■■if liiiliiiJiiiiji Hi If^ filass - 1 5W Book_(. A '3 Gopyrigh iW. COFOUGHT DEPOSIS M I w Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/panamacanalinpicOOabbo I PANAMA And the Canal r^,.. ^S^'< IN PICTURE AND PROSE A complete story of Panama, as well as the history, purpose and promise of its world-famous canal — the most gigantic engineering undertaking since the dawn of time Approved by leading officials connected with the great enterprise By WILLIS J. "abbot Author of The Story of Our Navy, American Merchant Ships and Sailors, Etc. Water-colors by E. J. READ and GORDON GRANT Profusely illustrated by over 600 unique and attractive photographs taken expressly for this book by our special staff Published in English and Spanish by SYNDICATE PUBLISHING COMPANY LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO HAVANA BUENOS AIRES 1913 Copyright 1913, by F. E. Wright y» /<^ 'Sj?. (f-c )CI,A:J50596 ^4 f A\^ COLON IN 1884 The author counted twelve ocean liners one day at the docks now standing at this spot construction which along the seafront stand out over the water on stilts. No building of any dis- tinction meets the eye, unless it be the new Wash- ington Hotel, a good bit of Moorish architecture, owned and conducted by the Panama Railroad which in turn is owned by the United States. The activities of Uncle Sam as a hotel keeper on the Isthmus will be worth further attention. As we warp into the dock we observe that C6lon is a seaport of some importance already. The day I reached there last I counted six British, two German, one French and three American steam- ships. The preponderance of British flags was not cheering to one's patriotism, and somehow the feeling that except for the Royal Mail ship, all the vessels over which they were waving were owned by American capital did not wholly allay our dis- content. It is probable that in the course of the year every foreign flag appears at Cristobal-Colon, for the ocean tramp ships are ever coming and going. In time, too, the docks, which are now rather rickety, will be worthy of the port, for the government is building modern and massive docks on the Cris- tobal side of the line. At present however one lands at Colon, which has the disadvantage of depositing you in a foreign country with all the annoyances of a custom house examination to endure. Though your destination is the Canal Zone, only a stone's throw away, every piece of baggage must be opened and inspected. The search is not very thorough, and I fancy the Panama tariff is not very comprehensive, but the formality is an irritating one. Protective tariffs will never be wholly popular with travelers. The town which greets the voyager emerging from the cool recesses of the steamship freight house looks THE ARCHITECTURE AND POPULATION OF COLON 27 something like the landward side of Atlantic City's famous board walk with the upper stories of the hotels sliced off.' The buildings are almost without exception wood, two stories high, and with wooden galleries reaching to the curb and there supported by slender posts. It does not look foreign — merely cheap and tawdry. Block after block the lines of business follow each other in almost unvarying . sequence. A saloon, a Chinese shop selling dry goods and curios, a kodak shop with curios, a saloon, a lottery agency, another saloon, a money- changer's booth, another saloon and so on for what seems about the hottest and smelliest half mile one ever walked. There is no "other side" to the street, for there run the tracks of the Panama rail- road, beyond them the bay, and further along lies the American town of Cristobal where there are no stores, but only the residences and work shops of Canal workers. Between Cristobal and tinder box Colon is a wide space kept clear of houses as a fire guard. Colon's population is as mixed as the complexions of its people. It must be admitted with regret that pure American names are most in evidence on the signboards of its saloons, and well -equipped students of the social life of the town remark that the Amer- ican vernacular is the one usually proceeding from the lips of the professional gamblers. Merchandising is in the main in the hands of the Chinese, who compel one's admiration in the tropics by the in- telligent way in which they have taken advantage of the laziness of the natives to capture for them- selves the best places in the business community. Most of the people in Colon live over their stores and other places of business, though back from the business section are a few comfortable looking resi- dences, and I noticed others being built on made land, as though the beginnings of a mild "boom" were apparent. The newer houses are of concrete, as is the municipal building and chief public school. The Panama Railroad owns most of the land on FIRE-FIGHTING FORCE AT CRISTOBAL 28 PANAMA AND THE CANAL M » ■ « » fc m c s ■ ■ •> '9 •_» '^ n THE NEW WASHINGTON HOTEL which the town stands, and to which it tically hmited, and the road is said to be encouraging the use of cement or concrete by builders — an exceedingly wise policy, as the town has suffered from repeated fires, in one of which, in 191 1, ten blocks were swept away and 1200 people left homeless. The Isth- mian Canal Commission maintains excellent fire-fighting forces both in Cristobal and Ancon, and when the local fire departments proved impo- tent to cope with the flames both of these forces were called into play, the Ancon engines and men being rushed by special train over the forty-five miles of railroad. Of course the fire was in foreign territory, but the Re- public of Panama did not resent the invasion. Since that day many of the new buildings have been of concrete, but the prevailing type of architecture may be described as a modified renais- sance of the mining shack. It is idle to look for points of inter- est in Colon proper. There are none. But the history of the town though running over but sixty years is full of human interest. It did not share with Panama the life of the Spanish domi- nation and aggression. Columbus, Balboa and the other navigators sailed by its site without heed, making for Porto Bello or Nombre de Dios, the better harbors. San Lorenzo, whose The IS prac- ruins stand at the mouth of the Chagres River, looked down upon busy fleets, and fell before the assaults of Sir Henry Morgan and his bucca- neers while the coral island that now upholds Colon was tenanted only by pelicans, alligators and ser- pents. The life of man touched it when in 1850 the American railroad builders determined to make it the Atlantic terminus of the Panama road. Since then it never has lost nor will it lose a true inter- national importance. Manzanilla Island, on which the greater part of Colon now stands, was originally a coral reef, on which tropical vegetation had taken root, and died down to furnish soil for a new jungle until by the repe- THE ONLY STONE CHURCH IN COLON ritual is of the Church of England; the congregation almost wholly Jamaica negroes RAILROAD BUILDING IN A SWAMP 29 tition of this process through the ages a foot or two of soil raised itself above the surface of the water and supported a swampy jungle. When the engineers first came to locate there the beginnings of the Panama railroad, they were compelled to make their quarters in an old sailing ship in danger at all times shrubs defying entrance even to the wild beasts common to the country. In the black slimy mud of its surface alligators and other reptiles abounded, while the air was laden with pestilential vapors and swarming with sandflies and mosquitoes. These last proved so annoying to the laborers that unless their i^^S w^^ l:3stk P . '1 * 1: Kl?^^ 4M^ -.■ ^; . 1 1 ' 1 ^ : ..'-^A^if: ■■ u '^ m, i-^^ ■,■•-- ■»■;-— % fflBK ^fF^ W ^ (« ^^Mt.„ ***?"'*'cjBBSH ^ i '^ '^ ■: ■'• ■i-'i^iL-'i' NATURE OF COUNTRY NEAR COLON Through this water-logged region the Panama railroad was built at heavy cost in money and lives of being carried out to sea by a norther. In his "History of the Panama Railroad," published in 1862, F. N. Otis describes the site of the present city when first fixed thus: ' ' This island cut off from the mainland by a nar- row frith contained an area of a little more than one square mile. It was a virgin swamp, covered with a dense growth of the tortuous, water -loving man- grove, and interlaced with huge vines and thorny faces were protected by gauze veils no work could be done even at midday. Residence on the island was impossible. The party had their headquarters in an old brig which brought down materials for building, tools, provisions, etc., and was anchored in the bay." That was in May, 1850. In March, 1913, the author spent some time in Colon. Excellent meals were enjoyed in a somewhat old-fashioned frame PANAMA AND THE CANAL PANAMA POTTERY SELLERS hotel, while directly across the way the finishing touches were being put to a new hotel, of reinforced concrete which for architectural taste and beauty of position compares well with any seashore house in the world. At the docks were ships of every nation ; cables kept us in communication with all civilized capitals. Not an insect of any sort was seen, and to discover an alligator a considerable journey was necessary. The completed Panama Railroad would carry us in three hours to the Pacific, where the great water routes spread out again like a fan. In half a century man had wrought this change, and with his great canal will doubt- less do more marvelous deeds in the time to come. Once construction of the road was begun shacks rose on piles amid the swampy vegetation of the island. At certain points land was filled in and a solid foundation made for machine shops. The settlement took a sudden start forward in 1851 when a storm prevented two New York ships from landing their passengers at the mouth of the Chagres River. The delayed travelers were instead landed at Colon, and the rails having been laid as far as Gatun, where the great locks now rise, they were carried thither by the railroad. This route proving the more expeditious the news quickly reached New York and the ships be- gan making Colon their port. As a result the town grew as fast and as unsubstantially as a mushroom. It was a fioating population of people from every land and largely lawless. The bard of the Isthmus has a poem too long to quote which depicts a wayfarer at the gate of Heaven confessing to high crimes, misdemeanors and all the sinful lusts of the flesh. At the close of the damning confession he whispered something in the ear of the Saint, whose brow cleared, and beaming welcome took the place of stern rejection. The keeper of the keys according to the poet cried : "Climb up. Oh, weary one, climb up! Climb high! Climb higher yet Until you reach the plush-lined seats That only martyrs get. Then sit you down and rest yourself While years of bliss roll on! Then to the angels he remarked, 'He's been living in Colon!' " HINDOO LABORERS ON THE CANAL At one time several hundred were employed but they are disappearing THE FRENCH COME TO COLON 31 SAN BI.AS BOATS AT EARLY DAWN With the completion of the Pacific railroads in the United States the prosperity of Colon for a time waned. There was still business for the rail- road, as there has been to the present day, and as it is believed there will be in the future despite the Canal. But the great rush was ended. The eager men hurrying to be early at the place where gold was to be found, and the men who had "made their pile" hastening home to spend it, took the road across the plains. Colon settled down to a period of lethargy for which its people were constitution- ally well fitted. Once in a while they were stirred up by reports of the projected Canal, and the annual revolutions — President Roosevelt in a mes- sage to Congress noted 53 in 57 years — prevented life from becoming wholly mo- notonous. But there was no sign of a renewal of the flush times of the gold rush until late in the '70's the French engineers arrived to begin the surveys for the Canal. By the way, that Isthmus from Darien to Nicaragua is proba- bly the most thoroughly sur- veyed bit of wild land in the world. Even on our own Canal Zone where the general line of the Canal was early determined each chief engineer had his own survey made, and most of the division engineers prudently resurveyed the lines of their chiefs. With the coming of the French, flush times began again on the Isthmus and the golden flood poured most into Colon, as the Canal diggers made their main base of operations there, unlike the Americans who struck at nature's fortifications all along the line, making their headquarters at Culebra about the center of the Isthmus. But though the French failed to dig the Canal they did win popularity on the Isthmus, and there are regretful and uncomplimentary com- parisons drawn in the cafes and other meet- ing-places between the thrift and calculation of the Americans, and the lavish prodigality of the French. Every- thing they bought was at mining-camp prices and they adopted no such plan as the com- missary system now in vogue to save their workers from the rapacity of native shopkeepers of all sorts. At Cristobal you are gravely taken to see the De Lesseps Palace, a huge frame house with two 1" . li 1 iian"" T m *' M; ■"^^•f' i.:^X^^--S^;■^-^.'^^^' SAN BLAS INDIAN BOYS SAN BLAS LUGGER PUTTING OUT TO SEA 3-2 PANAMA AND THE CANAL wings, now in the last stages of decrepitude and de- cay, but which you learn cost fabulous sums, was fur- nished and decorated like a royal chateau and was the scene of bacchanalian feasts that vied with those of the Romans in the days of Heliogabalus. At least the native Panamanian will tell you this, and if you happen to enjoy his reminiscences in the environ- 'When the money flowed like likker .... With the joints all throwed wide open, and no sheriff to demur.' Vice flourished. Gambling of every kind and every other form of wickedness were common day and night. The blush of shame became practically unknown." THE ATLANTIC FLEET VISITS THE ISTHMUS ment of a cafe you will conclude that in starting the Canal the French consumed enough champagne to fill it. Mr. Tracy Robinson, a charming chronicler of the events of a lifetime on the Isthmus, says of this period: "From the time that operations were well under way until the end, the state of things was like the life at 'Red Hoss Mountain' described by Eugene Field: The De Lesseps house stands at what has been the most picturesque point in the American town of Cristobal. Before it stands a really admirable work of art, Columbus in the attitude of a protector toward a half -nude Indian maiden who kneels at his side. After the fashion of a world largely indifferent to art the name of the sculptor has been lost, but the statue was cast in Turin, for Empress Eugenie, who gave it to the Republic of Colombia when the THE BEAUTIFUL ROOSEVELT AVENUE 33 French took up the Canal work. Buffeted from site to site, standing for awhile betwixt the tracks in a railroad freight yard, the spot on which it stood when viewed by the writer is sentimentally ideal, for it overlooks the entrance to the Canal and under the eyes of the Great Navigator, done in bronze, the ships of all the world will pass and repass as white foam upon the shore, unlike the Pacific which is usually calm. Unlike the Pacific, too, the tide is inconsiderable. At Panama it rises and falls from seventeen to twenty feet, and, retiring, leaves long expanses of unsightly mud flats, but the Caribbean always plays its part in the landscape well. Un- happily this picturesque street- — called Roosevelt ROOSEVELT AVENUE, CRISTOBAL, ABOUT TO LOSE ITS BEAUTY they enter or leave the artificial strait which gives substance to the Spaniard's dream. At one time the quarters of the Canal employees — the gold employees as those above the grade of day laborers are called — were in one of the most beautiful streets imaginable. In a long sweeping curve from the border line between the two towns, they extended in an unbroken row facing the rest- less blue waters of the Caribbean. A broad white drive and a row of swaying cocoanut trees separated the houses from the water. The sea here is always restless, surging in long billows and breaking in Avenue — is about to lose its beauty, for its water front is to be taken for the great new docks, and already at some points one sees the yellow stacks of ocean liners mingling with the fronded tops of the palms. Cristobal is at the present time the site of the great cold storage plant of the Canal Zone, the shops of the Panama Railroad and the storage warehouses in which are kept the supplies for the commissary stores at the different villages along the line of the Canal. It possesses a fine fire fighting force, a Y. M. C. A. club, a commissary hotel, and along 34 PANAMA AND THE CANAL the water front of Colon proper are the hospital buildings erected by the French but still maintained. Many of the edifices extend out over the water and the Atlantic side, make a hasty drive about Colon — it really can be seen in an hour — and then go by rail to Panama, anticipating the arrival of their ship there by seven hours and THE DE LESSEPS PALACE the constant breeze ever blowing through their wide netted balconies would seem to be the most efficient of allies in the fight against disease. One finds less distinct separation between the native and the American towns at this end of the railroad than at Panama - Ancon. This is largely due to the fact that a great part of the site of Colon is owned by the Panama Railroad, which in turn is owned by the United States, so that the activi- ties of our government extend into the native town more than at Panama. In the latter city the hotel, the hospital and the commissary are all on American or Canal Zone soil — at Colon they are within the sovereignty of the Republic of Panama. At present sightseers tarry briefly at Colon, taking the first train for the show places along the Canal line, or for the more picturesque town of Panama. This will probably continue to be the case when the liners begin passing through the Canal to the Pacific. Many travelers will doubtless leave their ships at getting some idea of the country en route. Visi- tors with more time to spare will find one of the short drives that is worth while a trip to the ceme- tery of Mount Hope where from the very beginning of the town those who fell in the long battle with nature have been laid to rest. The little white headstones multiplied fast in the gay and reckless French days before sani- tation was thought of, and when riot and dissipation were the rule and scarcely discouraged. "Monkey Hill" was the original name of the place, owing to the multitude of monkeys gamboling and chattering THE NATIONAL GAME — COCK-FIGHXING in the foliage, but as the graves multiplied and the monkeys vanished the rude unfitness of the name became apparent and it gave place to "Mount Hope." It is pitiful enough in any case; but if you will study the dates on the headstones you will find COLON STREETS IN THE EARLY DAYS 35 the years after 1905 show a rapid lessening in the number of tenants. If you consider the pictures of certain streets of Colon during two phases of their history, you will have little trouble in understanding why the death rate in the town has been steadily decreasing. In a town built upon a natural morass, and on which reaching a floating board benevolently provided by some merchant who hoped to thus bring custom to his doors. Along the water front between the steamship piers and the railroad there was an effort to pave somewhat as there was heavy freight to be handled, but even there the pavement would sink out of sight overnight, and at no time could it HOW THK JUNGLE WORKS Silently but persistently the advance of nature enshrouds man's work in living green more than eleven feet of water fell annually, there was hardly a foot of paving except the narrow sidewalks. In the wet season, which extends over eight months of the year, the mud in these filthy by-ways was almost waist deep. Into it was thrown indiscriminately all the household slops, garbage and offal. There was no sewage system; no effort at drainage. If one wished to cross a street there was nothing for it but to walk for blocks until be kept in good condition. The agents of the Panama Railroad and the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, whose freight houses adjoined, dumped into the seemingly bottomless abyss everything heavy and solid that could be brought by land or water, but for a long time without avail. Under the direction of the United States officers, however, the problem was solved, and today the streets of Colon are as well paved as those of any Ameri- 36 PANAMA AND THE CANAL can city, vitrified brick being the material chiefly used. In the days when there was no pavement there were no sewers. Today the town is properly drained, and the sewage problem, a very serious one in a town with no natural slope and subject to heavy rains, is efficiently handled. There was no water supply. Drinking water was brought from the failing died like the flies that swarmed about their food and their garbage indiscriminately. Not until the Americans declared war on filth and appointed Col. W. C. Gorgas commander-in-chief of the forces of cleanliness and health did Colon get cleaned up. About the base of the Toro light cluster the houses of the engineers employed on the harbor work, and on the fortifications which are to guard "bottle alley" A typical Colon street before the Sanitary Department concluded the work of cleaning up mainland and peddled from carts, or great jars by water carriers. Today there is an aqueduct bringing clear cool water from the distant hills. It affords a striking commentary upon the lethargy and laziness of the natives that for nearly half a century they should have tolerated conditions which for filth and squalor were practically unparalleled. The Indian in his palm-thatched hut was better housed and more healthfully surrounded than they. Even the French failed to correct the evil and so the Atlantic entrance of the canal on the west side — other defensive works are building about a mile north of Colon. To these and other forts in course of construction visitors are but grudgingly admitted and the camera is wholly taboo. They are still laughing in Col. Goethal's office at a newly elected Congressman — not even yet sworn in — who wrote that in visiting the Canal Zone he desired particu- larly to make an exhaustive study of the fortifica- tions, and take many pictures, in order that he THE VARIED POPULATION OF COLON 37 might be peculiarly fit for membership on the Mili- tary Affairs Committee, to which he aspired. Toro Point will, after the completion of the Canal work, remain only as the camp for such a de- tachment of coast artillery as may be needed at the forts. The village will be one of those surren- dered to the