancon Hospital as Received from the French 260
362 The Canal Commission Hospital at Colon Built by the French 261
363 French Village of Empire after Cleaning up by Americans 262
364 The Bay of Taboga from the Sanitarium 262
365 The Little Pango Boats Come to Meet You 263
366 Old Church at Taboga 263
367 The Rio Grande Reservoir 263
368 In Picturesque Taboga 264
369 In the Grounds of Ancon Hospital 265
370 The Sanitarium at Taboga Inherited from the French 266
371 A Fête Day at Taboga 266
372 Feather Palm at Ancon 267
373 Taboga from the Bathing Beach 267
374 Taboga is Furthermore the Coney Island of Panama 268
375 Burden Bearers on the Savanna 269
376 Hotel at Bouquette, Chiriqui 270
377 A Bit of Ancon Hospital Grounds 270
378 The Chief Industry of the Natives is Fishing 271
379 Nurses’ Quarters at Ancon 271
380 The Leper Settlement on Panama Bay 272
381 The Gorge of Salamanca 273
382 Native Family in Chorrera 274
383 A Street in Penemone 275
384 The Hotel at David 275
385 View of Bocas del Toro 276
386 Vista on the Rio Grande 276
387 At the Cattle Port of Aguadulce 277
388 The Royal Road near Panama 277
389 The Meeting Place of the Cayucas 278
390 Banana Market at Matachin 279
391 In the Chiriqui Country 280
392 Banana Plant; Note Size of Man 280
393 Construction of Roof of a Native House 281
394 A Native Living Room and Stairway 281
395 Rubber Plantation near Cocle 282
396 Bolivar Park at Bocas del Toro 282
397 A Ford near Ancon 283
398 Old Banana Trees 284
399 Pineapples in the Field 284
400 Waiting for the Boat 285
401 Country House of a Cacao Planter at Choria 285
402 Started for Market 286
403 Loading Cattle at Aguadulce 286
404 Dolega in the Chiriqui Province 287
405 Mahogany Trees with Orchids 287
406 Bayano Cedar, Eight Feet Diameter 288
407 The Cacao Tree 288
408 Street in David 288
409 In the Banana Country 289
410 Market Place at Ancon 290
411 Fruit Company Steamer at Wharf 291
412 United Fruit Company Train 291
413 Sanitary Office, Bocas del Toro 291
414 A Pile of Rejected Bananas 292
415 A Perfect Bunch of Bananas 292
416 The Astor Yacht at Cristobal 293
417 The Bay of Bocas 293
418 Bringing Home the Crocodile 294
419 A Morning’s Shooting 294
420 On Crocodile Creek 295
421 The End of the Crocodile 295
422 Above the Clouds, Chiriqui Volcano 296
423 The Chiriqui Volcano 296
424 Native Market Boat at Chorrera 297
425 In Bouquette Valley, the Most Fertile Part of Chiriqui 297
426 Coffee Plant at Bouquette 298
427 Drying the Coffee Beans 298
428 Drying Cloths for Coffee 299
429 Breadfruit Tree 299
430 Primitive Sugar Mill 300
431 Chiriqui Natives in an Ox-Cart 300
432 Proclaiming a Law at David 301
433 The Cattle Range near David 301
434 Despoiling Old Guaymi Graves 302
435 A Day’s Shooting, Game Mostly Monkeys 302
436 The Government School of Hat Making 303
437 Beginning a Panama Hat 303
438 Coffee Plantation at Bouquette 304
439 Work of Indian Students in the National Institute 304
440 The Crater of the Chiriqui Volcano 304
441 Trapping an Aborigine 305
442 Native Village on Panama Bay 306
443 A River Landing Place 306
444 The Falls at Chorrera 307
445 On the Rio Grande 307
446 Old Spanish Church, Chorrera 308
447 The Church at Ancon 308
448 The Pearl Island Village of Taboga 309
