CHAPTER VII

THE COST OF THE CANAL 171

INDEX 179

ILLUSTRATIONS

MAKERS OF THE CANAL _Frontispiece_

TO FACE PAGE

STATUE OF COLUMBUS, CHRISTOBAL, COLON 18

CHRISTCHURCH, COLON 18

LOCK AND DAM SITE, GATUN 26 (The house is on the crest-line of the dam, which will extend to the hills on the right)

EXCAVATING FOR THE DOUBLE FLIGHT OF THREE LOCKS AT GATUN 26 (In fine-grained argillaceous sandstone rock)

RE-LOCATION OF RAILWAY ABOVE GATUN DAM 30 (The trestle embankment will run as a causeway across a bay of the lake)

MOTOR TROLLEY FOR INSPECTION OF WORKS 30 (In the background are screened houses of employees)

TROPICAL FOREST, WITH HEAVY GROWTH OF PARASITIC PLANTS 36

JUNGLE WITH PIPE THROUGH WHICH OIL IS CONVEYED BY GRAVITATION ACROSS THE ISTHMUS 36

CHAGRES RIVER NEAR BARBACOES 42 (In the dry season--looking down stream)

CHAGRES RIVER NEAR OBISPO 42 (In the dry season)

FRENCH DREDGER LAID UP 48 (Several of these have recently been put in use again)

FRENCH TRUCKS PARTLY COVERED WITH FOREST GROWTH 48 (Many of these were used at first by the Americans, but are now replaced by larger ones)

EXCAVATION NEAR TAVERNILLA 52

RIVER CHAGRES AND RAILWAY NEAR GORGONA 52

LIDGERWOOD UNLOADER, WINDING APPARATUS 56

_ANOPHELES_ BRIGADE OILING A DITCH 56

100-TON WRECKING CRANE, GORGONA 62

INTERIOR OF MACHINE SHOP, GORGONA 62

MACHINE SHOPS, GORGONA 66

CLUB HOUSE FOR EMPLOYEES, GORGONA 66 (Managed by the Y.M.C.A.)

EXCAVATION IN THE CUT 72

PIPE FOR DIVERSION OF A RIVER, NEAR EMPIRE 72

IN THE CUT, WIDTH 500 FEET 76

IN THE CUT, LOOKING SOUTH TOWARDS CULEBRA 76 (The gorge between Golden and Silver Hills just visible)

ROCK DRILL 82 (These machines bore a hole 30 feet deep in eight hours)

ROCK DRILLS AT WORK IN THE CUT 82

THE CUT, LOOKING NORTH FROM CULEBRA 86

THE CUT, LOOKING SOUTH FROM CULEBRA 86

FROM CULEBRA, LOOKING EAST TO DISTANT HILLS 92

FROM CULEBRA, LOOKING EAST ACROSS THE CUT 92 (Terraces formed by landslip are just visible behind the smoke of a distant steam shovel)

FROM CULEBRA, LOOKING EAST TO GOLDEN HILL 96 (Showing excavation in steps and ledges. Each ledge has carried a railway track)

THE CUT AT CULEBRA, LOOKING NORTH 96 (The scarped face of Golden Hill on the right. Taken April, 1908, in the then bottom of the cut, 120 feet above Canal bottom)

GANG OF WEST INDIAN LABOURERS 102 (Unloading spoil-train at Gatun)

GANG OF SPANISH LABOURERS AT CULEBRA 102 (Working in the sun in April, which is one of the hottest months, less than 10 degrees from the equator. The men are wearing European kit)

STEAM SHOVEL EXCAVATING SOIL AT CULEBRA 106

STEAM SHOVEL UNLOADING INTO A DIRT CAR 106

STEAM SHOVEL NEAR END OF STROKE 112 (The marks of the teeth made in a former stroke are visible on the right. Golden Hill, with the highest berm, or ledge, in the distance)

STEAM SHOVEL, STROKE FINISHED, LOADED WITH SOIL 112

STEAM SHOVEL AT CULEBRA 116

SHOVEL-MEN AT CULEBRA 116

SCREENED BUNGALOW, CHRISTOBAL, COLON 122

SCREENED QUARTERS OF EMPLOYEES, CULEBRA 122

READING ROOM, EMPLOYEES' CLUB, CULEBRA 126

HALL OF EMPLOYEES' CLUB, CULEBRA 126

CUT SOUTH OF CULEBRA, LANDSLIP ON LEFT 132

LOOKING NORTH, THE SCARPED FACE OF GOLDEN HILL ON THE RIGHT 132

LOOKING NORTH FROM RAILWAY BRIDGE AT PARAISO 136

ABANDONED FRENCH MACHINERY 136

GANG OF EUROPEAN LABOURERS (IN 1907) 142

A FORMER HOT-BED OF MALARIA, NOW DRAINED 142

NEAR THE SITE OF MILAFLORES LOCKS 146

LOOKING NORTH TO CULEBRA DIVIDE FROM ANCON HILL 146

RIO GRANDE, NEAR LA BOCA 154

RIO GRANDE, FROM ANCON HILL 154 (Country north of that shown in the last photograph)