jungle from which it ' was wrested. Cristobal will remain a large, and I should judge, group of children, among whom even the casual ob- server will detect Spanish, Chinese, Indian and negro types pure, and varying amalgamations of all play- ing together in the childish good fellowship which obliterates all racial hostilities. The Chinese are the chief business people of the town, and though they intermarry but little with the few families of the old Spanish strain, their unions both legalized D STREET, COLON, PAVED Before being sewered and paved this street was as bad as Bottle Alley on preceding page a growing town. Colon which was created by the railroad will still have the road and the Canal to support it. Without an architectural adornment worthy of the name, with streets of shanties, and rows of shops in which the cheap and shoddy are the rule, the town of Colon does have a certain fascination to the idle stroller. That arises from the throngs of its picturesque and parti-colored people who are always on the streets. At one point you will encounter a and free, with the mulattoes or negroes are in- numerable. You see on the streets many children whose negro complexion and kinky hair combine but comically with the almond eyes of the celestial. Luckily queues are going out of st3de with the Chinese, or the hair of their half-breed offspring would form an insurmountable problem. Public characters throng in Colon. A town with but sixty years of history naturally aboimds in early inhabitants. It is almost as bad as Chicago 38 PANAMA AND THE CANAL BACHELOR QUARTERS AT TORO POINT was a few years ago when citizens who had reached the "anecdotage" would halt you at the Lake Front and pointing to that smoke-bedimmed cradle of the city's dreamed-of future beauty would assure you that they could have bought it all for a pair of boots — but didn't have the boots. One of the figures long pointed out on the streets of Colon was an old colored man — an "ole nigger" in the local phrase — who had been there from the days of the alligators and the monkeys. He worked for the Panama Railroad surveyors, the road when com- pleted, the French and the American Canal builders. A sense of long and veteran public service had in- vested him with an air of dignity rather out of har- mony with his raiment. "John Aspinwall" they called him, because Aspinwall was for a time the name of the most regal significance on the island. The Poet of Panama immortalized him in verse thus: "Oh, a quaint old moke, is John Aspinwall, Who lives by the Dead House gate. And quaint are his thoughts, if thoughts at all Ever lurk in his woolly pate, For he's old as the hills is this coal-black man. Thrice doubled with age is he. And the days when his wanderings first began Are shrouded in mystery." If you keep a shrewd and watchful eye on the balconies above the cheap John stores you will now and again catch a little glimpse reminiscent of Pekin. For the Chinese like to hang their balconies with artistic screens, bedeck them with palms, illuminate them with the gay lanterns of their home. Some- times a woman of complexion of rather accentuated brunette will hang over the rail with a Chinese — or at least a Chinesque — baby in the parti-colored clothing of its paternal ancestors. Or as you stroll along the back or side streets more given over SAN BLAS INDIANS AND THEIR CAYUCAS 39 to residences, an open door here and there gives a gUmpse of an interior crowded with household goods — and household gods which are babies. Not precisely luring are these views. They suggest rather that the daily efforts of Col. Gorgas to make and keep the city clean might well have extended further behind the front doors of the house. They did to a slight degree, of course, for there was fumigation unlimited in the first days of the great cleaning up, and even now there is persistent sanitary inspection. The Canal Zone authorities relinquished to the Panama local officials the paving and sanitation work of the city, but retained it in Colon, which serves to indicate the estimate put upon the com- parative fitness for self government of the people of the two towns. Down by the docks, if one likes the savor of spices and the odor of tar, you find the real society of the Seven Seas. Every variety of ship is there, from the stately ocean liner just in from South- ampton or Havre to the schooner-rigged cayuca with its crew of San Bias Indians, down from their forbidden country with a cargo of cocoanuts, yams and bananas. A curious craft is the cayuca. Rang- ing in size from a slender canoe twelve feet long and barely wide enough to hold a man to a con- siderable craft of eight-foot beam and perhaps 35 to 40 feet on the water line, its many varieties have one thing in common. Each is hewn out of a single log. Shaped to the form of a boat by the universal A COLON WATER CARRIER AN OPEN SEWER IN A COLON STREET tool, the machete, and hol- lowed out partly by burning, partly by chipping, these great logs are transformed in- to craft that in any hands save those of the Indians bred to their use, would be peremptory invitations to a watery death. But the San Bias men pole them through rapids on the Chagres that would puzzle a guide of our North Woods, or at sea take them out in northers that keep the liner tied to her dock. Some of these boats by the way are hollowed from ma- hogany logs that on the wharf at New York or Bos- ton would be worth $2,000. The history of the Panama Railroad may well be briefly sketched here. For its time it was the most audacious essay in railway building the world had knowni, for be it known it was begun barely twenty years after the first railroad had been built in the United States and before either railroad engineers or railroad labor had a recognized place in industry. The difficulties to be surmounted were of a sort that no men had grappled with before. Engineers had learned how to cut down hills, tunnel mountains and bridge rivers, but to build a road bed firm enough to support heavy trains in a bottomless swamp; to run a line through a jungle that seemed to grow up again before the transit could follow the axe man; to grapple with a river that had been known to rise forty feet in a day ; to eat lunch standing thigh deep in water with friendly alligators looking on from adjacent logs, and to do all this amid the unceas- ing buzz of venomous 40 PANAMA AND THE CANAL BY A COCLE BROOK insects whose sting, as we learned half a century later, carried the germs of malaria and yellow fever — this was a new draft upon engineering skill and endurance that might well stagger the best. The demand was met. The road was built, but at a heavy cost of life. It used to be said that a life was the price of every tie laid, but this was a pic- turesque exaggeration . About 6000 men in all died during the construc- tion period. Henry Clay justified his far-sightedness by se- curing in 1835 the crea- tion of a commission to consider the practicability of a trans-isthmian rail- road. A commissioner was appointed, secured a con- cession from what was then New Granada, died before getting home, and the whole matter was forgotten for ten years. In this interim the French, for whom from the earliest days the Isthmus had a fascina- tion, secured a concession but were unable to raise the money necessary for the road's construction. In 1849 three Americans who deserve a place in history, William H. Aspinwall, John L. Stevens and Henry Chauncy, secured a concession at Bogota and straightway went to work. Difficulties beset them on every side. The swamp had no bottom and for a time it seemed that their financial resources had a very apparent one. But the rush for gold, though it greatly increased the cost of their labor, made their enterprise appear more promising to the in- vesting public and their temporary need of funds was soon met. But the swamp and jungle were unrelenting in their toll of human life. Men working all day deep in slimy ooze composed of decaying tropical vegeta- tion, sleeping exposed to the bites of malaria-bear- ing insects, speedily sickened and too often died. The company took all possible care of its workmen, but even that was not enough. Working men of every nationality were experimented with but none were immune. The historian of the railroad re- ported that the African resisted longest, next the coolie, then the European, and last the Chinese. The experience of the company with the last named class of labor was tragic in the extreme. Eight hundred were landed on the Isthmus after a voyage on which sixteen had died. Thirty-two fell ill almost at the moment of landing and in less than a week eighty more were prostrated. Strangers in a strange land, unable to express their complaints or make clear their symptoms, they were almost as much the victims of homesickness as of any other ill. The interpreters who accompanied them declared that much of their illness was due to their deprivation of their accustomed opium, and for a time the authori- ties supplied them, with the result that nearly two- THE MANGOES MARCHING ON STILT-LIKE ROOTS 4 <£■. ./ /'■i /; A Copyright, 1913, F. E. Wright. GOING TO MARKET Jamaica country roads are gay with women in brightly colored dresses, carrying the products of their little farms to market. The burden is always borne on the head with the result that peasant women ha\e a graceful and e\en stately carriage. THE GHASTLY STORY OF THE CHINESE 41 A PICTUKESQQE INLET OF THE CARIBBEAN thirds were again up and able to work. Then the exaggerated American moral sense, which is so apt to ignore the customs of other lands and peoples, caused the opium supply to be shut off. Perhaps the fact that the cost of opium daily per Chinaman was 15 cents had something to do with it. At any rate the whole body of Chinamen were soon sick unto death and quite ready for it. They made no effort to cling to the lives that had become hateful. Sui- cides were a daily occurrence and in all forms. Some with Chinese stolidity would sit upon a rock on the ocean's bed and wait for the tide to submerge them. Many used their own queues as ropes and hanged themselves. Others persuaded or bribed their fellows to shoot them dead. Some thrust sharpened sticks through their throats, or clutching great stones leaped into the river maintaining their hold until death made the grasp still more rigid. Some starved themselves and others died of mere brooding over their dismal state. In a few weeks but 200 were left alive, and these were sent to Jamaica where they were slowly absorbed by the native population. On the line of the old Panama Railroad, now abandoned and submerged by the waters of Gatun Lake, was a village called Matachin, which local etymologists declare means "dead Chinaman," and hold that it was the scene of this melancholy sacrifice of oriental life. The railroad builders soon found that the expense of the construction would vastly exceed their esti- mates. The price of a principality went into the Black Swamp, the road bed through which was prac- tically floated on a monster pontoon. It is not true, as often asserted, that engines were sunk there to make a foundation for the road, but numbers of flat cars were thus employed to furnish a floating foun- dation. The swamp which impeded the progress of the road was about five miles south of Gatun and was still giving trouble in 1908, when the heavier American rolling stock was put upon the road. Soundings then made indicate that the solid bottom under the ooze is 185 feet below the surface, and 42 PANAMA AND THE CANAL somewhere between are the scores of dump cars and the thousands of tons of rock and earth with which the monster has been fed. The Americans conquered it, apparently, in 1908, by building a trestle and filling it with cinders and other light material. But every engineer was glad when in 1912 the relocation of the road abandoned the Black Swamp to its original diabolical devices. Even in so great an affair as the building of rail- roads, chance or good fortune plays a considerable part. So it was the hurricane which first drove two ships bearing the California gold seekers from the mouth of the Chagres down to Colon that gave the railroad company just the stimulus necessary to carry it past the lowest ebb in its fortunes. Before that it had no income and could no longer borrow money. Thereafter it had a certain income and its credit was at the very best. Every addi- tional mile finished added to its earnings, for every mile was used since it lessened the river trip to the Pacific. In January, 1855, the last rail was laid, and on the 28th of that month the first train crossed from ocean to ocean. The road had then cost almost $7,000,000 or more than $150,000 a mile, but owing -to the peculiar conditions of the time and place it had while building earned $2,125,000 or almost one-third its cost. Its length was 47 miles, its highest point was 263 feet above sea-level, it crossed streams at 170 points — most of the crossings being of the Chagres River. As newly located by the American engineers a great number of these cross- CHILDISH BEAUTY WITHOUT ART A CORNER OF MOUNT HOPE CEMETERY Names of forgotten French martyrs are carved in the stones ings are avoided. Traffic for the road grew faster than the road it- self and when it was completed it was quite appar- ent that it was not equipped to handle the busi- ness that awaited it. Accordingly the managers de- termined to charge more than the traffic would bear — to fix such rates as would be prohibitive until they could get the road suitably equipped. M r . Tracy Robinson says that a few of the lesser officials at Panama got up a sort of burlesque rate card and sent it on to the general offices in New York. It charged $25 for one fare across the Isthmus one way, or $10 second class. Personal baggage was charged five cents a pound, express $1.80 a cubic foot, second class freight fifty cents a cubic foot, coal $5 a ton, — all for a haul of forty-seven miles. To the amaze- ment of the Panama jokers the rates were adopted and, what was more amazing, they remained unchanged for twenty years. Dur- ing that time the com- pany paid dividends of 24%, with an occa- sional stock dividend and liberal additions to the surplus. Its stock at one time went up to 335 and as in its darkest days it could have been bought for a song those who had COST AND CHARGES OF THE PANAMA RAILROAD 43 tought it were more lucky than most of the prospec- tors who crowded its coaches on the journey to the gold fields. Too much prosperity brought indifference and lax management and the finances of the road were showing a decided deterioration when the French took up the Canal problem. One of the chief values of the franchise granted by New Granada and after- ward renewed by Colombia was the stipulation that no canal should be built in the territory without the consent of the railroad corporation. With this club the directors forced the French to buy them out, and when the rights of the French Canal company passed to the United States we acquired the railroad as well. It is now Uncle Sam's first essay in the govern- ment ownership and operation of railroads. Ex- tremists declare that his success as a manager is shown by the fact that he takes a passenger from THE SOULFUL EYES OF THE TROPICS MARKET DAY AT DAVID the Atlantic to the Pacific in three hours for $2.40, while the privately owned Pacific railroads take several days and charge about $75 to accom- plish the same re- sult. There is a fallacy in this argument some- where, but there is none in the assertion that by government officials the Pana- ma Railroad is run successfully both from the point of service and of profits. Its net earnings for the fiscal year of 191 2 were $1,762,000, of which about five-sixths was from commercial business. But it must be remembered that in that year the road was conducted primarily for the purpose of Canal building — everything was subordinated to the Big Job. That brought it abnormal revenue, and laid upon it abnormal burdens. The record shows however that it was directed with a singular attention to detail and phenomenal success. When passenger trains must be run so as never to interfere with dirt trains, and when dirt trains must be so run that a few score steam-shovels dipping up five cubic yards of broken rock at a mouthful shall never lack for a fiat car on which to dump the load, it means some fine work for the traffic manager. The superintendent of schools remarked to me that the question whether a passenger train should stop at a certain station to pick up school children depended on the con- venience of certain steam-shovels and that the mat- ter had to be decided by Col. Goethals. Which goes to show that the Colonel's responsibilities are varied — but of that more anon, as the stors^-tellers say. Within a few years forty miles of the Panama Railroad have been relocated, the prime purpose of the change being to obviate the necessity of crossing the Canal at any point. One of the witticisms of 44 PANAMA AND THE CANAL SCENE ON ALMIRANTE BAY the Zone is that the Panama is the only railroad that runs crosswise as well as lengthwise. This jest is partly based on the fact that nine-tenths of the line has been moved to a new location, but more on the practice of picking up every night or two some thousand feet of track in the Canal bed and moving it bodily, ties and all, some feet to a new line. This is made necessary when the steam-shovels have dug out all the rock and dirt that can be reached from the old line, and it is accomplished by machines called track shifters, each of which accomplishes the work of hundreds of men. The Panama Railroad is today what business men call a going concern. But it is run with a singular indifference to private methods of railroad manage- ment. It has a board of directors, but they do little directing. Its shares do not figure in Wall Street, and we do not hear of it floating loans, scaling down debts or engaging in any of the stock- jobbing opera- tions which in late years have resulted in railroad presidents being lawyers rather than railroad men. The United States government came into possession of a railroad and had to run it. Well? The govern- ment proved equal to the emergency and perhaps its experience will lead it to get possession of yet other railroads. CHAPTER III NOMBRE DE DIGS, PORTO BELLO AND SAN LORENZO ITHIN twenty miles, at the very most, east and west of Colon lie the chief existing memorials of the bygone days of Spanish discov- ery and coloniza- tion, and English piratical raids and destruction, on the Isthmus. All that is picturesque and enthralling — that is to say all that is stirring, bloody and lawless — in the history of the Caribbean shore of the Isthmus lies thus adjacent to the Atlantic entrance of the Canal. To the east are Nombre de Dios and Porto Bello — the oldest European settlements on the North American continent, the one being founded about 15 lo, almost a century and a half before the landing at Plymouth, and the other in 1607, the very year of the planting of James- town, Virginia. To the west is the castle of San Lorenzo at the mouth of the Chagres, the gateway to the Pacific trade, built in the latter years of the sixteenth century and repeatedly destroyed. About these Spanish outposts, once thriving market towns and massive fortresses, but now vine-covered ruins where "the lion and the lizard keep their court" clusters a wealth of historical lore. Let us for the time turn from the Panama of to- day, and from speculation as to its future, and look back upon the Panama of the past. It is a past too full of incident, too replete with stories of battle, murder and sudden death for full justice to be done to it in a chapter. Volumes, libraries almost, have been written about it, for Panama is not one of the happy countries without a history. Of that history the survey here is necessarily the most cursory. Twenty miles from Colon to the east is the spacious deep water harbor of Porto Bello, visited and named by Colombus in 1502. Earlier still it had harbored the ships of Roderigo de Bastides who landed there in 1500 — probably the first European to touch Panama soil. He sought the strait to the Indies, and gold as well. A few miles east and north of Porto Bello is Nombre de Dios, one of the earliest Spanish settlements but now a mere cluster of huts amidst which the Canal workers were only recently dredging sand for use in construction. Few visit Nombre de Dios for purposes of curiosity and indeed it is little worth visiting, for fires, floods and the shifting sands of the rivers have obliterated all trace of the old town. The native village con- MODEEN PORTO BELLO FROM ACROSS THE BAY 45 46 PANAMA AND THE CANAL sisted of about 200 huts when the American invasion occurred, but a spark from one of the engines set off the dry thatch of one of the huts and a general conflagration ensued. The Americans have since repaired the damages, to the sanitary advantage TYPICAL NATIVE HUT IN PORTO BELLO DISTRICT of the place, but at heavy cost to its picturesque- ness. For that quality you must look to its past, for it figured largely in the bloody life of the Isthmus in the 1 6th century. It was founded by one Don Diego de Nicuesa, who had held the high office of Royal Carver at Madrid. Tired of supervising the carving of meats for his sovereign he sailed for th& Isthmus to carve out a fortune for himself. Hurri- canes, treachery, jealousy, hostile Indians, muti- nous sailors and all the ills that jolly mariners have to face had somewhat abated his jollity and his. spirit as well when he rounded Manzanillo^ Point and finding him- self in a placid bay exclaimed: ''Deten- gamonos aqui, en nonibre de Dios'^ (Let us stop here in_ the name of God). His crew, supersti- tious and pious as- Spanish sailors were in those days, though piety seldom inter- fered with their pro- fanity or piracy, seized on the devout invoca- tion and Nombre de Dios became the name of the port. The town thus named became for a time the principal Spanish port on the Caribbean coast and one of the two termi- nals of the royal road to Old Panama. But the harbor was poor, the climate sickly, for the town was shut in on the landward side by mountains which excluded the breeze. It came to be called the Spanish Graveyard. Chil- dren died in infancy, and Spanish mothers sent theirs to Cruces to be reared. Difficult of defense by either land or sea it was menaced alternately by the Cimmaroons and the English, and in 1572 THE HARBOR OF PORTO BELLO 47 Sir Francis Drake took it by assault but gained little plunder by the adventure in which he nearly lost his life. Warned by this, and by other attacks, a distinguished Spanish engineer was sent to examine this, with other Caribbean ports. He was impressed by Porto Bello and reported "if it might please your Majesty it were well that the city of Nombre de Dios be brought and builded in this harbor." It was so graciously ordered and the "city" having been "brought and builded" at Porto Bello its old site gradually relapsed into wilderness save for the few huts found when the American engineers descended upon it seeking not gold but sand. In the course of this quest they uncovered an old Spanish galleon but did not report any pieces of eight, ingots or doubloons. Indeed looking all over the Canal work we may well say, never was there so much digging for so little treasure, for even in the great Culebra cut no trace of precious metal was found. ENTRANCE TO PORTO BELLO HARBOR, FROM SPANISH FORT Nombre de Dios then affords little encouragement for the visits of tourists, but Porto Bello, nearer Colon, is well worth a visit. The visit however is not easily made. The trip by sea is twenty miles steaming in the open Caribbean which is always rough, and which on this passage seems to any save the most hardened navigators tempestuous beyond all other oceans. There are, or rather were, no regular lines of boats running from Colon and one desiring to visit the historic spot must needs plead with the Canal Commission for a pass on the government tug which makes the voyage daily. The visit is well worth the trouble however for the ruins are among the finest on the American continent, while the bay itself is a noble inlet. So at least Columbus thought it when he first visited it in 1 502. His son, Fernando, who afterwards wrote of this fourth voyage of the Genoese navigator, tells of this visit thus : ^ •"iSI ^Jt_t»ji/ B^HBI Er 1 Aa>a...»