449 Native Village at Capera 309
450 A Choco Indian in Full Costume 310
451 Some San Blas Girls 311
452 Chief Don Carlos of the Chocoes and His Son 312
453 The Village of Playon Grand, Eighty-five Miles East of the Canal 312
454 San Blas Woman in Daily Garb 313
455 A Girl of the Choco Tribe 313
456 Daughter of Chief Don Carlos 313
457 Native Bridge over the Caldera River 314
458 Guaymi Indian Man 315
459 Indian Girl of the Darien 316
460 Choco Indian of Sambu Valley 317
461 Panamanian Father and Child 318
462 Choco Indian in Every-day Dress 319
463 A Squad of Canal Zone Police Officers 320
464 A Primitive Sugar Mill 321
465 Vine-clad Family Quarters 321
466 Quarters of a Bachelor Teacher 321
467 Main Street at Gorgona 322
468 In the Lobby of a Y. M. C. A. Club 323
469 Street Scene in Culebra 324
470 Young America at Play 324
471 Hindoo Merchants at a Zone Town 325
472 The Native Mills Grind Slowly 325
473 Commission Road near Empire 326
474 The Fire Force of Cristobal 327
475 Orchids on Gov. Thatcher’s Porch 328
476 The Catasetum Scurra 329
477 Married Quarters at Corozal 330
478 Fighting the Industrious Ant 330
479 Foliage on the Zone 331
480 The Chief Commissary at Cristobal 332
481 What the Slide Did to the Railroad 333
482 Not from Jamaica but the Y. M. C. A. 334
483 A Bachelor’s Quarters 334
484 The Tivoli Hotel 335
485 The Grapefruit of Panama 335
486 Pure Panama, Pure Indian and all Between 336
487 Interior of Gatun Y. M. C. A. Club 337
488 Y. M. C. A. Club at Gatun 337
489 Marine Post at Camp Elliott 338
490 Tourists in the Culebra Cut 338
491 Lobby in Tivoli Hotel 339
492 Altar in Gatun Catholic Church 340
493 La Boca from the City 341
494 At Los Angosturas 342
495 The Water Front at Colon 342
496 Negro Quarters at Cristobal 343
497 Labor Train at Ancon 344
498 Negro Sleeping Quarters 344
499 A Workmen’s Sleeping Car 345
500 A Workmen’s Dining Car 345
501 Old French Bucket Dredges 346
502 Old French Bridge at Bas Obispo 346
503 The Relaxation of Pay Day 347
504 Bas Obispo as the French Left it 347
505 Convicts Building a Commission Road 348
506 Construction Work Showing Concrete Carriers and Moulds 349
507 How the Natives Gather Cocoanuts 350
508 Looking Down Miraflores Locks 350
509 Hospital at Bocas 351
510 New American Docks at Cristobal 351
511 Ox Method of Transportation 352
512 Road Making by Convicts 352
513 Entrance to Bouquette Valley 353
514 Cocoanut Palms near Ancon 353
515 Native Religious Procession at Chorrera 354
516 Opening the Cocoanut 354
517 Rice Stacked for Drying 355
518 Bullock Cart in Chorrera 355
519 Sun Setting in the Atlantic at Lighthouse Point 356
520 The Fruitful Mango Tree 357
521 Completed Canal near Gatun 358
522 Traveling Cranes at Miraflores 358
523 The Review at One of the Roosevelt Receptions 359
524 Pacific Flats Left by Receding Tide 359
525 A Whaler at Pearl Island 360
526 An Old Well at Chiriqui 360
527 A Good Yield of Cocoanuts 361
528 Cholo Girls at the Stream 361
529 Shipping at Balboa Docks 362
530 Explaining it to the Boss 363
531 Spanish Monastery at Panama 364
532 Choco Indian of Sanbu Valley 364
533 The Rising Generation 365
534 Ancon Hill, Where Americans Live in Comfort 365