LA BOCA, FROM ANCON HILL 158

ANCON CEMETERY 158

COMMISSION'S HOTEL AT ANCON 162

ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, ANCON 162

VIEW FROM SPANISH FORT, PANAMA 166

CATHEDRAL SQUARE, PANAMA 166

PALACE OF PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 174

OLD FLAT ARCH AT PANAMA 174 (Adduced as evidence of comparative freedom of Panama from destructive earthquakes)

MAP OF CANAL ZONE _At end of volume_ (Showing also profile of Canal, cross section of Culebra Cut, the borings below Gatun dam, and the cross section of Gatun dam as designed in April, 1908. The design of this dam, however, is still undergoing modifications)

INTRODUCTION

AT the present moment the Canal Zone of the Isthmus of Panama is the most interesting place in the world. Here is gathered an army of 40,000 men engaged in the epoch-making work of uniting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and here is the greatest collection of machinery ever massed for the accomplishment of one undertaking.

If the present rate of progress continue unchecked, the Canal, it is calculated, will be opened in 1915. Then will that Isthmus, which has hitherto been a barrier between two oceans but has failed to act as a bridge between two continents, be pierced by a waterway capable of floating the largest ships now built or building. Then will the Pacific coasts of the Americas be accessible from ports on both sides of the Atlantic without the necessity of a voyage by the Straits of Magellan. Then will the distance from New York to San Francisco be shortened by 8,400 and that from Liverpool by 6,000 miles; the distance from New York to South American ports will be shortened by an average of 5,000 and that from Liverpool to these ports by an average of 2,600 miles: then for the first time Yokohama on the north and Sydney on the south will be brought nearer to New York than to Liverpool or Antwerp, and then will New Orleans and the ports on the Mexican Gulf be brought nearer than New York, by sea, to San Francisco, South America beyond Pernambuco, Australia, and Japan.

No one who cares to know the greater things which are shaping the world can now afford to be ignorant of what is happening on the Isthmus of Panama. In the former days of unstable companies the student of affairs might decline to occupy himself in the study of an undertaking of which the fruition was doubtful. Now, however, that the Government of a great nation have put their hands to the plough the furrow will be driven through. The United States have acquired complete ownership and control of the Canal and of a strip of land five miles wide on either side, called the Canal Zone. The small State of Panama, in which this zone is situate, has placed itself under the protection of the United States. The Government of Great Britain has by a treaty ratified in 1901 waived the treaty right which it formerly enjoyed to share with the United States the control of any trans-Isthmian canal. The Isthmus has been freed from those pestilences which were the greatest obstacles to human effort, and the engineering difficulties are no longer beyond the scope of modern science.

* * * * *

Having first visited the Canal works at the beginning of 1907, I decided to make upon the spot a careful examination of the whole undertaking. For this purpose I visited Washington and made application through the proper channel to the Department of State, which kindly consented to further the inquiry. A set of the published documents was supplied to me, and I proceeded from New York to the Isthmus by the R.M.S.P. _Magdalena_, arriving at Colon April 12, 1908. Here Colonel Goethals, chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission, provided me with a letter to those concerned to furnish all information, and proposed that I should make my way about unattended and pursue my inquiries independently. I was thus enabled to converse with perfect freedom with the rank and file, while drawing freely on the special information possessed only by the heads of departments.

For the benefit of readers in England I may explain that these circumstances were to me of especial importance on account of the doubts thrown by American writers, and also by Americans of repute in conversation, upon the reliability of official and other information supplied to the American public on the burning topic of the Isthmus. As an Englishman, and therefore standing outside American party politics, and as a scientific student not engaged in commerce or political life, I came to the study of the subject without prepossessions. This at least was my happy state when I arrived in Washington in March last. When I left for the Canal Zone a month later I was filled with gloomy forebodings that I might after all find a rotten state of affairs on the Isthmus. It was with intense relief that I found that I had what is called in America "an honest proposition" to deal with. As my doubts hitherto had been due to the patriotic anxiety of their compatriots, I am sure Colonel Goethals and his colleagues will forgive me for this frank statement of my difficulties and their solution.

Any Englishman, accustomed to see the work of our own soldiers and civil servants in the Crown Colonies or in Egypt, would recognise in the officers of the corps of Engineers and of the Army Medical Corps who are in charge of the Canal Zone men of a like high standard of duty. As this account is written not only for my own countrymen but also for readers on the other side of the Atlantic, I should be glad, if it be possible, to convince of my own _bona-fides_ those anxious patriots who find it difficult to believe any good report from Panama. It may tend in this direction to state that I travelled and sojourned at my own charges, and that I went out on an independent inquiry. That I had promised to give an account of the Canal works to my brother geographers in London was my only undertaking, and the acceptance of a free pass on the Panama Railway my only financial obligation either in Washington or on the Isthmus.

In order properly to understand the present and future of the Canal undertaking, it is necessary to give a short account of the history of Isthmian communication, for the conditions which now face the American Government and the Commission are not solely due to present physical causes, but also to previous events.