^B K ^^^1 ^^^^^^^1 if' " W\ '- IP^-/ -> S BULLOCK CART ON THE SAVANNA ROAD 48 PANAMA AND THE CANAL MODERN INDIAN, DAEIEN REGION Note characteristic weapons — macliete, javelin and shot- "The Admiral without making any stay went on till he put into Puerto Bello, giving it that name because it is large, well peopled and encompassed by a well cultivated country. He entered the place on the 2nd of November (1502) , passing between two small islands within which ships may lie close to the shore and turn it out (sic) if they have occasion. The country about the harbor, higher up, is not very rough but tilled and full of houses, a stone's throw or a bow shot one from the other; and it looks like the finest landscape a man can imagine. During seven days we continued there, on account of the rain and ill weather, there came continually canoes from all the country about to trade for pro- visions, and bottoms of fine spun cotton which they gave for some trifles such as points and pins." Time changes, and things and places change with it. What are "bottoms of fine spun cotton" and "trifles such as points"? As for the people whose houses tlien so plentifully besprinkled the . landscape round about, they have largely van- ished. Slain in battle, murdered in cold blood, or- enslaved and worked to death by the barbarous Spaniards, they have given place to a mongrel race mainly negro, and of them even there are not enough to give to Porto Bello today the cheery, well populated air which the younger Columbus noticed more than 400 years ago. The real foundation date of Porto Bello is fixed at 1607, though prob- ably the moving thither of Nomtre de Dios began earlier. Its full name in Spanish was San Felipe de Puerto- vello, for the pious Spaniards were hard put to it to name a city, a mountain, a cape or a carouse with- out bringing in a saint. Typically enough San Felipe was soon forgot- ten and the name became Puerto Bello or beautiful harbor. It grew rapidly, for, as already noted, the city of Nombre de Dios was reerected there. By 1618 there were 130 houses in the main town not counting the suburbs, a cathedral, governor's house, kings' houses, a monastery, convent of mercy and hospital, a plaza and a quay. The main city was well-built, partly of stone or brick, but the suburbs, one of which was set aside for free negroes, were chiefly of wattled canes with palm thatch. A few gun THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF BALBOA 49 plantations and gardens bordered on the city, but mainly the green jungle came down to the very edge as it does with Chagres, Cruces or other native towns today. It was the Atlantic port of entry for not Panama alone, but for the entire west coast of South America and for merchandise intended for the Philippines. Its great days were of course the times of the annual fairs which lasted from 40 to 60 days, but even at other times there were 40 vessels and numbers of flat boats occupied in the trade of the port. Yet it was but an outpost in the jungle after all. No man alone dared tread the royal road from the city's gate after nightfall. In the streets snakes, toads and the ugly iguana, which the natives devour eagerly, were frequently to be seen. The native wild cat — called grandil- oquently a lion or a tiger — prowled in the suburbs and, besides carrying off fowls and pigs, sometimes attacked human beings. The climate was bet- ter than that of Nombre de Dios yet sufficiently unhealthful. Child-birth was so often fatal and the rearing of children attended with so much mor- tality that all mothers who were able resorted to Panama or Cruces at such a time. It was for a time a considerable market place and for the privilege of trading there the brokers paid into the public coffer 2,000 ducats a year. Another source of revenue was a tax of two reales on each head of cattle slaughtered in the shambles — a tax still retained in form in the Republic of Panama. He who brought in a negro slave had to pay two pesos for the privilege and from this impost a revenue of some $1,000 a year was obtained, most of which was used in cutting down the jungle and in maintaining roads. Before Porto Bello had even the beginnings of a town, before even the settlement at Nombre de Dios had been begun, there landed at the former port a Spaniard to whom the Isthmus gave immor- tality and a violent death — two gifts of fortune which not uncommonly go hand in hand. Vasco Nunez de Balboa was with Bastides in the visit which preceded that of Columbus. Thereby he gained a knowledge of the coast and a taste for seafaring adventure. Having tried to be a planter at Santo Domingo and failed therein, he gave his creditors the slip by being carried in a barrel aboard NATIVE FAMILY IN CHORRERA 50 PANAMA AND THE CANAL a ship about to explore the Panama coast under the while: "Here's gold, Spaniards! Here's gold. Take Bachelor Encisco. Though they laughed at him a plenty; drink it down! Here's more gold." for a time as "el Jiombre de casco", "the man in a Balboa was a pacifier as well as a fighter and it cask", his new companions in time came to accept is recorded of him that even on the warpath he was -..^ 4^^M a?.-^ ^/ r ; .: ■■ ■".■; '^ \ ' ■' -r"'' ; • ' , '4. ^ ■'■JglfiKW *-f"w*ft^ ^- : a ::-%>■ ; '-■" ■^■■' " ". " ': - ^.■!^---"-: "■ - "^ ■■ '- — -■ ■ 'mMmi-iM k ■ rMf '^^•r7'i-' ssus ■■"■ 1 Sm^ ^ ' :M S^f^JH^v^'.'.' . ' ' ■■■ft;-;H"'>;\^'' tBaa»^ :'■ ':' ■-' ^;., ^I^^HHHHiDra'^ ^^^^^j'^^wHH ''•j' '.',.,-.. ' ''■■ SEVENTEENTH CENTURY RUIN AT PORTO BELLO This edifice, still well preserved, is believed to be the Casa Real, or Custom House his leadership and ultimately discarded that of Encisco, for besides gallantry Balboa possessed a genius for intrigue. Except for his great achieve- ment of the discovery of the Pacific, and his genius in making friends of the tribes he had subdued, Balboa's career does not differ greatly from that of the leaders of other remorseless Spanish hordes who harried the hapless people of Central America, robbing, enslaving and murdering them with brutal indifference to their rights and totally callous to their sufferings. One can hardly read of the Span- iards in Central America and Peru without sym- pathizing somewhat with the Indian cacique who, having captured two of the marauders, fastened them to the ground, propped open their jaws and poured molten gold down their throats saying the not unnecessarily brutal. Indeed one cacique whom he overthrew was so impressed with his forbearance that he entered into alliance with the Spaniard and gave him his favorite daughter. Though he never married the girl Balboa "always lov'd and cherish'd hervery much", according to Herrera, which is perhaps more than some wives get with a wedding ceremony. To anyone who has seen the Isthmian country as it is today, when the stateliest native house is but a hut, and when it would appear that the barest necessities of life are all that are sought by its people, the story told by Herrera, the official historian of the Spanish court, suggests a pitiful deterioration in the standard of native life. Of the home and village of Comagre, the gieatest cacique of the. Darien region, he writes: EARLY INDIAN LIFE IN PANAMA 51 "His palace was more remarkable and better built than any that had yet been seen either on the Islands, or the little that was known of the Conti- nent, being 150 paces in length and eighty in breadth ... so beautifully wrought that the Spaniards were amaz'd at the sight of it and could not express the Manner and Curiosity of it. There were in it several Chambers and Apartments and one that was like a Buttery was full of such Provisions as the Country afforded, as Bread, Venison, Swine's Flesh, etc. There was another large Room like a Cellar full of earthen Vessels, containing Several sorts of white and red Liquors made of Indian Wheat, Roots, a kind of Palm-Tree and other Ingredients, drank. The blood they shed, the gold they stole, the houses they burned, the women they violated and the Indians they foully tortured and murdered form a long count in the indictment of civilization against Spain in Central America and the West Indies. That today the Spanish flag waves over not one foot of the territory ravaged by Pizarro, Nicuesa, Cortez, Balboa, and Pedrarias is but the slenderest of justice — the visitation upon the children of the sins of their fathers. It is fair to say that of all the ruffianly spoliators Vasco Nunez de Balboa was the least criminal. If he fought savagely to over- throw local caciques, he neither tortured, enslaved nor slew them after his victory, but rather strove Canal Commission Photo. STREET IN MODERN PORTO BELLO the which the Spaniards commended when they to make them his friends. He left the provinces drank them ! ' somewhat depleted of gold and pearls after his visits. How ingenuous the historian's closing line ! Doubt- but one of the evidences of the complete lack of the less the Spaniards commended as lavishly as they cultivating grace of civilization among the Indians 52 PANAMA AND THE CANAL was that they did not care so much for these gew- gaws as they did for their hves, the honor of their women and their Hberty. This would of course ANCIENT TRAIL FROM PORTO BELLO Over tliis trail Balboa may have led his raen on the march that led to the still unknown Pacific stamp them as sheer barbarians on Fifth Avenue or the Rue de la Paix. As a matter of fact the Indian scorn of the Spanish greed for gold was the cause of Balboa's first hearing of the Pacific Ocean. He had made an alliance with Careta, a cacique of some power, who gave his daughter to Balboa, together with 70 slaves and about 4000 ounces of gold. As usual the Spaniards were quarreling over the plunder, when a son of the cacique, one Panciano, strode amongst them and, kicking the gold out of his way, addressed them in language thus reported by the his- torian Quintana: Christians ! why quarrel and make so much turmoil about a little gold, which nev- ertheless you melt down from beautifully wrought work into rude bars? Is it for such a trifle that you banish yourselves from your country, cross the seas, endure hardships and disturb the peaccr ful nations of these lands? Cease your unseemly brawl and I will show you a coun- try where you may obtain your fill of gold. Six days' march across yonder country will bring you to an ocean sea like this near which we dwell, where there are ships a little less in size than yours, with sails and oars, and where the people eat out of vessels of gold and have large cities and wealth unbounded." In the light of our- later knowledge we know that he referred to the Pacific and to Peru. At the conclusion of his ad- dress he volunteered to lead the Spaniards to the unknown sea, provided they first would aid him and his father in the overthrow of a hostile tribe, and further that they increase their own numbers to 1000 men, for he foresaw hard fighting. THE FUTILE INDIAN UPRISING 53 To recuperate his force and add to it Balboa re- turned to his base at Santa Maria. Here he found trouble of divers kinds. Part of his men were mutinous. Letters from friends at Madrid told that his enemies there were conspiring for his un- doing — had even caused a new governor to be sent out to replace him, with orders to send him home for trial. But the most immediate danger was an Indian plot to raid and wholly obliterate the Spanish town — an enterprise which we can hardly blame the oppressed aborigines for cherishing. An Indian girl, whom a cavalier had first con- verted to Catholicism, then baptized and then taken for his mistress, revealed the plot to her lover. It had been told her by her brother who, knowing of the wrath to come, in the quaint language of Peter Martyr, "admonyshed her at the days appoynted by sume occasion to convey herselfe oute of the way leste shee shuld bee slayne in the confusion of bataile." Instead of doing this the faithless one, "forgettinge her parentes, her countrie and all her friendes, yea and all the kinges into whose throates Vaschus had thrust his sworde, she opened uppe the matter unto hym, and conceled none of those things which her undiscrete broother had declared unto her." Balboa was never accused of hesitation. The girl was forced to reveal her brother's hiding place. He was put to the torture and the information thus extorted enabled the Spaniards to strike at once and strike hard. With 150 men he went into the Indian territory of Darien, surprised the natives and put them to total rout. The almost invariable vic- tories of the Spaniards, except when they were taken by surprise, do not indicate superior valor on their part. To begin with they carried fire arms which affrighted the Indians as well as slaughtered them. Further, they wore partial armor — leather gerjcins, helmets and cuirasses of steel — so that the unhappy aborigines were not only exposed to missiles, the nature of which they could not comprehend, but saw their own arrows and javelins fall useless from a Canal Commission Photo SPANISH FORT AT ENTRANCE TO PORTO BELLO HARBOR 54 PANAMA AND THE CANAL fairly struck target. In one battle the Indians were even reduced to meeting their foes with wooden swords, and, after the inevitable victory, one of the victors to further impress the vanquished with the futility of their defensive weapons ordered the fallen chief to stretch forth his right arm, and with one blow struck it off. The Indians were superstitious. Anything out of the ordinary filled them with dread. Many refused to stand and fight because Balboa rode into battle on a white horse. Some trained blood hounds that the Spaniards took into battle with them also terri- fied them. Doing battle with them in the open was almost like slaughtering sheep. Only in ambush were they formidable. It may be noted in passing that not all the barbarities were on the Spanish side. One of Balboa's most trusted lieutenants, Valdivia, was caught in a tempest and his ship wrecked. Those who escaped were captured by the natives, penned up and fattened for a cannibal feast. The day of festivity arriving Valdivia and four of his companions were conducted to the temple and there offered up a sacrifice. Their hearts were cut out with knives of obsidian and offered to the gods while their bodies were roasted and devoured by the savages. Photo, Prof. Otto Luts A GROUP OF CHOLO INDIANS News from Madrid convinced Balboa that he was in disfavor at court. Some great exploit was needed to reestablish his prestige. He determined to seek without delay that new sea of which he had been told, and to this end gathered an army of 190 Spaniards and about 1,000 Indians. A pack of the trained European war dogs were taken along. The old chroniclers tell singular tales about these dogs. Because of the terror they inspired among the Indians they were held more formidable than an equal number of soldiers. One great red dog with a black muzzle and extraordinary strength was en- dowed with the rank of a captain and drew the pay of his rank. In battle the brutes pursued the fleeing Indians and tore their naked bodies with their fangs. It is gravely reported that the Captain could dis- tinguish between a hostile and a friendly native. It is practically impossible to trace now the exact line followed by Balboa across the Isthmus. Visitors to the Canal Zone are shown Balboa Hill, named in honor of his achievement, from which under proper climatic conditions one can see both oceans. But it is wholly improbable that Balboa ever saw this hill. His route was farther to the eastward than the Zone. We do know however that he emerged from the jungle at some point on the Gulf of San Miguel. What or where the hill was from which with "eagle eyes he star'd at the Pacific" we can only guess. It was one of the elevations in the province of Quareque, and before at- taining it Bal- boa fought a battle with the Indians of that tribe who vastly outnum- bered his force, / THE FIRST SIGHT OF THE PACIFIC 55 but were not armed to fight Spaniards. "Even as animals are cut up in the shambles," according to the account of Peter Martyr, "so our men, following them, hewed them in pieces ; from one an arm, from another a leg, here a buttock, there a shoulder." The chief Porque and 600 of his followers were slain brush under the glaring tropical sun of a September day. Pious chroniclers set down that he fell on his knees and gave thanks to his Creator — an act of devotion which coming so soon after his slaughter of the Quarequa Indians irresistibly recalls the witti- cism at the expense of the Pilgrim Fathers, that on '' ' -v i' -"^r^i^^y^k^^ \^Br "'""'"Will . ■'•■■'■ *■■■# Ef^l" 3n^\ ill - B ■; M: ■ y^^- "^, f||;-; ^SHr / pi^.'- -^1 '^ " \ ^^^^^^^s^ IwV ^ mB NATIVES GRINDING RICE IN A MORTAR OWNED BY ALL It never occurred to the Indians to let one man own the mortar and charge all others for its use and as usual dead and living were robbed of their golden jewelry. Balboa's force of Spaniards was now reduced to 67 men; the rest were laid up by illness, but notwith- standing the ghastly total of Indian lives taken, no Spaniard had been slain. With these he proceeded a day's journey, coming to a hill whence his native guides told him the sought-for sea might be seen. Ordering his men to stay at the base he ascended the hill alone, forcing his way through the dense under- landing they first fell upon their knees and then upon the aborigines. Whatever his spirit, Balboa never failed in the letter of piety. His band of cut-throats being summoned to the hilltop joined the official priest in chanting the "Te Deum Laudamus" and "Te Dominum confitur." Crosses were erected buttressed with stones which captive Indians, still dazed by the slaughter of their people, helped to heap. The names of all the Spaniards present were recorded. In. fact few historic exploits of so early 56 PANAMA AND THE CANAL a day are so well authenticated as the details of Balboa's triumph. Descending the hill they proceeded with their march for they were then but half way to their goal. Once again they had to fight the jungle and its savage denizens. Later exploring parties, even in Photo T. J. Marine. FAMILY TRAVEL ON THE PANAMA TRAIL our own day, have found the jungle alone invincible. Steel, gunpowder and the bloodhounds opened the way, and the march continued while the burden of gold increased daily. It is curious to read of the complete effrontery with which these land pirates commandeered all the gold there was in sight. From Comagre were received 4000 ounces — "a gift ' ' ; from Panca, ten pounds ; Chiapes disgorged 500 pounds to purchase favor; from Cocura 650 pesos worth of the yellow metal and from Tumaco 640 pesos besides two basins full of pearls of v<^hich 240 were of extraordinary size. The names of these dead and gone Indian chiefs signify nothing today, but this partial list of contributions shows that as a collector Balboa was as efficient as the Wiskinkie of Tammany Hall. Not counting pearls and girls — of both of which commodities large store was gathered up — the spoil of the expedition ex- ceeded 40,000 pesos in value. It was September 29, 1513, that at last Balboa and his men reached the Pacific. Being St. Michael's day they named the inlet of the sea they had attained the Gulf of St. Michael. On their first arrival they fotmd they had reached the sea, but not the water, for the tide which at that point rises and falls twenty feet, was out and a mile or more of muddy beach in- terspersed with boulders intervened between them and the water's edge. So they sat down until the tide had returned when Balboa waded in thigh deep and claimed land and sea, all its islands and its bounda- ries for the King' of Spain. After having thus performed the needful theatrical ceremonies, he returned to the practical by leading his men to the slaughter of some neighbor- ing Indians whose gold went to swell the growing hoard. The Spaniards made their way along the Pacific coast to a point that must have been near the pres- ent site of Panama City, for it is recorded that on a clear day they could see the Pearl Islands in the offing. Balboa wanted mightily to raid these islands, but felt it more prudent to hasten back to THE BEGINNING OF BALBOA'S DOWNFALL 57 the Atlantic coast and send reports of his discovery and tribute of his gold to the King before his enemies should wholly undo him. So he made his way back, fighting and plundering new tribes all the way and leaving the natives seemingly cowed, but actually full of hatred. They had learned the folly of standing against the white man's arms. rainy season he had marched 190 men through the unknown jungle, fighting pitched battles almost every day, taking food and drink where he could find it or going without, and finally brought all back without losing a man. No expedition since, even the peaceful scientific or surveying ones of our own days, has equaled this record. He had left -^^ ik..ak^€^ W^^v3M ■ S^VAr^* ife.;:- . -^ i' P^^^^^^^^^flH^H BiL jh J^'- *'** '^^^^^^^^Bi^^EPVn^^' M^"*^- : ■ 7*%^M ^^a^Qg ^£j, "•■Vt|flMwWir«l \ . \ j^^ i^ i ^" '■ "'" < ^8 Mdi§m.i^.M: ^j^rMk. f4i^;'^-r^ nr "V^tv.