535 Gatun Lake, Showing Small Floating Islands 366
536 A Spectacular Blast 367
537 The First View of Colon 367
538 A Porch at Culebra 368
539 Avenida Centrale, Panama, near the Station 368
540 In a Chiriqui Town 369
541 A Mountain River in Chiriqui 369
542 Biting Through a Slide: Five Cubic Yards per Bite 370
543 Commissary Building and Front Street, Colon 371
544 Pedro Miguel Locks 372
545 Detail Construction of a Lock 373
546 A Group of Guaymi Girls 374
547 A Zone Sign of Civilization 374
548 Part of the Completed Canal 375
549 His Morning Tub 375
550 Native Girl, Chorrera Province 376
551 Native Boy, Chorrera Province 376
552 Park at David 377
553 Main Street, Chorrera 377
554 A Placid Back Water in Chiriqui 378
555 Gatun Lake. Floating Islands Massed Against Trestle 379
556 Guide Wall at Miraflores 380
557 Poling Over the Shallows 381
558 The Spillway Almost Complete 381
559 San Blas Lugger in Port 382
560 The Beginning of a Slide 382
561 “Making the Dirt Fly” 383
562 The Happy Children of the Zone 383
563 Map of the Panama Cutoff 385
564 An Eruption of the Canal Bed 386
565 Culebra Cut on a Hazy Day 388
566 Bird’s-Eye View of Miraflores Lock 389
567 Handling Broken Rock 390
568 Lock Construction Showing Conduits 390
569 Traveling Crane Handling Concrete in Lock-Building 391
570 Tivoli Hotel from Hospital Grounds 392
571 Mestizo Girl of Chorrera 392
572 How Corn is Ground 393
573 They Used to do This in New England 393
574 Pile-Driver and Dredge at Balboa Dock 394
575 Giant Cement Carriers at Work 395
576 Tracks Ascending from Lower to Upper Lock 396
577 Col. Goethals’ House at Culebra 397
578 Electric Towing Locomotives on a Lock 398
579 A Church in Chorrera 399
580 A Native Kitchen 400
581 Native House in Penomene 400
582 Giant Cacti Often Used for Hedging 401
583 A Street in Chorrera 401
584 The Town of Empire, Soon to be Abandoned 402
585 The Panama Railroad Bridge at Gamboa 403
586 A Street in Chorrera 404
587 A Pearl Island Village 404
588 Diagram of Comparative Excavations by the French and Americans in Culebra Cut 405
589 View of Pedro Miguel Locks Nearing Completion 405
590 Native Woman, Cocle 406
591 River Village in Chiriqui 406
592 The Pearl Island Village of Saboga 406
593 The Tug Bohio with Barges in Middle Gatun Lock 408
594 Looking Down Canal from Miraflores Lock to the Pacific 408
595 Culebra Cut Partially Filled with Water 409
596 Floating Islands in Gatun Lock Entrance 410
597 The First Boat Through. I. 411
598 The Flag in Two Oceans 412
599 The Continent’s Backbone Broken 413
600 The First Boat Through. II. 414
COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY F. E. WRIGHT, “PANAMA AND THE CANAL”
INTRODUCTION
Panama. They say the word means “a place of many fishes,” but there is some dissension about the exact derivation of the name of the now severed Isthmus. Indeed dissension, quarrels, wars and massacres have been the prime characteristics of Panama for four hundred years. “A place of many battles” would be a more fitting significance for the name of this tiny spot where man has been doing ceaseless battle with man since history rose to record the conflicts. As deadly as the wars between men of hostile races, has been the unceasing struggle between man and nature.