^^HHnl^HynBvMH^^E^BJUunn^ aT^^^MP^bP^ ^M m DESERTED NATIVE HUT Note the profusion of pineapples growing wild, without further attention they will thrive and multiply "Who that had any brains," asked one chieftain touching Balboa's sword, "would contend against this macana which at one blow can cleave a man in two?" The return was made to Antigua where Balboa was received with loud acclaim. Indeed he had accomplished the incredible. Not only had he dis- covered a new ocean, not only had he brought home booty worth a dukedom, but in the height of the the Indians pacified, if resentful, and the letter which he sent off to King Ferdinand was a modest report of a most notable achievement. "In all his long letter," says Peter Martj^r, "there is not a single leaf written which does not contain thanks to Almighty God for deliverance from perils and preservation from many imminent dangers." But Vasco Nunez de Balboa now approached the unhappy and undeserved close of a glorious career. 58 PANAMA AND THE CANAL As his letter went slowly across the seas in a clumsy galleon to Spain, one Pedrarias with a commission to govern Balboa's province and to deal out sum- mary justice to Balboa, who had been represented to the King as a treacherous villain, was on the Atlantic making for the New World. When Fer- dinand received Balboa's letter he would have given much to recall his hasty commission to Pedrarias, but there was no wireless in those days, and the new governor, with power of life and death over Balboa, was now well out at sea. The blow did not fall at once. On arrival at Santa Maria de la An- tigua in June, ISH' Pedrarias sent a courier to Balboa to announce his coming and his au- thority. The devoted followers of Vasco Nunez were for resisting the latter, assuring him that the King could not have received the report of his notable discovery, else he would not thus have been supplanted. Bal- boa however submitted gracefully, promising the newcomer implicit obedi- ence. Pedrarias, though charged to try Balboa for treason, concealed his orders until he had gathered all the useful information that the old chieftain could impart and won many of his followers to his own personal sup- port. Then he arrested Balboa and put him on trial, only to have him triumphantly acquitted. Pedra- rias was disgusted. He hated Balboa and feared his influence in the colony. For his own part he was tearing down the little kingdom his predecessor had erected. WHAT THEY STILL CALL A ROAD IN PANAMA Balboa had fought the Indian tribes to their knees, then placated them, freed them without torture and made them his allies. Pedrarias ap- plied the methods of the slave trader to the native population. Never was such misery heaped upon an almost helpless foe, save when later his apt pupil Pizarro invaded Peru. The natives were mur- dered, enslaved, robbed, starved. As Bancroft says, "in addition to gold there were always women for baptism, lust and slavery." The whole Isthmus blazed with war, and where Balboa had conquered without losing a man Pedrarias lost 70 in one campaign. One of these raids was into the territory now known as the Canal Zone,. On one raid Balboa com- plained to the King there "was perpetrated the greatest cruelty ever heard of in Arabian or Christian country in any generation. And it is this. The captain and the surviving Christians, while on this journey, took nearly 100 Indians of both sexes, mostly women and children, fas- tened them with chains and afterwards ordered them to be decapitated and scalped." Ill feeling rapidly in- Pedrarias and Balboa. The jealousy and timidity of an of plot- creased between former with the old man continually suspected Balboa ting against him. His suspicion was not allayed when royal orders arrived from Spain creating Balboa adelantado and governor of the newly discovered Pacific coast. The title sounded well but he would have to fight to establish his government over the THE TRAITOR IN BALBOA'S CAMP 59 Indians and even then Pedrarias would be his superior. But he determined to make the effort, though with the whole Isthmus in war-paint because of the cruelties of Pedrarias he would have to fight every inch of his way. Moreover he tried to carry across the isthmus the hulls of four brigantines, constructed on the Atlantic coast and designed to be put together on the Pacific. Just why he attempted this exploit is perplexing, for there were as good timber and better harbors for shipyards on the Pacific side. Nearly 2000 Indian lives were sacrificed in the heart-rending task of carrying these heavy burdens through the jungle, and when the task was ended it was found that the timbers of two of the ships were useless, having been honeycombed by worms. Two however were seaworthy and with them he put forth into the Pacific, but a great school of whales encountered near the Pearl Islands, where even today they are frequently seen, affrighted his men who made him turn back. In his party was a man who had fallen in love with Balboa's beautiful mistress, the daughter of the Indian cacique Carcta. She had been annoyed by his advances and complained to Vasco Nunez, who warned the man to desist, accompanying the warning with remarks natural to the situation. This nian overheard a conversation, really concerning some pitch and iron for the ships but which might be dis- torted to convey the impression that Balboa was plotting the overthrow of Pedrarias. By an un- lucky chance the eavesdropper was chosen as one of a party to carry dispatches to Pedrarias, and had no sooner reached the presence of that bloodthirsty old conquistadore than he denounced Balboa as a traitor. Moreover he roused the old man's vanity by telling him that Balboa was so infatuated with his mistress that he would never marry the governor's daughter — a marriage OUTDOOR LIFE OF THE NATIVES The tree is a mango so loaded with fruit that the boughs droop. The fruit is seldom liked by others than natives 6o PANAMA AND THE CANAL which had been arranged and announced as an affair of state. In a rage Pedrarias determined to put an end to Balboa. Accordingly he wrote a pleasant letter, beseeching him to come to Santa Maria for a con- ference. That Balboa came willingly is evidence enough that he had no guilty knowledge of any plot. Before he reached his destination however he was met by Pizarro with an armed guard who arrested him. No word of his could change the prearranged name more than any other's deserves to. be linked with that of Columbus in the history of the Isthmus of Panama. It was in 151 7 and Balboa was but forty-two years old. Had the bungling and cruel Pedrarias never been sent to the Isthmus that part of the country known as the Darien might by now be as civilized as the Chiriqui province. As it was, the thriving settle- ments of Ada and Antigua languished and disap- peared, and the legacy of hatred left by the Indians NATIVE HUT AND OPEN-AIR KITCHEN program. He was tried but even the servile court which convicted him recommended mercy, which the malignant Pedrarias refused. Straightaway upon the verdict the great explorer, with four of his men condemned with him, were marched to the scaffold in the Plaza, where stood the block. In a neighboring hut, pulling apart the wattled canes of which it was built that he might peer out while himself unseen Pedrarias gloated at the sight of the blood of the man whom he hated with the insane hatred of a base and malignant soul. There the heads of the four were stricken off, and with the stroke died Vasco Nunez de Balboa, the man whose of that day is so persistent that the white man has never been able to establish himself on the eastern end of the Isthmus. Fate has dealt harshly with the memory of Balboa. Keats, in his best known and most quoted sonnet, gives credit for his discovery to Cortez. Local tradition has bestowed his name on a hill he never saw, and Panamanian financial legislation has given his name to a coin which is never coined — existing as a fictitious unit like our mill. He did not himself realize the vastness of his discovery, and gave the misleading name of the South Sea to what was the Pacific Ocean. But time is making its amends. THE CHARACTER OF VASCO NUNEZ DE BALBOA 6l COCOANUT GROVE ON THE CARIBBEAN COAST History will accord with the verdict of John Fiske who said of him: "Thus perished in the forty-second year of his age the man who, but for that trifle of iron and pitch, would probably have been the conqueror of Peru. It was a pity that such work should not have fallen into his hands, for when at length it was done, it was by men far inferior to him in character and caliber. One cannot but wish that he might have gone on his way like Cortez, and worked out the rest of his contem- plated career in ac- cordance with the genius that was in him. That bright attractive figure and its sad fate can never fail to arrest the at- tention and detain the steps of the historian as he passes by. Quite possibly the romantic character of the story may have thrown something of a glamour about the person of the victim, so that unconsciously we tend to emphasize his merits while we touch lightly upon his faults. But after all, this effect is no more than that which his personality wrought upon the minds of contem- porary witnesses, who were unanimous in their expressions of esteem for Balboa, and of condemnation for the manner of his taking off." And finally the United States government has acted wisely and justly when in decreeing a great port, lined with mas- sive docks, the stopping place for all the argosies of trade entering or leaving the Canal at its Pacific end, they conferred upon it the name Balboa. It will stand a fitting monument to the great soldier and explorer whose murder affected for the worse all Central America and Peru. Ramsav, Photo CANAL COMillSSION STONE CRUSHER, PORTO BELLO 62 PANAMA AND THE CANAL NATIVE HUTS NEAR PORTO BELLO The Indians of this region are fishermen and famous navigators. They ship on vessels leaving Colon for far distant ports But to return to Porto Bello. Balboa's own asso- ciation with that settlement was of the very briefest, but the influence of his discovery was to it all im- portant. For the discovery of the Pacific led to the conquest of Peru under Pizarro, the founding of Old Panama and the development at Porto Bello of the port through which all the wealth wrung from that hapless land of the Incas found its At- lantic outlet. The story of Old Panama may be reserved for a later chapter, even though the rise and fall of both Nombre de Dio s and Porto Bello were chiefly dependent up- on the chief Spanish city of the Pacific coast. For great as was the store of gold, silver and jewels an indian family of the darien torn from the Isthmian Indians and sent from these Spanish ports back to Spain, it was a mere rivulet compared to the flood of gold that poured through the narrow trails across the Isthmus after Pizarro began his ravishment of Peru. With the conquest of the Land of the Incas, and the plunder thereof that made of the Isthmus a mighty treasure house attracting all the vampires and vul- tures of a predatory day, we have little to do here. Enough to point out that all that was extorted from the Peru- vians was sent by ship to Panama and thence by mule carriage either across the trail to Nombre de Dios or Porto Bello, or else by land car- riage to some point on the Chagres River, usually Venta Cruces, and PANAMA A LINK IN PHILIPPINE TRADE 63 thence by the river to San Lorenzo and down the coast to Porto Bello. Nor did the mules return with empty packs. The Peruvians bought from the bandits who robbed them, and goods were brought from Spain to be shipped from Panama to South America and even to the Phihppines. perts" of whom we are hearing so much these days, it might be worth while to add some experts in enterprise. As this Spanish trade increased the French and English corsairs or buccaneers sprung into being — plain pirates who preyed however on Spanish com- Photo by Underwood and Underwood RUINED SPANISH FORT AT PORTO BELLO Now used as an American cemetery. The site is one of infinite beauty, but the cemetery is neglected It seems odd to us today with "the Philippine problem" engaging political attention, and with American merchants hoping that the canal may stimulate a profitable Philippine trade, that three hundred years ago Spanish merchants found profit in sending goods by galleons to Porto Bello, by mule-pack across the Isthmus and by sailing vessel again to Manila. Perhaps to the "efficiency ex- merce alone, the English finding excuse in the fact that the Spaniards were Catholics, and the French in the assertion that Spain had no right to monopo- lize all American trade. The excuses were mere subterfuges. The men offering them were not ani- mated by religious convictions, nor would they have engaged in the American trade if permitted. For them the more exciting and profitable pursuit of 64 PANAMA AND THE CANAL Photo by Underwood and Underwood SAN BLAS LUGGERS AT ANCHOR piracy, and this they pushed with such vigor that by 1526 the merchant vessels in the trade would sail together in one fleet guarded by men-of-war. At times these fleets numbered as many as forty sail, all carrying guns. The system of trade — all regu- lated by royal decree — was for the ships to sail for Cartagena on the coast of Colombia, a voyage occupying usually about two months. Arrived there, a courier was sent to Porto Bello and on to Panama with tidings of the approach of the fleet. Other couriers spread the tidings throughout the northern provinces of South America. The fleet would commonly stay at Cartagena a month, though local merchants often bribed the general in command to delay it longer. I''or with the arrival of the ships the town awoke to a brief and delirious period of trading. Merchants flocked to Cartagena with indigo, tobacco and cocoa from Venezuela, gold and emeralds from New Granada, pearls from Margarita and products of divers sorts from the neighboring lands. While this business was in progress, and the newly laden galleons were creeping along the coast to Nombre de Dios and Porto Bello, word had been sent to Lima for the plate fleet to come to Panama bearing the tribute to the King — gold stripped from the walls of tem- ples, pearls pried from the eyes of sacred images, ornaments wrested from the arms and necks of native women by a rude and ribald soldiery. With the plate fleet came also numerous vessels taking advantage of the convoy, though indeed there was little danger from pirates on the Pacific. The At- lantic, being nearer European civilization, swarmed with these gentry. At Panama all was transferred to mules and started for the Atlantic coast. So great was the volume of treasure and of goods to be transported that the narrow trail along which the mules proceeded in single file, usually 100 in a caravan or train, was oc- cupied almost from one end to the other, and the tinkling of the mule-bells, and THE TEETH OF THE TROPICS Skeletonized jaws of a Bayano river crocodile FLUSH TIMES IN PORTO BELLO ^5 NATIVE BRIDGE IN THE DARIEN the cries of the muleteers were seldom stilled. Indians sometimes raided the trail and cut out a loaded mule or two, and the buccaneers at one time, finding rob- bery by sea monotonous, landed and won rich booty by raiding a treasure caravan. The bulkier articles of commerce were packed in carts at Panama and sent to Venta Cruz where they were transferred to flat boats, and taken down the river to San Lorenzo and thence to Porto Bello by sea. When the galleons had cast anchor at that port, and the merchants and caravans were all arrived the little town took on an air of bustle and excitement as- tonishing to the visitor who had seen it in the hours of its normal life. "The spectator," says Alcedo, " vho had just before been considering Porto BcIId :n a poor, un- peopled state, without a ship in the pc -t and breath- ing nothing but misery and wretchedness, would remain thunderstruck at beholding the strange alteration which takes place at the time of this fair. Now he would see the houses crowded with people, the square and the streets crammed with chests of gold and silver, and the port covered with vessels; some of these having brought by the river Chagres from Panama the effects of Peru, such as cacao, bark (quina), vicuna wool, bezoar stone, and other productions of these provinces. He would see others bringing provisions from Cartagena; and he would reflect that, however detestable might be its climate, this city was the emporium of the riches of the two worlds, and the most considerable com- mercial depot that was ever known." The visitor to Porto Bello today may see still standing the long stone fagade of the aduana, or 66 PANAMA AND THE CANAL custom house, facing the ancient plaza. In that a bed, a table, a stoole or two, with roome enough square the merchants erected cane booths and beside to open and shut the doore, and they de- tents made of sails, while all available space was manded of me for it during the aforesaid time of filled with bales of goods drawn thither on sledges, the fleet, sixscore Crownes, which commonly is a With the fleet came 5000 or 6000 soldiers, who fortnight. For the Towne being little, and the besides the sailors needful to man the vessels, the Soldiers, that come with the Galeons for their merchants and their clerks, the porters, the buyers of all nationalities and the native sightseers crowded the little town of a few hundred houses so that it appeared to be in posses- sion of a mob. An itinerant preacher, Thomas Gage, who has left some entertaining rem- iniscences of his experi- ences on the Isthmus, tells quaintly of seeking lodg- ings during the fair : "When I came into the Haven I was sorry to see that as yet the Galeons were not come from Spaine, knowing that the longer I stayed in that place, the greater would be my charges. Yet I comforted myselfe that the time of year was come, and that they could not long delay their coming. My first thoughts were of taking up a lodging, which at that time were plentifull and cheape, nay some were of- fered me for nothing with this caveat, that when the Galeons did come, I must either leave them, or pay a dear rate for them. A kind Gentleman, who was the Kings Treasurer, fall- ing in discourse with me, promised to help me, that I might be cheaply lodged even when the ships came, and lodgings were at the highest rate. He, inter- posing his authority, went with me to seeke one, which at the time of the fleets being there, might continue to be mine. It was no bigger than would containe Copi/rlijhl, 1D12. XaiUmal OLVtjraphlc Manaztii Pliolu b{j Htnru riuUr CHOCO INDIAN GIRLS Note the toes. With them they pick up the smallest objects defence at least four or five thousand ; besides mer- chants from Peru, from Spain and many other places to buy and sell, is causes that every roome though never so small, be dear; and sometimes all the lodgings in the Towne are few enough for so many people, which at that time doe meet at Portobel. I knew a Merchant who gave a thousand Crownes for a shop of reasonable bignesse, to sell his wares and commodities that yeer I was there, for fifteen dales only, which the Fleet con- tinued to be in that Haven. I thought it much for me to give the sixscore Crownes which were de- manded of me for a room, which was but as a mouse hole, and began to be troubled, and told the Kings Treasurer that I had been lately robbed at sea, and was not able to give so much, and bee besides at charges for my diet, which I feared would prove as much more. But not a farthing would be abated of what was asked; where upon the good Treasurer, pitying me, offered to the man of the house to pay him threescore Crownes of it, if so be that I was able to pay the rest, which I must doe, or else lie with- out in the street. Yet till the Fleet did come I would not enter into this deare hole, but accepted of another faire lodging which was offered me for i\'a^Ulnifluri. D. C. THE PIRATICAL RAID OF SIR FRANCIS DRAKE 67 nothing. Whilst I thus expected the Fleets coming, some money and offerings I got for Masses, and for two Sermons which I preached at fifteen Crownes a peece. I visited the Castles, which indeed seemed unto me to be very strong; but what most I won- dered at was to see the requa's of Mules which came thiether from Panama, laden with wedges of silver; in one day I told two hundred mules laden with nothing else, which were unladen in the pub- licke Market-place, so that there the heapes of silver wedges lay like heapes of stones in the street, without any feare or suspition of being lost. Within ten dales the fleet came, consisting of eight Galeons and ten Merchant ships, which forced me to run to my hole. It was a wonder then to see the mul- titude of people in those streets which the weeke before had been empty. ' Then began the price of all things to rise, a fowl to be worth twelve Rialls, which in the mainland within I had often bought for one; a pound of beefe then was worth two Rialls, whereas I had in other places "if ;_ , thirteen pounds for half a Riall, and so of all other food and provisions, which was so excessively dear, that I knew not how to live but by fish and Tortoises '<»«?^»e«p«» ^< which were very many, and though somewhat deare, yet were the cheapest meat I could eate." On this annual fair, and on trade with the back country, both Nombre de Dios and Porto Bello waxed prosperous and luxurious. Prosperity was a dangerous quality for a town or a man to exhibit in those days when monarchs set the example of theft and extortion, and private plunderers were quick to follow it. So Nombre de Dios was early made the point of a piratical raid by Sir Francis Drake. Though this gentleman was a pirate he is given a measure of immortality by fa statue in Baden the inscription on which celebrates him as the introducer of potatoes into Europe. Plunder, not potatoes, however, engaged his chief attention, though as a side issue he engaged in the slave trade. July 29, 1572, he made a descent upon Nombre de Dios with 73 men armed, according to a writer of the time, with "6 Targets; 6 Fire Pikes; 12 Pikes; 24 Muskets and Callivers; 16 Bowes and 6 Parti- zans; 2 Drums and 2 Trumpets." His men landed from pinnaces and after encountering "a jolly hot volley of shot" in the plaza put the Spaniards to flight. At the point of a sword a captive was forced to lead the raiders to the Gov- ernor's house where to his joy Drake dis- . V covered a stack of silver ingots worth a V^ million pounds sterling. But 'twas an embarrassment of riches, for the bars INDIAN HUTS NEAR PORTO BELLO 68 PANAMA AND THE CANAL COUNTRY BACK OF PORTO BELLO were of 40 pounds weight each and therefore hard to move, so Drake sought the King's Treasure House where he hoped to find more movable wealth. As the door was being broken down he fainted from loss of blood, and as he lay speechless on the sill the Spaniards rallied and attacked the invaders. Though Drake reviving sought to hold his men up to the fight, they had lost their dash, and despite his protestations carried him bodily to the boats. The men were wiser than their leader because it was the chance arrival of some soldiers from Panama that had rallied the populace of the town, and the English, de- prived of Drake's lead- ership, would certainly have been over- whelmed. That leader however grieved sin- cerely when a Spanish spy told him later that there was 360 tons of silver in the town and many chests of gold in the Treasure House. With his appetite whetted for plunder Drake retired to plan a more profitable raid. This was to be nothing less than a land expe- dition to cut off one of the treasure cara- vans just outside of old Panama on its way down the N ombre de Dios trail. Had the Indian population been as hostile to the English then as they became in later days this would have been a more perilous task. But at this time the men who lurked in the jungles, or hunted on the broad savannas had one beast of prey they feared and hated more than the lion or the boa — the Spaniard. Whether In- dian or Cimmaroon — as the escaped slaves were called — every man out in that tropic wilderness had some good ground for hating the Spaniards, and so when Drake and his men came, professing themselves ene- mies of the Spaniards likewise, the country folk made no war upon them but aided them to creep down almost within sight of Panama. Halting here, at a point which must have been well within the NATIVE WOMEN OF THE SAVANNAS BEARING BURDENS THE FUTILE ATTACK ON THE TREASURE TRAIN 69 Canal Zone and which it seems probable was near the spot where the Pedro Miguel locks now rise, they sent a spy into the town who soon brought back information as to the time when the first mule-train would come out. All seemed easy then. Most of the travel across the isthmus was by night to avoid the heat of the day. Drake disposed his men by the side of the trail — two In- dians or Cim- maroons to each armored Englishman. The latter had put their shirts on outside of their breast- plates so that they might be told in the dark by the white cloth — for the ancient chr oniclers would have us believe them p un c tilious about their laundry work. All were to lie silent in the jungle until the train had passed, then closing in be- hind cut off all retreat to Panama — when ho! for the fat panniers crammed with gold and precious stones! The plan was simplicity itself and was defeated by an equally simple mischance. The drinks of the Isthmus which, as we have seen, the Spaniards commended mightily when they drank, were treach- erous in their workings upon the human mind — a quality which has not passed away with the bucca- neers and cimmaroons, but still persists. One of Drake's jolly cutthroats, being over fortified with native rum for his nocturnal vigil, heard the tinkle of mule bells and rose to his feet. The leading muleteer turned his animal and fled, crying to the saints to protect him from the sheeted specter in the path. The captain in charge of the caravan was dubious about ghosts, but, there being a number of mules loaded with grain at hand, concluded to send them on to see, if there were anything about the. ghosts which a proper prayer to the saint of the day would exorcise. So the Englishmen again jS^R^ -- ^^siiiStifeMM^BTO^^^^^^^^B^B^^^^^^KHff^tifr^>**' -S'jw&j^x' '^ k ^HS^^^a^^BBBI^Big^^ -.MiJMMte ^^^^KK^^^m^^S-'-- ' ''%..''"'"' ■ ' ^-'''' ''\' :St':^- -^"^ •f'^ ' . " ' - 'T»' - !■, ■ ■ . ' ■I. \-. A:'-^ : ■ : -„..,.:• ■ -- ' ■ p^^^^^S^afc _ "^M^"^ ^ I^A^^ ^M ^mmm^^^ ■■ V ~ ' ■*^' CAMINA REALE, OR ROYAL ROAD NEAR PORTO BELLO heard the tinkling mule bells, waited this time in low breathing silence to let the rich prize pass, then with shouts of triumph dashed from the jungle, cut down or shot the luckless muleteers, and swarmed about the caravan eager to cut the bags and get at the booty — and were rewarded with sundry bushels of grain intended to feed the crowds at Nombre de Dios. The disaster was irreparable. The true treasure train at the first uproar had fled back to the walls of Panama. Nothing was left to Drake and his men but to plod back empty handed to Cruces, 70 PANAMA AND THE CANAL A LADY OF THE SAVANNA where they had left their boats. Of course they raided the town before leaving but the sea- son was off and the warehouses barren. Back they went to the coast and re- lieved their feelings by plundering a few coastwise towns and hurling taunts at the governor of Carta- gena. Shortly there- after they renewed their enterprise and did this time capture I the treasure train, getting . perhaps $100,000 worth of plunder, with but little loss. Some French pirates under Captain Tetu, who had joined in the adventure, suffered more severely and their captain, wounded and abandoned in the forest, was put to death by the Spaniards with certain of their favorite methods of torture. After a time in England Drake returned to the Caribbean with a considerable naval force, harried the coast, burned and sacked some towns, including Nombre de Dios, and extorted heavy ransom from others. He put into the harbor of Porto Bello with the intent of taking it also, but while hesitating before the formidable fortresses of the place was struck down by death. His body, encased in lead, was sunk in the bay near perhaps to the ancient ships which oiu- dredges have brought to light. The English long revered him as a great sailor and commander — which indeed he was, but a pirate withal. His most permanent influence on the his- tory of the Isthmus was his demonstration that Nombre de Dios was incapable of defense, and its consequent disappearance from the map. Such greatness as had pertained to Nombre de Dios was soon assumed by Porto Bello, which soon grew far beyond the size attained by its predecessor. It became indeed a substantially built town, and its fortresses on the towering heights on either side of the beautiful bay seemed fit to repel any invader — notwithstanding which the town was repeatedly taken by the English. Even today the ruins of town and forts are impressive, more so than any ruins readily accessible on the continent, though to see them at their best you must be there when the jungle has been newly cut away, else all is lost in a canopy of green. Across the bay from the town, about a mile and a half, stand still the remnants of the "Iron Castle" on a towering bluff, Castle Gloria and Fort Geronimo. These defensive works were built of stone, cut from reefs under the water found all along the coast. Almost as light as pumice stone and soft and easily worked when first cut, this stone hardens on exposure so that it will stop a ball without splitting or chipping. When Admiral Vernon, of the British navy, had captured the town in 1739, he tried to demolish the fort and found trouble enough. "The walls of the lower battery," he recorded, "consisting of 22 guns, were nine foot thick and of a hard stone cemented with such fine NATIVE CHILDREN, PANAMA PROVINCE THE APPEARANCE OF MORGAN THE BUCCANEER 71 mortar that it was a long work to make any im- pression in it, to come to mine at all, so that the blowing up took sixteen or eighteen days." Even today the relics of the Iron Fort present an air of bygone power and the rusty cannon still lying by the embrasures bring back vividly the days of the buccaneers. Inheriting the greatness and prosperity of Nombre de Dios, Porto Bello inherited also its unpleasant prominence as a target for the sea rover. French filibusters and British buccaneers raided it at their fancy while the black Cimmaroons of the mainland lay in wait for caravans entering or leaving its gates. To describe, or even to enumerate all the raids upon the town would be wearisome to the reader. Most savage, however, of the pests that attacked the place was Sir Henry Morgan, the English buccaneer, whose ex- come or go from Spain ; by reason of the unhealthi- ness of the air, occasioned by certain vapors that exhale from the mountains. Notwithstanding their chief warehouses are at Porto Bello, howbeit their habitations be all the year long at Panama ; whence they bring the plate upon mules at such times as the fair begins, and when the ships, belonging to the Company of Negroes, arrive here to sell slaves." Morgan's expedition consisted of nine ships and about 460 men, nearly all English— too small a force to venture against such a stronghold. But the intrepid commander would listen to no opposition. His ships he anchored near Manzanillo Island where now stands Colon. Thence by small boats he con- V--- BULL-RIDER AND NATIVE CAR AT BOUQUETTE, CHIRIQUI ploits are so fully and admiringly related by Esquemeling that we may follow his narrative, both of the sack of Porto Bello, and the later de- struction of the Castle of San Lorenzo. It was in 1668 that Morgan made his first attack upon Porto Bello. "Here," wrote Esquemeling, "are the castles, almost inexpugnable, that defend the city, being situated at the entry of the port; so that no ship or boat can pass without permission. The garrison consists of three hundred soldiers, and the town is constantly inhabited by four hundred families, more or less. The merchants dwell not here, but only reside for awhile, when the galleons veyed all save a few of his men to a point near the landward side of the town, for he feared to attack by sea because of the great strength of the forts. Having taken the Castle of Triana he resolved to shock and horrify the inhabitants of the town by a deed of cold-blooded and wholesale murder, and accordingly drove all the defenders into a single part of the castle and with a great charge of gunpowder demolished it and them together. If horrified, the Spaniards were not terrified, but con- tinued bravely the defense of the works they still held. For a time the issue of the battle looked dark for Morgan, when to his callous and brutal nund 72 PANAMA AND THE CANAL THE INDIANS CALL HER A WITCH being finished, he commanded all the and women whom he had taken prisoners to fix them against the walls of the castle. Thus much he had before hand threatened the governor to perform, in case he delivered not the castle. But his answer was: 'He would never surrender himself alive'. Captain Morgan was much persuaded that the governor would not employ his utmost forces, seeing rehgious women and ecclesiastical persons ex- posed in the front of the soldiers to the greatest dangers. Thus the ladders, as I have said, were put into the hands of religious persons of both sexes; and these were forced at the head of the companies, to raise and apply them to the walls. But Cap- tain Morgan was deceived in his judgment of this design. For the governor, who acted like a brave and courageous soldier, refused not, in performance of his duty, to use his utmost endeavors to destroy whosoever came near the walls. The there oc- religious men and women ceased not to cry unto curred an him and beg of him by all the Saints of Heaven he idea worthy would deliver the castle, and hereby spare both his of him alone, and their own lives. But nothing could prevail with Let us follow the obstinacy and fierceness that had possessed the Esquemel- governor's mind. Thus many of the religious men ing's narra- and nuns were killed before they could fix the ladders, five again: Which at last being done, though with great loss of "To this the said religious people, the pirates mounted them effect, there- in great numbers, and with no less valour; having fore, he or- fireballs in their hands and earthen pots full of dered ten or powder. All which things, being now at the top of twelve lad- the walls, they kindled and cast in among the ders to be Spaniards. made, in "This effort of the pirates was very great, inso- all possible much as the Spaniards could no longer resist nor haste, so defend the castle, which was now entered. Hereupon broad that they all threw down their arms, and craved quarter three or four for their lives. Only the governor of the. city would men at once admit or crave no mercy ; but rather killed many of might ascend the pirates with his own hands, and not a few of his them. These own soldiers because they did not stand to their religious men arms. And although the pirates asked him if he "I^C :•"•'*■•■••' '^^ 'pt'-^ A CUNA-CUNA FAMILY NEAR PORTO BELLO to p 3 to c o S! U o tD :3 3 THE PILLAGE OF PORTO BELLO 72, would have quarter, yet he constantly answered: 'By no means; I had rather die as a valiant soldier, than be hanged as a coward'. They endeavored as much as they could to take him prisoner. But he defended himself so obstinately that they were forced to kill him ; notwith- standing all the cries and tears of his own wife and daughter, who begged him upon their knees he would demand quarter and save his life. When the pirates had possessed them- selves of the castle, which was about night, they enclosed therein all the prisoners they had taken, placing the women and men by themselves, with some guards upon them. All the wounded were put into a certain apartment by itself, to the intent their own com- plaints might be the cure of their disease; for no other was afforded them." For fifteen days the buccaneers held high carnival in Porto Bello. Drunk most of the time, weakened with debauchery and riot, with dis- cipline thrown to the winds, and captains and fighting men scattered all over the town in pursuit of women and wine, the out- laws were at the mercy of any determined assailant. Es- quemeling said, "If there could A TRAIL NEAR PORTO BELLO A CHOLO MOTHER AND DAUGHTER have been found 50 determined men they could have retaken the city and killed all the pirates. Less than fifty miles away was Panama with a hea\^ garrison and a thousand or more citizens capable of bearing arms. Its governor must have known that the success of the raid on Porto Bello would but arouse the English lust for a sack of his richer town. But instead of seizing the oppor- tunity to crush them when they were sodden and stupefied by debauchery he sent puerile messages asking to be informed with what manner of weapons they could have overcome such strong defenses. Morgan nat- urally replied with an insult and a threat to do likewise to Panama within a twelvemonth. For fifteen days the revel was maintained, every citizen who looked as if he had money being put to the torture to compel him to confess where he had hidden it. When all had been extorted that seemed possible the buccaneers made ready to depart. But first Morgan demanded loo,- 000 pieces of eight, in default of which he would burn the city and blow up the castles. The wretched citizens sought aid of the Presi- dent of Panama ■ who was as un- 74 PANAMA AND THE CANAL A GROUP OF CUEPA TREKS willing to help them with gold as with powder and lead. In some miraculous way they raised it, and Morgan and his men departed, making their way to that town of revelry, Port Royal, of which I have already spoken, at the entrance to Kingston harbor. Perhaps it is fair to contrast with Esquemeling's story of the exploit Morgan's official report — for this worthy had a royal commission for his deeds. The Captain reported that he had left Porto Bello in as good condition as he found it, that its people had been well treated, so much so that "several ladies of great quality and other prisoners who were offered their liberty to go to the President's camp refused, saying they were now prisoners to a person of quality who was more tender of their honors than they doubted to find in the President's camp; and so voluntarily continued with him." Captain Morgan's own testimony to his kindness to prisoners and his regard for female honor im- presses one as quite as novel and audacious as his brilliant idea of forcing priests and nuns to carry the scaling ladders with which to assault a fortress de- fended by devout Catholics. Yet except for little incidents of this sort the whole crew — Spanish con- quistadores, French filibusters and English buc- caneers were very tenacious of the forms of religion and ostentatious piety. The Spaniards were always singing Te Deums, and naming their engines of war after the saints ; Captain Daniels, a French filibuster, shot dead a sailor for irreverent behavior during mass; the English ships had divine service every Sunday and profanity and gambling were sometimes prohibited in the enlistment articles. All of which goes to show that people may be very religious and still a pest to humanity — nor is it necessary to turn to the buccaneers for instances of this fact. CHAPTER IV SAN LORENZO AND PANAMA I WO years of the joys of Port Royal emptied the pockets of the buccaneers. The money that passed from hand to hand over the gambhng tables went thence into the pockets of the hordes of women from Spain, France and even England who flocked to that den of thieves, and from them into the coffers of merchants who took it back to Europe. As the money slowly disappeared the men clam- ored to be led on another raid. So great a reputation had Captain Morgan won that desperadoes from all corners of the world flocked to Jamaica seeking enrollment in his service. He had but to give out the tidings that he was ready to lead an expedition against Panama to have his rolls crowded, and as fine an assortment of picturesque cutthroats begging for enlistment as ever appeared outside the pages of a dime novel. He designated the south side of the island of Tortuga — ever a favorite lurking place for pirates — as a rendezvous, writing at the time to certain gentry whom Esquemeling in a matter of fact way calls "the ancient and expert Pirates there abiding", asking their cooperation. By the 24th of October, 1670, he had gathered together 37 ships fully armed MOUTH OF THE CHAGRES RIVER San Lorenzo stands on the brow of the cliff. The watch tower may be seen faintly uplifted 75 76 PANAMA AND THE CANAL and victualled, with 2000 fighting men besides mariners and boys. The chief ship mounted 22 great guns and six small brass carinon. With this force Morgan first attacked the island of San Caterina, expecting to capture there some Indian or Spaniard who would guide him to Panama, MOUTH OF THE CHAGRES FROM THE FORT The upper picture shows the sea beach on the Pacific Coast littered with drift-wooa by the Chagres River route, probably in or- der to take with him heavy artillery which could scarcely be dragged through the jungle. The first step to- ward the navi- gation of the river was the capture of Fort Lorenzo which stood on a high bluff at its mouth. Against this famous fort- for the sack of that city had been determined upon in preference to either Vera Cruz or Cartagena, because it was richer. The people of the island were in no condition to resist the overwhelming force of the English, but the governor begged Morgan to make a sham attack in order that his credit and that of his officers might be maintained at home, and accordingly much powder was ineffectively burned. It sounds like a cheap device but it was employed again at Manila in 1898, the parties to the agreement being the Spanish governor and certain high officers of the United States army and navy. Having secured his guides, by the easy process of putting on the rack all the Indians captured until one was found willing to lead the raiders through his native land, Morgan determined to move on Panama ress, therefore, he sent Col. Bradley (or Brodley as he is sometimes called) with four ships and about 400 men, while he himself remained at St. Cathe- rine to conceal from the Spaniards his ultimate design against Panama. The visitor to Colon should not fail, before cross- ing to the Pacific side of the Isthmus, to visit the ruins of the Castle of San Lorenzo. The trip is not an easy one, and must usually be arranged for in advance, but the end well repays the exertion. The easiest way, when the weather permits, is to charter a tug or motor boat and make the journey by sea — a trip of two or three hours at most. But the Carib- bean is a tempestuous and a treacherous sea. One may wait days for weather permitting the trip to be made in coinfort, and even then may find a stormy THE WATER-WAY TO SAN LORENZO n afternoon succeed to a calm morning. For this reason it is essential that a seaworthy boat be pro- cured and, if not essential, very desirable that the company be not subject to the qualms of seasickness. To my mind the more interesting way to visit the ruins is to take the railroad out to Gatun, and there at the very base of the roaring spillway, board a power boat and chug down the sluggish Chagres to the river's mouth where stands the ancient fort. The boats obtainable are not of the most modern model and would stand a slender chance in speed contests. But in one, however slow, you are lost to all appearance of civilization five minutes after you cast off from the clay bank. At Gatun, the canal which has been carried through the artificial lake made by damming the Chagres River, turns sharply away from that water course on the way to the new port of Balboa. The six or eight miles of the tropical river which we are to traverse have been untouched by the activities of the canal builders. The sluggish stream flows between walls of dense green jungle, as silent as though behind their barrier only a mile or two away there were not men by the thousands making great flights of aquatic steps to lift the world's ocean carriers over the hills. Once in awhile through the silent air comes the distant boom of a blast in Culebra, only an infrequent reminder of the presence of civilized man and his explosive activities. Infrequent though it is, however, it has been sufficient to frighten away the more timid in- habitants of the waterside — the alligators, the boas and the monkeys. Only at rare intervals are any of these seen now, though in the earlier days of the American invasion the alligators and monkeys were plentiful. Today the chief signs of animal life are the birds — herons, white and blue, flying from pool to pool or posing artistically on logs or in shallows ; great comorant ducks that fly up and down mid- stream, apparently unacquainted with the terrors of the shotgun ; kingfishers in bright blue and paroquets in gaudy colors. The river is said to be full of fish, including sharks, for the water is saline clear up to the Gatun locks. I know of no spot, easy of access, on the Isthmus where an idea of the beauty and the terror of the jungle can be better gained than on the lower Chagres. The stout green barrier comes flush to the Pholo by T. J. Murine THE SALLY-PORT AT SAN LORENZO An unusual picture because of the clearing away of the jungle. Ordinarily the walls are hidden 78 PANAMA AND THE CANAL water's edge, the mangroves at places wading out on their stilt-like roots into the stream like a line of deployed skirmishers. That green wall looks light, beautiful, ethereal even, but lay your boat alongside it and essay to land. You will find it yielding indeed, but as impenetrable as a wall of adamant. It will receive you as gently as the liquid amber wel- comes the fly, and hold you as inexorably in its beautiful embrace when you