You will get some faint idea of the toll of life taken in this conflict if from Cristobal you will drive out to the picturesque cemetery at Mount Hope and look upon the almost interminable vista of little white headstones. Each marks the last resting place of some poor fellow fallen in the war with fever, malaria and all of tropic nature’s fierce and fatal allies against all conquering man. That war is never ended. The English and the Spaniards have laid down their arms. Cimmaroon and conquistadore, pirate and buccaneer no longer steal stealthily along the narrow jungle trails. But let man forget for a while his vigilance and the rank, lush growth of the jungle creeps over his clearings, his roads, his machinery, enveloping all in morphic arms of vivid green, delicate and beautiful to look upon, but tough, stubborn and fiercely resistant when attacked. Poisoned spines guard the slender tendrils that cling so tenaciously to every vantage point. Insects innumerable are sheltered by the vegetable chevaux-de-frise and in turn protect it from the assaults of any human enemy. Given a few months to reëstablish itself and the jungle, once subdued, presents to man again a defiant and an almost impenetrable front. We boast that we have conquered nature on the Isthmus, but we have merely won a truce along a comparatively narrow strip between the oceans. Eternal vigilance will be the price of safety even there.
If that country alone is happy whose history is uninteresting, then sorrow must have been the ordained lot of Panama. Visited first by Columbus in 1502, at which time the great navigator put forth every effort to find a strait leading through to the East Indies, it has figured largely in the pages of history ever since. Considerable cities of Spanish foundation rose there while our own Jamestown and Plymouth were still unimagined. The Spaniards were building massive walls, erecting masonry churches, and paving royal roads down there in the jungle long before the palisades and log huts of Plymouth rose on the sandy shores of Cape Cod Bay. If the ruins of the first city of Panama, draped with tropical vines, are all that remain of that once royal city, its successor founded in 1673 still stands with parts of the original walls sturdily resisting the onslaught of time.
It appears there are certain advantages about geographical littleness. If Panama had been big the eyes of the world would never have been fastened upon it. Instinctively Columbus sought in each of its bays, opening from the Caribbean that strait which should lead to far Cathay. Seeking the same mythical passage Balboa there climbed a hill where
“--with eagle eyes, He star’d at the Pacific--and all his men Look’d at each other with a wild surmise Silent upon a peak in Darien.”
Hope of a natural strait abandoned, the narrowness of the Isthmus made it the shortest route for Cortez, Pizarro and other famous Spanish robbers and murderers to follow in their quest for the gold of the Incas. As the Spaniards spoiled Peru, so the buccaneers and other pirates, belonging to foreign nations, robbed and murdered the Spaniards. The gold fever filled the narrow Isthmus full of graves, and of moldering bodies for which there was not even hasty sepulture. In time the Peruvian hoards were exhausted, Spaniards and Englishmen, buccaneers and pirates vanished. Then came a new invasion--this time by a nation unknown in the days of the Great Trade and the Royal Road. Gold had been discovered in California, and now troops of Americans fought their way through the jungle, and breasted the rapids of the Chagres River. They sought gold as had Pizarro and Cortez, but they sought it with spade and pan, not with sword and musket. In their wake came the Panama Railroad, a true pioneer of international trade. Then sprung up once more the demand for the waterway across the neck which Columbus had sought in vain.
The story of the inception and completion of the canal is the truly great chapter in the history of Panama. Not all the gold from poor Peru that Pizarro sent across the Isthmus to fatten the coffers of kings or to awaken the cupidity and cunning of the buccaneers equals what the United States alone has expended to give to the trade of the world the highway so long and so fruitlessly sought. An act of unselfish bounty, freely given to all the peoples of the earth, comes to obliterate at last the long record of international perfidy, piracy and plunder which is the history of Panama.
This book is being written in the last days of constructive work on the Panama Canal. The tens of thousands of workmen, the hundreds of officers are preparing to scatter to their homes in all parts of the world. The pleasant and hospitable society of the Zone of which I have written is breaking up. Villages are being abandoned, and the water of Gatun Lake is silently creeping up and the green advance guard of the jungle swiftly stealing over the forsaken ground. While this book is yet new much that I have written of as part of the program of the future will indeed have become part of the record of the past.