are once entrapped. The tender fern, the shrinking sensitive plant, the flowering shrub, the bending sapling, the sturdy and towering tree are all tied together by lithe, serpentine, gnarled and unbreakable vines which seem to spring from the ground and hang from the highest branches as well. There are not enough inches of ground to support the vegetation so it grows from the trees living liter- ally on the air. Every green thing that can bear a thorn seems to have spines and prickers to tear the flesh, and to catch the clothing and hold the prisoner fast. Try it and you will see why no large mammals roam in the jungle; only the snakes and the lizards creeping down below the green tangle can attain large size and move. And how beautiful it all is ! The green alone would be enough, but it is varied by the glowing orange poll of a lignum vitse tree, the bright scarlet of the hibiscus, the purple of some lordly tree whose name the botanist will know but not the wayfarer. Color is in splotches on every side, from the wild flowers close to the river's brink to great yellow blossoms on the tops of trees so tall that they tower over the forests like light-houses visible for miles around. Orchids in more delicate shades, orchids that would set Fifth Avenue agog, are here to be had for a few blows of a machete. It is a riot and a revel of color — as gay as the deco- rations of some ancient arena before the gladia- torial combats began. For life here is a steadjr battle too, a struggle be- tween man and the jungle and woe to the man who invades the enemy's country alone or strays far from the trail, shadowy and indistinct as that may be. "A man ought to be able to live quite a while lost in the jungle," said a distinguished magazine writer who was with me on the upper Chagres once. We had been listen- ing to our guide's descrip- tion of the game, and edible fruits in the forest. "Live about two days if he couldn't find the trail or the river's bank," was the response of the Man Who Knew. "If he lived longer he'd live crazy. Torn by thorns, often poisoned, bitten by venomous insects, blis- tered by thirst, with the chances against his finding any fruit that was safe eating, he would probably die of the pain and of jungle madness before starvation brought a more merciful death. The jungle is a cat that tortures its captives; a python that embraces them in its graceful folds and hugs them to death ; a siren whose beauty lured them to perdition. Look out for it." The native Indian knows it and avoids it by doing CHURCH AT CHAGRES Up the steep path in the foreground the buccaneers charged upon Fort Lorenzo APPROACH TO SAN LORENZO CASTLE 79 most of his traveling by canoe. On our trip to the river's mouth we passed many in their slender cayucas, some tied by a vine to the bank patiently fishing, others on their way to or from market with craft well loaded with bananas on the way up, but light com- ing back, holding gay converse with each other across the dark and sullen stream. Here and there through breaks in the foliage we see a native house, or a cluster of huts, not many however, for the jungle is too thick and the land too low here for the Indians who prefer the bluffs and occasional broad savannas of the upper waters. As we ap- proach its outlet the river, about fifty or sixty yards wide thus far, broadens into a considerable estuary, and rounding a point we see before us the blue Pacific breaking in white foam on a bar which effectually closes the river to all save the smallest boats, and which you may be sure the United States OLD SPANISH MAGAZINE will never dredge away, to open a ready water-way to the base of the Gatun locks. To the left covering a low point, level as if artificially graded, is a beautiful cocoanut grove, to the right, across a bay perhaps a quarter of a mile wide is a native village of about fifty huts with an iron roofed church in the center — beyond the village rises a steep hill densely covered with verdure, so that it is only by the keenest search- ing that you can pick out here a stone sentry tower, there the angle of a massive wall — the ruins of the Castle of San Lorenzo. "Cloud crested San Lorenzo guards The Chagres en- trance still, Though o'er each stone the moss hath grown And earth his moat doth fill. His bastions feeble with decay Steadfastly view the sea, And sternly wait the certain fate The ages shall de- cree." SPANISH RUINS, PORTO BELLO We land in the co- coanut grove across 8o PANAMA AND THE CANAL OUR GUIDE AT SAN LORENZO the river from the ruins we have come to see and the uninitiated among us wonder why. It appears however that the descendants of the natives who so readily surrendered dominion of the land to the Spaniards are made of sterner stuff than their an- cestors. Or perhaps it was because we had neither swords or breastplates that they reversed the i6th century practice and extorted tribute of silver from us for ferrying us across the stream in cayucas when our own boats and boat-men would have given us a greater sense of security. Landed in the village we were convoyed with great ceremony to the alcalde's hut where it was demanded that we register our names and places of residence. Perhaps that gave us a vote in the Republic of Panama, but we saw no political evidences about unless a small saloon, in a hut thatched with palmetto leaves and with a mud floor and basket work sides might be taken for a "headquarters". Indeed the saloon and a frame church were about the only signs of civilization about the town if we except a bill posted in the alcalde's office setting forth the mysterious occult powers of a wizard and soothsayer who, among other services to mankind, recounted a number of rich marriages which had been made by the aid of his philters and spells. We made our way from the village attended by volunteer guides in the scantiest of clothing, across a little runway at the bottom of a ravine, and so into the path that leads up the height crowned by the castle. It was two hundred and fifty years ago, almost, that the little hollow ran with a crimson fluid, and the bodies of dead Spaniards lay in the rivulet where now the little native boys are cooling their feet. The path is steep, rugged and narrow. Branches arch overhead and as the trail has served as a runway for the downpour of innumerable tropical rains the soil is largely washed away from between the stones, and the climbing is hard. "Not much fun carrying a steel helmet, a heb.rr leather jacket and a twenty-pound blunderbuss u- this road on a hot day, with bullets and arrow whistling past," remarks a heavy man in the van and the picture he conjures up of the Spanish assail ants on that hot afternoon in 1780 seems very vivid Although the fort, the remains of which are now standing, is not the one which Morgan destroyed the site, the natural defenses and the plan of th( works are identical. There was more wood in the original fort than in that of which the remains are now discernible — to which fact its capture was due. THE AUTHOR AT SAN LORENZO A RIP VAN WINKLE OF A FORTRESS LOOKING UP THE CHAGRES FROM SAN LORENZO The villagers every now and then cut away the dense underbrush which grgws in the ancient fosse and traverses and conceals effectually the general plan of the fortress from the visitor. This cleaning up process unveils to the eye the massive masonry, and the towering battlements as shown by some of the illustrations here printed. But, except to the scientific student of archeology and of fortification, the ruins are more picturesque as they were when I saw them, overgrown with creeping vines and shrubs jutting out from every cornice and crevice, with the walls so masked by the green curtain that when some sharp salient angle boldly juts out before you, you start as you would if rounding the corner of the Flatiron Building you should come upon a cocoanut palm bending in the breeze. Here you come to great vaulted chambers, dungeons lighted by but one barred casemate where on the muddy ground you see rusty iron fetters weighing forty pounds or more to clamp about a prisoner's ankle or, for that matter, his neck. The vaulted brick ceiling above is as perfect as the day Spanish builders shaped it and the mortar betwixt the great stones forming the walls is too hard to be picked away with a stout knife. Pushing through the thicket which covers every open space you stumble over a dismounted cannon, or a neat conical pile of rusty cannon balls, carefully prepared for the shock of battle perhaps two hundred years ago and lying in peaceful slumber ever since — a real Rip Van Winkle of a fortress it is, with no likelihood of any rude awakening. In one spot seems to have been a sort of central square. In the very heart of the citadel is a great masonry tank to hold drinking 82 PANAMA AND THE CANAL water for the besieged. It was built before the 19th century had made its entrance upon the procession of the centuries, but the day I saw it the still water that it held reflected the fleecy clouds in the blue sky, and no drop trickled through the joints of the honest and ancient masonry. Back and forth through narrow gates, in and out of vaulted chambers, down dark passages behind twenty-foot walls you wander, with but little idea of the topog- raphy of the place until you come to a little watch tower jutting out at one corner of the wall. Here the land falls away sharply a hundred feet or more to the sea and you understand why the buccaneers they found the garrison reenforced until it nearly equaled the English. So slight was the disparity in numbers that it seems amazing that the English could have sustained the rigors of the assault. It was, of course, impossible to attack the castle on its sea front, and the invaders accordingly left their boats about a league from the castle, making their way painfully through the jungle toward the place of action. Esquemeling describes the fortification which they were to overthrow thus : ...,>• "This castle is built upon a high THE TRUE ^ATUi; SOCIAL CENTER were forced to attack from the landward side, though as you were scaling that toilsome slope you wondered that any race of humans ever dared attack it at all. In their story of the assault on Fort Lorenzo, as indeed in the narrative of all the doings of the buccaneers, the historians- have followed the narra- tive of Esquemeling, a young Dutch apothecary who joined the sea rovers as a sort of assistant sur- geon, and wrote a book which has kept his memory alive, whatever may have been the effect of his surgery on his patients. News of the advance of the English had reached the Governor of Panama so that when the assailants reached the battlefield mountain, at the entry of the river, and surrounded on all sides with strong palisades, or wooden walls; being very well terrepleined, and filled with earth; which renders them as secure as the best walls made of stone or brick. The top of this mountain is in a manner divided into two parts, between which lies a ditch of the depth of thirty feet. The castle itself has but one entry, and that by a drawbridge which passes over the ditch aforementioned. On the land side it has four bastions, that of the sea containing only two more. That part thereof which looks to- wards the South is totally inaccessible and im- possible to be climbed, through the infinite asperity of the mountain. THE ASSAULT OF THE BUCCANEERS 83 "The North side is surrounded by the river, which hereabouts runs very broad. At the foot of the said castle, or rather mountain, is seated a strong fort, with eight great guns, which commands and impedes- the entry of the river. Not much lower are to be seen two other batteries, whereof each hath six pieces of cannon to defend likewise the mouth of the said river. At one side of the castle are built two great store-houses, in which are deposited all sorts of war- like ammunition and merchandise, which are brought hither from the inner parts of the country. Near these houses is a high pair of stairs, hewed out of the rock, which serves to mount to the top of the castle. On the West side of the said fortress lies a small port, which is not above seven or eight fathoms deep, being very fit for small vessels and of very good anchorage. Besides this, there lies before the castle, at the entry of the river, a great rock, scarce to be perceived above water, unless at low tide." If the English had hoped to take the garri- son by surprise they were speedily undeceived. Hardly had they emerged from the thicket into the open space on which stands now the village of Chagres than they were welcomed with so hot a volley of musketry and artillery from the castle walls that many fell dead at the first fire. To assault they had to cross a ravine, charge up a bare hillside, and pass through a ditch thirty feet deep at the further bank of which stood the outer walls of the fort made of timber and clay. It was two in the afternoon when the fighting began. The buccaneers charged with their usual daredevil valor, carrying fire balls Photo, by Duptrly & Son TROPICAL FOLIAGE ON THE CARIBBEAN along with their swords and muskets. The Span- iards met them with no less determination, crying out : "Come on ye English dogs, enemies to God and our King; let your other companions that are be- hind come too; ye shall not go to Panama this bout." 84 PANAMA AND THE CANAL All the afternoon and into the night the battle raged and the assailants might well have despaired of success except for an event which Esquemeling thus describes: "One of the Pirates was wounded with an arrow in his back which pierced his body to the other side. This instantly he pulled out with great valor at the side of his breast; then taking a little cotton that he had about him, he wound it about the said arrow, and putting it into his musket, he shot it back into the castle. But the cotton being kindled by the powder occasioned two or three houses that were within the castle, being thatched with palm leaves, to take fire, which the Spaniards perceived not so soon as was necessary. For this fire meeting with a parcel of powder blew it up, and hereby caused great ruin, and no less consternation to the Spaniards, who were not able to account for this accident, not having seen the beginning thereof." The fire within the fort not only disconcerted its ■defenders but greatly aided the assailants, for by its flames the Spaniards could be seen working their ^uns and were picked off by the English sharp- shooters. The artillery of the invaders made breaches in the walls and the debris thus occasioned dropped into the ditch making its crossing practi- cable for a storming party. Though the gallant governor of the castle threw himself into the breach and fought with the greatest desperation, he was forced back and into his citadel. There a musket shot pierced his brain and the defense which was be- coming a defeat became in fact a rout. Spaniards flung themselves from the lofty cliffs upon the rocks below or into the sea rather than trust to the mercy of their conquerors. All but thirty of the garrison of 314 were slain, not one officer escaping, and only a few escaped to steal up the river and through the jungle carrying to Pana- ma the dismal tale of the fall of its chief outpost. Nor did the English win their triumph easily. Their force was in the neighbor- hood of 400, of whom more than 100 were killed and 70 wounded. A round shot took off both legs of Colonel Bradley and from the wound he died a few days later. The church of the castle was turned into a hospital, the Spaniards were made to bury their own dead, which was done by dropping them over the cliff into the sea, and word was sent to Morgan that the way was clear for his march upon Panama. NATIVE PANAMA WOMAN We may for a time ON THE UPPER CHAGRES turn aside from Buccaneer Morgan and his ravenous raid to consider the later history of the two strong- holds — Porto Bello and San Lorenzo — which lie to the east and west of Colon. It was not the rude shock of war which reduced them to the state of desolation and ruin in which visitors now find them — though of such shocks they certainly experienced enough. Mor- gan on his return from Panama blew up San Lo- renzo and left it a wreck, but the Spaniards rebuilt it stronger than ever and THE END OF PORTO BELLO AND SAN LORENZO 85 :S^S^" A CHARACTER OF COLON it long continued to mount guard over the entrance to the Cha- gres. So too with the forts at Porto Bello. But about 1738 one Edward Vernon, after whom it is said Mount Vernon, the home o f Washington , was named, rose in the Enghsh parhament and declared that he could take Porto Bello with only six ships. Par- liament took him at his word, commissioned him admiral, gave him seven ships and dis- patched him on the enterprise. Being a gentleman of spirit and a true sport. Admiral Vernon, on approaching the Isthmus, sent one of his ships into other waters, "disdaining to appear before Porto Bello with one ship more than he had engaged to take it with." Success came to him with ease. Only four of his ships were engaged and the only considerable loss was among a landing party which stormed the lower battery of the Iron Fort. The Spaniards showed but little stomach for the fight, and it is worth noting that in the recurrent affrays in the West Indies and Central America the English whipped them with the same monotonous certainty with which the latter had beaten the Indians. Any one desiring to draw broad generalizations as to the comparative courage of na- tions is welcome to this fact. After refitting at Jamaica, Ad- miral Vernon, with a somewhat larger fleet, proceeded against San Lorenzo. Again his triumph was easy, for after a leisurely bom- bardment to which the Spaniards replied but languidly, the white flag was displayed and the English entered into possession. The warehouses in Chagres were plun- dered and the fort blown up. The spluttering war between England and Spain in which these actions occurred became known as "the war of Jenkins' ear." A too zealous guarda costa lopped off the ear of a certain Captain Jenkins who, though un- known to fame prior to that outrage, so made the welkin ring in England, even exhibiting the mummified member from which he had been thus rudely divorced, that Parliament was forced to declare a war in retaliation for his ear or have its own talked off. The buccaneers and pirates really caused the final abandonment of Porto Bello and San Lorenzo, though not by direct attack. They made trade by the Caribbean and along the Spanish Main so perilous that the people of the Pacific coast found it more profitable in the long run to make the voyage around the Horn or through the Straits of Magellan. The economics of trade are unvarying. It seeks the cheapest before the shortest routes, and one of the studies of our canal authorities will -■^1 be to so fix their tolls that they will WOMAN OF THE CHAGRES REGION 86 PANAMA AND THE CANAL not, like Morgan, L'Olonais and others, frighten trade away from the Isthmus. Though the forts were rebuilt to their original strength in 1751, they never regained importance. Porto Bello disappeared when the Royal Road to Panama lost its traffic, and the Chagres only resumed a brief importance in 1844 when the Royal Mail Steampacket Co. made San Lorenzo a port of call. When Colon, however, appeared as a port and the terminus of the Panama railroad, the fate of all other ports on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus was sealed. Left to brood over the days of their greatness — though indeed they never re- pelled any serious attack — the Iron Fort and San Lorenzo were abandoned by their Columbian gar- risons and given over to the insidious and irresistible conquest of the jungle. Picturesque and dignified, they well repay the visit of the tourist. " Still standeth San Lorenzo there. Aye, faithful at his post. Though scoffing trees in every breeze Their prime and vigor boast; His garrison is but the shades Of soldiers of the past, But it pleaseth him, alone and grim, To watch unto the last." CHAPTER V THE SACK OF OLD PANAMA 9^^ V '' s^'"-'- ^^StHi'*^m>^ S^' . ^1^ u \ *"•-' ■ --^— «r i^^ B''%*i»^-'- :« e\y- pu* 1^ ■»« 'm VI,:-: '.... ,-■ ; y^, HE week after the fall of San Lorenzo, Morgan with his full force appeared at the mouth of the Chagres River. Before leaving St. Catherine he had disman- tled the forts and burned all the houses for no particu- lar reason except the seem- ingly instinctive desire of a buccaneer to destroy all that he could not steal. At once he began his prep- arations for the ascent of the Chagres to its head of navigation, where, disembarking, he would take the trail for Old Panama. Cruces, which was the point of debarkation, had grown to a considerable town at this time, being the point of transshipment of goods destined for Nombre de Dios, or Porto Bello, from the mules that had brought them thus far, to the boats that would float them down to tide water. The town, an inconsiderable hamlet of thatched huts, remained in 19 13, but the rise of Gatun Lake was expected to prac- tically blot it out of existence. Old Panama, for which Morgan was preparing the grim experience of a battle and a sack, had been founded in 15 19 by that Pedrarias of whom we have told as the executioner of Balboa. It had grown rapidly, built up by the trade re- sulting from the in- vasion of Peru. At the time of Morgan's raid Esquemeling writes of the city: "There belonged to this city (which is also the head of a bishopric) eight monasteries, whereof seven were for men and one for women; two stately churches and one hospital. The churches and monas- teries were all richly adorned with altar-pieces and paintings, huge quantity of gold and silver, with other precious things. . . . Besides which orna- ments, here were to be seen two thousand houses of magnificent and prodigious building, being all of the greatest part inhabited by merchants of that country, who are vastly rich. For the rest of the inhabitants of lesser quality and tradesmen, this city contained five thousand houses more. Here were also great numbers of stables,- which served for the horses and mules, that carry all the plate, belonging as well unto the King of Spain as to private men, towards the coast of the North Sea. The neighboring fields be- longing to this city are all cultivated and fertile plan- tations, and pleasant gardens, which afford delicious prospects unto the inhabitants the whole year long." NEAR A CONVENT AT OLD PANAMA 87 88 PANAMA AND THE CANAL Correal fixes the number of private houses as between seven and eight thousand. The pious Thomas Gage whom we have seen hagghng for rooms at Porto Bello visited Panama about 1538 and even then credits it with five thousand inhabit- CASA REALE OR KING S HOUSE Its heavy walls show that it was planned for defense but the Spaniards abandoned it ants, "and at least eight cloisters of nuns and friars. Unfortunately the good evangelist found that "the Spaniards are in this city much given to sinne, looseness and venery," for which reason, or perhaps because ne "feared much the heats," he made haste to leave the town and left us none of those graphic descriptions of which his pen was capable. The country round about Panama was then, and still is, arable and well-fitted for grazing. The rural population was but small, more meager indeed than one would think would have been necessary for raising vegetables for so considerable a town. In the back country were great num- bers of Cimmaroons, or escaped slaves who are described as living in com- munities, ruled over by a black king. They went naked and were armed with bows and arrows, spears, darts and machetes. They lived on plun- der and as when captured were they killed, or, at the best, enslaved anew, they fought with great desperation. Merchandise trains were their chief victims, though they often raided cattle ranches, or cut off individuals in the outskirts of the city. The English supplied them with weapons and could always be sure of their aid against the Spaniards, who had been their masters and whom they hated. The harbor was wretched, useful only for small vessels which at high tide could come straight to the sea- wall, being left there by the receding tide, high and dry, so that by quick action they could be unloaded before the waters returned. A very con- siderable part of the food of the town was fish brought thither by Indians from Taboga and nearby islands; Such was the town which Morgan raided. Because of the colossal dis- aster which befell it, a disaster with- out parallel since the days when the Goths and Vandals swept down over the pleasant plains of Italy, there has been a tendency to magnify the size, wealth and refinement of Panama at the time of its fall. But studied calmly, with no desire to exaggerate the qualities which made it so rich a prize, Panama may fairly be described as a city of about 30,000 people, with massive churches, convents and official buildings of masonry, with many stately houses of the type esteemed luxurious in the tropics, and peopled largely by pure-blooded Span- THE ADVANCE OF THE BUCCANEERS 89 iards of the better type. It was too early a date for the amalgamation of races now so much in evidence on the Isthmus to have proceeded far, and the an- cient records show that the Spaniards of substance in the town had mainly come thither from Seville. Morgan started up the river from San Lorenzo, where he left 500 men to serve as a garrison, on the 1 8th of January, 1761. His force comprised 1200 men in five boats with artillery and thirty-two canoes. The raiders planned to live on the country and hence took small store of provisions — an error which nearly wrecked the expedition. The first day they covered about eighteen miles. This was by nature made the easiest part of their journey, for this stretch of the Chagres is deep, with but a slow current and much of the way they may have been aided by the incoming tide. If the chronicler who fixed their distance covered at eighteen miles was correct, they must have pitched their camp the first night not very far from where Gatun Dam now rears its mighty bulk across the valley and makes of the Chagres a broad lake. Their troubles however came with their first nightfall. Leaving their boats and scattering about the surrounding country they found that the Spaniards had raked it clean of provisions of every sort. The Indian villages were either smoking ruins or clusters of empty huts, the cattle ranches were bare of cattle, and even the banana and yam patches were stripped. By noon on the second day, according to Esquemeling, ' ' they were compelled to leave their boats and canoes by reason the river was very dry for want of rain, and the many trees that were fallen into it." Hence- forth at that point the Chagres River transformed into a lake will be in the neighborhood of forty feet deep the year round. Apparently, however, the abandonment of the boats was only partial, the main body of troops marching through the woods while others waded, pushing the boats over the shallows as is done today. The advance was continued in this fashion, partly by water and partly through the jungle, all with the greatest difficulty, at a snail's pace and on stomachs daily growing emptier. Twice they came upon signs that the Spaniards had prepared an ambuscade for them, but becoming faint-hearted had fled. Thereat the buccaneers grumbled mightily. They were better at fighting than at chopping paths through the jungle, PlwW bu Buitis d- ElHoU THE RUINED TOWER OF SAN AUGUSTINE 90 PANAMA AND THE CANAL WAYSIDE SHRINE ON THE SAVANNA ROAD and were so hungry that if they had slain a few Spaniards they would quite probably have cooked and eaten them. For six days they struggled with the jungle without finding any food whatsoever, then they discovered a granary stored with maize which they ate exultingly. Leather scraps became a much prized article of food, just as in a very different climate Greely's men in the Arctic circle kept alive on shreds cut from their sealskin boots. Of leather as an article of diet Esquemeling writes: "Here again he was happy, that had reserved since noon any small piece of leather whereof to make his supper, drinking after it a good draught of water for his greatest comfort. Some persons, who never were out of their mothers' kitchens, may ask how these pirates could eat, swallow and digest those pieces of leather, so hard and dry. To whom I only answer: That could they once experiment what hunger, or rather famine, is, they would cer- tainly find the manner, by their own necessity, as the pirates did. For these first took the leather and sliced it in pieces. Then did they beat it be- tween two stones, and rub it, often dipping it in the water of the river to render it by these means supple and tender. Lastly they scraped off the hair, and roasted or broiled it upon the fire. And, being thus cooked, they cut it into small morsels, and eat it, helping it down with frequent gulps of water, which by good fortune they had near at hand." Once only did they meet with any resistance; that was near Cruces where several hundred Indians ambushed them in the jungle, and while avoiding any direct combat, killed several with arrows. As the Indians fled they cried out in Spanish, "Ho, ye dogs! Go to the savanna; to the savanna," from which, as from like warnings uttered by stragglers, the invaders concluded that battle was to be given them on the broad plain before the city. It had taken six days for the expedition to reach Cruces — a trip which could readily be made today by train to Camboa and thence by cayuca in five or six hours. Arrived there they prepared for the last stage of the journey, for there they finally left their boats and took up the Royal Road. Cruces is eight miles from Panama, and at the moment of Morgan's descent upon it, was at the period of its greatest prosperity. Of its rise to greatness and its final disappearance under the rising waters of Gatun Lake I shall have more to say in the chapter con- cerning the Chagres River. The English found the frame houses already ablaze, and the larders swept clean, the Spaniards having followed their invariable custom of leaving no food for the invaders. Some wretched dogs and cats which hung about the de- serted dwellings were killed and eaten, and in the storehouses a number of jars of wine were found, upon drinking which the buccaneers became deathly sick. They claimed it was poisoned, but more probably their stomachs, which had been struggling to digest leather scraps, were in no condition for the strong wines of the tropics. From this point onward the invaders saw many of THE BANQUET BEFORE PANAMA 91 their enemies, but the Indians only offered active resistance, firing upon the advancing column from ambuscades, and at one or two made a determined stand. As the invaders were strung out in single file along a narrow road (Esquemeling complains that only ten or twelve men could walk in a file) it would have been easy to so impede their progress, and harass them with attacks from the bush, as to defeat their purpose wholly. For it is to be remem- bered that the English were almost starved, footsore and weary, dragging cannon along the rocky roads and bearing heavy equipment under the scorching pun. But the Spaniards contented themselves with shouting defiance and daring the invaders to meet them "a la savanna." At the first danger of a fight they ran away. Gaining on the ninth day of their march the top of a hill, still known as "El Cerro de los Bucca- neeros" (The Hill of the Buccaneers), the pirates had the joy of seeing for the first time the Pacific, and thus knowing that Panama must be at hand. Upon the plain below they came upon a great body of cattle. Some historians say that the Spaniards had gathered a great herd of savage biills to be driven upon the English lines in expectation of putting them to rout. The tradition seems doubt- ful, and to any one who has seen the mild and docile bulls of the Panama savannas it is merely ridiculous. However the cattle came there it was an ill chance for the Spaniards, for they furnished the hearty food necessary to put fight again into the famished bodies of the buccaneers. Esquemeling's descrip- tion of the banquet on the plains is hardly appe- tizing: "Here while "some were employed in killing and flaying cows, horses, bulls and chiefly asses, of which there was greatest number, others busied themselves in kindling of fires and getting wood wherewith to roast them. Thus cutting the flesh of these animals into pieces, or gobbets, they threw them into the fire, and half carbonadoed or roasted, they devoured them with incredible haste and appetite. For such was their hunger that they more resembled cannibals than Europeans at this banquet, the blood many ARCHED BRIDGE AT OLD PANAMA, ALMOST 400 YEARS OLD There was no Horatius to hold this strait path against the invaders 92 PANAMA AND THE CANAL times running down from their beards to the middle the assailants, though the estimate of the hostile of their bodies." generals differ greatly, as they always have in Gorged to their gullets, the cutthroats lay down to history. We must reasonably suppose that in a rest. Morgan had a sharp watch kept, and sounded battle on the issue of which directly depended their at least one false alarm that the men might not lives, the lives and honor of their womenfolk, their sleep too securely. But the Span- iards on the eve of their crushing disaster left their foes to rest in peace except for a noisy cannonade which did no damage, and shouts of "Cor- ros ! Nos Vere- mos"— "Dogs! We will see you again," which they certainly did, finding the meeting most un- pleasant. On the morrow, the tenth day after leaving San Lorenzo, and either the i8th or 27th of January, 1 67 1, for contem- porary writers differ about the date, the attack on the city be- gan. The bucca- neers disappoint- ed the Spanish at the very outset by not taking the road which lay plain and open to them and which was well com- manded by the Spanish batteries and ambuscades, but came upon them through the woods. This violation of the rules of the game embarrassed the Spaniards from the very first. But even so, they had every advantage on their side — except courage. They largely outnumbered Photo by Vrof. Otto Liilz FOLIAGE ON THE CANAL ZONE homes, their for- tunes, their liber- ty and the con- tinued existence of their city the people of Pana- ma would have turned out to a man. Yet the President of Panama reported to the Spanish court that he had but 1200 men, mostly negroes, mulattoes and In- dians, armed with fowling pieces and his only artil- lery three wooden cannon bound with rawhide. Dr. C. L. G. An- derson, to whose painstaking study of the old Spanish chroni- clers all present- day students of Panama history must be largely indebted, says, and reasonably, "The Spanish army was made up not merely of merchants, planters and servants, but contained besides many regular troops; veterans of the wars in Flanders, Sicily and other countries of Europe." Whatever the precise figures may have been there is no question that the assailants were largely out- numbered by the defenders who, fighting for wives and children, homes and firesides, might have been THE BUCCANEERS TRIUMPHANT IN BATTLE 93 expected to show desperate valor. Instead of which the buccaneers put the Spaniards to rout in two hours' fighting on the plain to which the pirates had been so scornfully invited. The Spanish plan of battle savored largely of the theatrical. As the circus opens its performance with a grand entry of mounted performers, so the Spaniards ushered in the fight with a grand charge of cavalry. Admirable cavalrymen, they are said to have been, well mounted on trained cattle ponies and in all about 400 strong. Unhappily there ap- peared to have been no preliminary study of the English position, and a morass impenetrable by horsemen guarded its flanks. Only in front could the English line be reached and there the trained marksmen of the buccaneers, or cattle hunters, dropping on one knee, picked off the Spanish horse- men before they could close. The cavalry hardly reached the buccaneers' first line though they charged twice with the utmost gallantry. An infantry charge that followed was beaten back with like slaughter. Seeing this the Spaniards are said to have resorted to a device as ridiculous in its outcome as it was in its conception. This was the driving against the buccaneers' lines of a herd of a thousand bulls driven by fifty vaqueros. With great shouting and cracking of whips the herd was urged against the invaders. But the Central Ameri- can bull as a ferocious beast is a disappointment — which per- haps explains the placidity with which Panama agreed to the request of the United States that it abolish bull fighting. If not vicious, however, they can be obstinate, and about as many bulls charged into the already shat- tered Spanish lines as upon the buccaneers. Mor- gan showed quick wit by ordering his men to let the bulls pass, but kill the vaqueros, and so, with the exception of a few bovines who lingered to rend the British flags, being enraged by their scarlet hue, the greater part of the herd trotted off to a quieter part of the savanna where they might placidly graze while the foolish men who had sought to drag them into the quarrel went on killing each other. This virtually ended the Spanish defense. After another charge the defenders of the city gave up any effort at organized opposition to the invaders and fled into the city, or to the shelter of the neighboring jungle. The English, exhausted with their long march and the shock of the battle, did not immediately follow up their' advantage but rested for some hours. There is much conflict of authority on the question of loss in the battle. Morgan claimed to have lost only flve men. killed and ten wounded, and fixed the Spanish loss at about 400. Esquemeling says there were 600 94 PANAMA AND THE CANAL IN THE CRYPT DF OLD .SAN AUGUSTINE Spaniards dead upon the field beside the wounded and prisoners'. Whatever the comparative losses the Spanish -defeat was decisive, nor did the survi- vors regain sufficient morale to offer any effective opposition to the buccaneers as they nioved upon the city. One would think that the final defense would have been dogged and desperate in the extreme. The Spaniards knew what to expect in the way of mur- der, rapine, plunder and enslavement. They had the story of Porto Bello fresh in their memories, and, for that matter, they had enjoyed such fruits of victory themselves too often to hug the delusion that the English would now forego them. Nor even after the decisive thrashing they had sustained on the plain need they have despaired. On three sides Panama was defended by the sea and its inlets, and on the fourth could only be approached along a single road and over an arched bridge, the sturdy masonry of which still stands, and forms a favorite background for photographic groups of tourists. Though not walled, as was its successor, Old Panama had a great plenty of heavy masonry buildings, the ruins of which show them to have been constructed with a view to defense. The churches, the eight convents, the official buildings and many of the private residences were built of stone with heavy barred windows and, if stoutly defended in conjunc- tion with barricades in the streets, might well have balked the invaders of their prey. But the Spanish spirit seemed crushed by the defeat of their choice cavalry on the savanna, and three hours sufficed for the English to make them- selves masters of the whole city. During the fighting flames broke out in several quarters of the town, some think set purposely by the assailants, which was de- nied by Morgan . However caused, the fires raged for days, were still smoldering when the buccaneers left three weeks later, and con- sumed nearly all except the masonry edifices in the city. Imagination balks at the effort to conceive the wretched plight of the 30,000 people of this city, subjected for three weeks to the cruelty, cupidity and lust of the "experienced and ancient pyrates" and the cutthroats of all nation- alities that made up the command of Morgan. Little more than a thousand of the raiders could have remained alive, but all the fighting men of the city were slain, wounded or cowed into un- manly subjec- tion. After the first riotous orgy of drunk- enness'and rapine — though indeed Morgan shrewdly strove to keep his men sober by spread- ing the report that all the wine had been poisoned — the business of loot- ing was taken A WOMAN OF OLD PANAMA THE PIRATES' ORGY OF PLUNDER 95 up seriously. First the churches and government houses had to be ransacked for precious orna- ments and treasure, and herein the robbers met with their first serious disappointment, for on the news of their coming much of the plate had been put on ships and sent out to sea. A brig aground in the harbor was seized by Morgan and sent in pursuit, but the delights of the Island of Taboga, From ceremonial plate to the seamstress's thimble; from the glittering necklace to the wedding ring, everything was raked together into the great common store of plunder. What was easily found was not enough. Wells were searched, floors torn up, walls ripped open and, after all other devices had been employed, prisoners were put to the torture to make them reveal the hiding places of their own and WASH DAY AT TABOGA then as now a pleasure resort, proved superior even to the avariciousness of the Spaniards, and they lingered there over wine cups until the treasure ships had vanished. Rumors still linger that much of the treasure had been buried at Taboga, and that one richly freighted ship had been sunk some place nearby. But frequent treasure-hunting expeditions have come home empty handed. After raking the government buildings from gar- ret to vaults the pirates turned to the private houses. others' valuables. Capt. Morgan led in this activity, as indeed he appears to have been the most villainous of all his crew in the mistreatment of women. After all that could be gathered by these devices had been taken the several thousand prisoners were in- formed that if they wanted to retain their lives and regain their liberty they must pay ransom, fixed in amount according to the . standing in the community and the wealth of the captive. Of course the community was gone and the buccaneers 96 PANAMA AND THE CANAL had taken all of the wealth, but the luckless prisoner was expected to pay neverthe- less and a sur- prising num- ber of them did so. With all these ex- pedients for the extraction of wealth from a subju- gated town, the buccaneers were fain to be satisfied, and, weak from wounds and revelry, according to Esquemeling: "On the 24th of February, of the year 1761, Cap- tain Morgan departed from the city of Panama, or rather from the place where the city of Panama did stand. Of the spoils whereof he carried with him one hundred and seventy-five beasts of carriage, laden with silver, gold and other precious things, besides 600 prisoners more or less, between women, children and slaves." So they plodded back to San Lorenzo whence they :had started on their piratical expedition. It affords a striking illustration of the strictly business methods of these pirates that before reaching the castle Mor- BREAKING WAVES AT OLD PANAMA gan ordered a halt, and had every man searched for valuables, submitting himself to the inquisition. So thorough was the search that even the guns were shaken, up- side down, lest precious stones might be concealed in their barrels. However the buccaneers came to jeer at Morgan's apparent fairness in being searched with the rest, and putting his personal pilferings into the common lot as a piece of duplicity. For the loot of the Panama expedition has been reckoned at sev- eral millions of dollars, and indeed a town of that size, famous for wealth and at a period when the amassing of gold and jewels was a passion, should certainly have produced that much. But when it came to the vital operation of dividing the spoils the ordinary fighting men found that for all their risk, their daring, their wounds, if they so suffered, their hunger and fatigue during a more than four months' campaign, they received about $100 apiece. "Which small sum," says the literary apothecary Esquemeling, who was "buncoed" with the rest, " they thought too little reward for so much labor and such huge and manifest dangers they had so often exposed their lives unto. But Cap- tain Morgan was deaf to all these and many other complaints of this kind, having de- signed in his mind to cheat them of as much as he could." HOW MORGAN PLUNDERED HIS PIRATES 97 Henry Morgan was indeed a practi- cal pirate, who, had he but Hved four hundred years later, could have made vastly more money out of a town of 30,000 people by the mild devices of franchises and bonds, than he did out of Panama with murder, the rack, robbery and rapine for his methods. After setting the example of loyally putting his all into the common store, he assumed the duty of dividing that store. This accomplished to his lik- ing, and knowing that idleness breeds discontent, and that discontent is always hurtful to capital, he set his men to work pulling the Castle of San Lorenzo to pieces. While they were thus engaged, one dark night with favoring winds he hove anchor and with four ships, filled with his English favorites, and laden with the lion's share of the booty, he sailed away from Chagres and from bucca- neering forever. He left behind all the French, Dutch and mongrel pirates — those ancient and ex- perienced ones. He left them some of the poorer ships — much as an eflScient gang of street railway looters leave some rusty rails and decrepit cars to a town they have looted — but saw to