I think that anyone who visited the Canal Zone during the latter years of construction work will have carried away with him a very pleasant and lively recollection of a social life and hospitality that was quite ideal. The official centers at Culebra and Ancon, the quarters of the army at Camp Otis and the navy and marine corps at Camp Elliott were ever ready to entertain the visitor from the states and his enjoyment was necessarily tinged with regret that the charming homes thrown open to him were but ephemeral, and that the passage of the first ship through the canal would mark the beginning of their dismantling and abandonment. The practiced traveler in every clime will find this eagerness of those who hold national outposts, whether ours in the Philippines, or the British in India and Hong Kong, to extend the glad hand of welcome to one from home, but nowhere have I found it so thoroughly the custom as on the Canal Zone. No American need fear loneliness who goes there.
In the chapter on “Social Life on the Canal Zone” I have tried to depict this colonial existence, so different from the life of the same people when in “the states” and yet so full of a certain “hominess” after all. It does not seem to me that we Americans cling to our home customs when on foreign stations quite so tenaciously as do the British--though I observed that the Americans on the Zone played baseball quite as religiously as the British played cricket. Perhaps we are less tenacious of afternoon tea than they, but women’s clubs flourish on the Zone as they do in Kansas, while as for bridge it proceeds as uninterruptedly as the flow of the dirt out of the Culebra Cut.
Nobody could return from the Zone without a desire to express thanks for the hospitalities shown him and the author is fortunate in possessing the opportunity to do so publicly. Particularly do I wish to acknowledge indebtedness or aid in the preparation of this book to Col. George W. Goethals, Chairman and Engineer in Chief, and to Col. W. C. Gorgas, Commissioner and Chief Sanitary Officer. It goes without saying that without the friendly aid and coöperation of Col. Goethals no adequate description of the canal work and the life of the workers could ever be written. To the then Secretary of War, Hon. Henry L. Stimson, under whose able administration of the Department of War much of the canal progress noted in this book was made, the author is indebted for personal and official introductions, and to Hon. John Barrett, one time United States Minister to Colombia and now Director General of the Pan American Union, much is owed for advice and suggestion from a mind richly stored with Latin-American facts.
On the Canal Zone Hon. Joseph B. Bishop, Secretary of the Isthmian Canal Commission, Hon. Maurice H. Thatcher, Civil Governor, and Mr. H. H. Rousseau, the naval member of the Commission, were particularly helpful. Thanks are cordially extended to Prof. F. A. Gause, the superintendent of schools, who has built up on the Canal Zone an educational system that cannot fail to affect favorably the schools of the surrounding Republic of Panama; to Mr. Walter J. Beyer, the engineer in charge of lighthouse construction, and to Mr. A. B. Dickson who, by his active and devoted work in the development of the Y. M. C. A. clubs on the Zone, has created a feature of its social life which is absolutely indispensable.
The illustration of a book of this nature would be far from complete were the work of professional photographers alone relied upon. Of the army of amateurs who have kindly contributed to its pages I wish to thank Prof. H. Pittier of the Department of Agriculture, Prof. Otto Lutz, Department of Natural Science, Panama National Institute; Mr. W. Ryall Burtis, of Freehold, N. J.; Mr. Stewart Hancock Elliott, of Norwalk, Conn.; Mr. A. W. French, and Dr. A. J. Orenstein of the Department of Sanitation.
The opening of the Panama Canal does not merely portend a new era in trade, or the end of the epoch of trial and struggle on the Isthmus. It has a finality such as have few of the great works of man. Nowhere on this globe are there left two continents to be severed; two oceans to be united. Canals are yet to be dug, arms of the sea brought together. We may yet see inland channels from Boston to Galveston, and from Chicago to New York navigable by large steamships. But the union of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea at Suez, and the Atlantic and Pacific at Panama stand as man’s crowning achievements in remodeling God’s world. As Ambassador James Bryce, speaking of the Panama Canal, put it, “It is the greatest liberty Man has ever taken with Nature.”