it that none was left that could possibly catch up with his fleet. So the deserted buccaneers first fought awhile among themselves, then dis- persed. Some in an amateurish way sacked the town of Keys in Cuba. Others went to Campeche and Honduras. Es- quemeling with a small band went up to Bocadel Toro, now OLD BELL AT REMEDIOS, 1682 embarrassing. the Panama headquarters of the United Fruit Company, whence he made his way back to Europe. There he wrote his "History of the Bucca- neers," which became one of the world's "best sellers," and in which he gave his Captain ]\Iorgan "the worst of it" — a species of satisfaction which is often the only recourse of the literary man who gets tangled up with Big Business. As for Captain Morgan, he was made much of at Jamaica, where the crown's share of the proceeds of his piracy was cheerfully accepted by the governor. But in England there was some embarrassment, for there was no war with Spain and the complete destruction of a Spanish city by a force bearing British flags was at least So by way of showing its repentance and good intent the government announced its pur- pose to suppress buccaneering and all piracy, and to that end created Henry Morgan a baronet and put the commission in his hands — much as we have THE BEETLING CLIFFS OF THE UPPER CHAGRES 98 PANAMA AND THE CANAL THE ROOTS REACH DOWN SEEKING FOR SOIL been accustomed to put politicians on our civil ser- vice commissions, and protected manufacturers on our tariff boards. So as Sir Henry Morgan this most wholesale robber and murderer Central America ever knew ended his days in high respectability. While the ruins of Old Panama compare but un- favorably with those of Porto Bello or San Lorenzo, their proximity to the city of Panama make them a favorite point of interest for tourists. Half a day is ample to give to the drive out and back and to the inspection of the ruins themselves. The extended area over which they are scattered testifies to the size of the obliterated city, while the wide spaces, destitute of any sign of occupation, which intervene between the remaining relics, shows clearly that the greater part of the town must have been built of perishable materials easily swept away at the time of the fire, or slowly disintegrating during the flood of years that have since rolled by. The tower of the Cathedral of St. Augustine alone among the relics still remaining affords any suggestion of grandeur or even of architectural dignity. To reach the ruins you take a horse, a carriage or an automobile for a ride of about five miles over an excellent road laid and main- tained by the Republic of Panama. If you go by horseback the old trail which the pirates used is still traceable and at low tide one can ride along the beach. For the majority the drive along the road, which should be taken in the early morning, is the simpler way, though there was promise in 19 13 that within a few months a trolley line would still further simplify the trip. From Balboa, the Pacific opening of the Panama Canal, and the newest of the world's great ports, to the ruins of Old Panama, founded in 1609 and ob- literated by pirates in 1671, by trolley in two hours! Was ever the past more audaciously linked to the present? Were ever exhibits of the peaceful com- merce of today and the bloody raids of ancient times placed in such dramatic juxtaposition? The road to Old Panama runs through a peaceful grazing country, with a very few plantations. One or two country residences of prosperous Panamanians appear standing well back from the road, but signs of life and of industry are few. The country lies high, is open and free from jungle and in almost any North American state, lying thus close to a town of 40,000 people and adjacent to a district in which the United States is spending some millions of dollars a month, would be platted in additions for miles around, and dotted with the signs of real estate dealers. But the Panamanian mind is not specula- tive, or at any rate soars little above the weekly lottery ticket. So all Uncle Samuel's disbursements THE SCENE OF MORGAN'S GREAT EXPLOIT 99 in the Zone have thus far produced nothing remotely resembling a real estate boom. However as we turn off from the main road toward the sea and the square broken tower of the old cathedral, or Church of St. Augustine, with the ferns springing from the jagged top, and vines twisting out through the dumbly staring windows, real estate and "booms" seem singularly ignoble topics in the presence of this mute spectator of the agonies of a martyred people. For even the dulling mists of the in- terposing centu- ries, even our feeling that the Spaniards suf- fered only the an- guish and the tor- ments which they had themselves meted out to the real owners of the lands they had seized upon, can- not wholly blunt the sense of pity for the women and children, for the husbands and fathers in the city which fell under Morgan's blight. It would be no easy task to gather in the worst purlieus of any American city today a band so wholly lost to shame, to pity and to God as the ruffians who fol- lowed Morgan. What they did to the people on whom their hands reeking with blood were laid 3^^,^^ ^^^^ must be left to Photographing this scene is now prohibited the imagination. The only contemporary record of the sack was written by one of their own number to whom apparently such scenes had become com- monplace, for while his gorge rises at the contempla- tion of his own hard fortune in being robbed and deserted by his chief, he recounts the torture of men and the violation of women in a matter-of-fact way as though all in the day's work. Driving on we come to the arched bridge which formed the main entrance to the town in the day of its downfall. Sturdy it is still, though the public road no longer passes over it, defying the assaults of time and the more disintegrat- ing inroads of the tropical plants w h i c h insinuate themselves into every crevice, prying the stone apart with tender fingers ever har- dening. At once the bridge, none too wide for three to cross abreast, awakens wonder that no Horatius was in all the Spanish armies to keep the bridge as did he of an- cient Rome. But after all the rivu- let which today makes its sluggish way under the arch is no Tiber to hold the invad- ing armj^ at bay. Perhaps it was bigger in Mor- gan's time; today it would be easily TORO POINT as a United States fort is to be erected here 100 PANAMA AND THE CANAL " WHETHER THE TREE OR THE WALL IS STOUTER IS A PROBLEM " forded, almost leapt. At any rate no "Dauntless Three" like those Macaulay sung were there to stay the onr oiling tide of foemen. Hardly have we passed the bridge than a massive vine-embedded ruin on the left of the road stands mute evidence that the Spaniards had forts, if they had but possessed the courage to defend them. This is the Casa Reale, or government house. Its walls of rubble masonry are full two feet thick and have the appearance of having been pierced for musketry. If the buccaneers had any artillery at all, which is doubtful, it was hardly heavy enough to have had any effect against such a wall. Secure within the Casa Reale such a handful of men as held the Alamo against the Mexicans could have resisted Morgan's men indefinitely. But the spirit was lacking. The stout walls of the Casa Reale stand now as evidences of the character of the defenses the people of Panama had if they but had the pluck to use them. Continuing toward the sea the visitor next comes upon the ruins of the Cathedral, which are in so shattered a state as to justify the belief that either the invaders or the Spaniards themselves employed gunpowder to wreck so massive an edifice. The flames and the work of the vegetation could hardly have accomplished such complete destruction. The tower alone retains definite form, rising about fifty feet from a dense jungle, and lined within with vines and clinging trees that use the ancient walls as a support and hasten their disintegration in so doing. It is difficult even to trace the lines of the great church, so thoroughly have its walls been demolished. Some of the massive arches still stand all pendulous with vines. At the water's edge one still finds steps leading down into the sea, and the remains of the old paved road to which at high tide the boats could come with their cargoes of fish and country produce. If one happens to visit the spot at low tide the view looking seaward is as ugly as could well be imagined. The hard sand beach extends only to high water mark. Beyond that for more than a mile seaward extends a dismal range of black mud of about the consistency of putty. Near the shore it is seen to be full of round holes from which crawl unsightly worms and small crabs. E. C. Stedman puts its unsightly appearance in two lines: " The tide still ebbs a league from quay, The buzzards scour the empty bay." Along the strand still stand fragments of the old seawall, and at a considerable distance from the Cathedral ruins you come upon another large build- ing of which little more than the lower walls and the subterranean vaults still have form and coherence. The dungeon into which visitors usually make their way is peculiarly dark, damp and dismal, and the general air of ghoulishness is mightily enhanced by the myriads of bats that hang from the ceiling and whirl and whiz away when intruders light matches to study the moldering masonry. A most interesting feature of this crypt is the great roots of the trees and shrubs that sprung from seeds that had fallen into some crevice and found there soil enough to germi- nate, but not sufficient to support life as the plant grev/ larger. The roots twist and creep along the walls, reaching out for earth below as unerringly as a giant boa creeps sinuously through the jungle. CHAPTER VI REVOLUTIONS AND THE FRENCH REGIME HE history of the Isthmus from the fall of Old Panama to the time when the government of the United States, without any particular pomp or ceremony, took up the picks and shovels the French had laid down and went to work on the Canal, may be passed over here in the light- est and sketchiest way. It is of Panama of the Present, rather than Panama of the Past, that I have to tell even though that past be full of pic- turesque and racy incident. Curious enough is the way in which through all those centuries of lawless no-government, Spanish mis-government, and local self-government, tempered by annual revolutions, there appears always the idea that some day there will be a waterway across the neck of the conti- nent. It was almost as hard for the early Spaniards to abandon the idea that such a natural waterway iii^ w^T^fejj m i Hm 1 i ■*->^;;»..w.4 ■-^ 3 existed as it has been in later years to make the trans-continental railroads understand that the American people intended to create such a strait. The search for the natural waterway had hardly been abandoned when discussion arose as to the practicability of creating an artificial one. In its earlier days this project encountered not only the physical obstacles which we had to overcome, but others springing from the rather exaggerated piety of the time. Yet it was a chaplain to Cortez who first suggested a canal to Philip II of Spain in words that have a good twentieth-century ring to them, though their form be archaic: " It is true." he wrote. "that" mountains obstruct these passes, but if there be mountains there are also hands." That is the spirit in which Uncle Sam ap- SAN PABLO LOCK IN FRENCH DAYS lOI 102 PANAMA AND THE CANAL PART OF THE SEA WALL AT PANAMA preached the Big Job. But when the sturdy chap- lain's appeal came to King Philip he referred it to the priests of his council, who ruled it out upon the scrip- tural injunction, "What God hath joined together let no man put asunder," and they were backed up by a learned prelate on the Isthmus, Fray Josef de Acosta, who averred, "No human power will suffice to demolish the most strong and impenetrable mountains, and solid rocks which God has placed between the two seas, and which sustain the fury of the two oceans. And when it would be to men possible it would in my opinion be very proper to fear the chastisement of heaven for wishing to cor- rect the works which the Creator with greatest de- liberation and foresight ordained in the creation of this universe." Doubtless the Fray de Acosta was the more ortho- dox, but we like better the spirit of the cleric who held the somewhat difficult post of spiritual adviser to Cortez. His belief that "if there are mountains there are also hands" is good doctrine, and we can believe that the good father would have liked to have seen some of Col. Goethal's steam shovels biting into those mountains at five cubic yards a bite. It seems strange that the four canal routes over the respective merits of which the Senate of the United States was engaged in seemingly interminable wrangle only a few years ago — Nicaragua, Darien, Panama and Tehuantepec — should have been sug- gested by Cortez in the sixteenth century. Nearly 250 years before the birth of the republic destined to dig the canal this stout explorer from old Spain laid an unerring finger upon the only routes which it could follow. Doubtless it was as well that no effort was made at the time, yet it would be unwise for us with smug twentieth-century self-sufficiency to assert that no other age than ours could have put the project through. Perhaps the labor and skill THE SCOTTISH SETTLEMENT IN PANAMA 103 that raised the mighty city of Palmyra, or built the massive aqueducts that in ruins still span the Roman Campagna, or carved the Colossi of the Egyptian desert, might have been equal to the Panama problem. In 1 8 14 the Spanish cortes ordered surveys made for a canal, but nothing came of it, and the great project lay quiescent as long as Spain's power in the Isthmus remained unshaken. More by the indifference of other nations than by any right of their own, the Spanish had assumed sovereignty over all of South and Central America. That they held the country by virtue of a papal bull — such as that may be — and by right of conquest is undeniable. But men begun to say that the Pope had given Spain something he never owned, while so far as conquest was concerned Morgan had taken from the Spanish all they ever won by force of arms on the Isthmus. He did not hold what he had taken because he was a pirate not a pioneer. The only serious effort to colonize in the Panama region by any people, save Spaniards, was the founding of a colony of Scotch Presbyterians, headed by one William Patterson, who had occupied a Scotch pulpit. Beside theology he must have known something of finance, for he organized, and was one of the first directors of, the Bank of England. His colonization project in Panama was broadly conceived, but badly executed. Taking the rich East India Company for a model he secured a fran- chise from Scotland, granting him a monopoly of Scottish trade in the Indies in return for an annual tribute of one hogshead of tobacco. Capitalizing his company for $600,000, he backed the shares with his reputation as a founder of the bank and saw the capital over-subscribed in London. But the success woke up his rivals. They worked on the King, persuaded him to denounce the action taken in Scotland and pushed a law through the English Parliament outlawing the Scotch company in Eng- land. In every country the people interested in the established companies fought the interloper who was trying to break into their profitable demesne. But the Scotch stuck to their guns. They rallied at first about Patterson as in later years the French flocked to the support of De Lesseps. Ships were built in Amsterdam, pistols were bought by whole- sale, brandy and bibles were both gathered in large quantities, and in 1768 volunteers were called for to join the expedition. Every settler was promised fifty acres of agricultural land and one fifty-foot town lot. Politics had bothered Patterson at the outset by arraying the English against the Scotch. Now religion added to the dissension. The church and the kirk factions — or the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians — fell afoul of each other. The kirk carried the executive council and Patterson, the THE PELICANS IN THE BAY OF PANAMA 104 PANAMA AND THE CANAL only man who knew anything about the expedition, was permitted to accompany it only as an ordinary settler. Graft stepped in and though the colonists paid for six months' provisions they discovered when far out at sea that they had but enough for two. Moreover nobody on the ships knew where they were going to settle, for they sailed under sealed orders. When these were opened and the tidings Spaniards from the land. But illness held the 900 colonists gripped, and malaria, the ruling pest of those tropical shores, is not wont to stimulate a militant spirit. They had settled on the Atlantic coast in the Darien region, as far from the rich traffic of the East Indies as though they were in their old Caledonian homes. Curiously enough they made no effort to get across to the Pacific, ROAD FROM PANAMA TO LA BOCA spread that Panama and not the East Indies was the destination, there was renewed distrust and dis- affection. The story of this luckless enterprise is short and dismal. On the voyage out forty-four of the adven- turers died, and after landing the deaths continued with melancholy regularity. They were spared trouble with the Indians who, on learning that they were no friends to the Spaniards, welcomed them warmly, and urged them to join in driving the whence only could trade be conducted, but perhaps that was as well, for the Spaniards though much broken by the recent invasion of the buccaneers would have resisted such an advance to their utmost. So the unhappy colonists of New Caledonia found themselves on a miasmatic bit of land, remote from anything like civilization, with no sign of trade to engage their activities, an avowed enemy at their back and surrounded by Indians, the price of whose friendship was a declaration of war upon the Span- DISASTER BESET THE SCOTCH COLONISTS 10 = Photo by Underwood & Underwood THE CITY PARK OF COLON iards. To make matters worse, the King issued a proclamation prohibiting all governors of English colonies in the West Indies from giving them aid or comfort, denouncing them as outlaws. Disheartened, the first colony broke up and sailed away, just when the Company was dis- patching two more ships from Scotland. The fugitives sailed for New York, and on one of their ships carrying 250 men, 150 are said to have died before reaching that port. As for the new colonists, they reached the deserted fort of St. Andrew, and saw the mute evidences of death and despair. From the Indians they learned the details of the story, and a great majority voted to sail away with- out further delay. Twelve however elected to stop, and being landed with a generous supply of provi- sions, kept foothold in the colony until the third expedition arrived. This consisted of four ships, which had left the Clyde with about 1300 colonists. About 160 however died on the way out, and the survivors were mightily distressed when instead of finding a thriving colony of a thou- sand or more awaiting them, they dis- covered only twelve Scotchmen living miserably in huts with the Indians. The imaginative prospectus writer seems to have been no less active and engaging at that time than in these days of mining promotions, and many of the new colonists had come in the expectation of finding a land watered by springs, the waters of which were 'as soft as milk and very nourish- ing," a land wherein people lived 150 years, and to die at ' 125 was to be cut off in the flower of one's youth. What they found was twelve haggard Scotchmen in a primeval forest, ill-fed, un- clothed, dependent largely on the charity of the In- dians, and who, so far from looking confidently forward to an hundred more years of life cried dolorously to the newcomers, "Take us hence or we perish." The new colonists, however, had pluck. Stifling their disappointment, they disembarked and settled down to make the colony a success. According to the records they had brought five forces for disin- tegration and fa lure along with them — namely four ministers and a most prodigious lot of brandy. The ancient chroniclers do not say upon which of these rests the most blame for the disasters that followed. The ministers straightaway set up to be rulers of the colony. When stockades should be a-building all were engaged in erecting houses for them. As but two could preach in the space of one Sunday, they designated two holy days weekly whereon they preached such resounding sermons that ' ' the regular service frequently lasted twelve hours without any interruption." Nor would they do other work than sermonizing. As for the brandy, all the records of the colony agree that much too much of it and of the curious native drinks was used by all, and that the ministers themselves were wont to reinvigorate themselves after their pulpit exertions by mighty potations. Yet the colony was not wholly without a certain CHILDREN IN A NATIVE HUT io6 PANAMA AND THE CANAL sturdy self reliance. Seeing it persist despite all obstacles, the Spaniards dispatched a force of sol- diers from Panama to destroy it. Campbell L^ .g^ B™»|«^1^ MiiiiiEiirii,,., -^ ^^:'-^i-m |,-S-X ^i^M':,- ■aiiir"! fifiii ig iS^ . ' m HHDIHHHHiHHliU^firT^% ;!«MHHHUwaikt..i '■ ■ p--' : «^**, .^!„a|«M| 1 m- : .■"" " * •*• mf 3H- iP |m iSSW^SBSPSyWS^^ * ' I^^^S ^a.. ^9 gi^. "IZZ. -^ nii; WATER FRONT OF PANAMA waylaid them in the jungle and overthrew them. Then the King of Spain became alarmed and sent eight Spanish men-of-war to make an end of these interlopers — the King of England and Scotland coldly leaving them to their fate. But they fought so bravely that in the end the Spanish, though their fleet had been reenforced by three ships, were obliged to grant them capitulation with the honors of war, and they " marched out with their colors fly- ing and drums beat- ing, together with arms and ammunition, and with all their goods." So ended the effort to make of Darien an outpost of Scotland. In the effort 2000 lives and over £200,000 had been lost. Macaulay explains it by saying, "It was folly to suppose that men born and bred within ten degrees of the Arctic circle would enjoy excel- lent health within ten degrees of the equator." But Lord Macaulay forgot to reckon on the hostility of the East India Company, whose monopoly was threatened, the plenteousness of the brandy and, the zeal of the four ministers. After the expulsion of the Scotch, the dom- ination of the Isthmus by the Spaniards was never again seriously menaced by any foreign power. All the vast South and Central American domain was lost to Spain, not by the attacks of her Eu- ropean neighbors, but by the revolt of their people against a gov- ernment which was at one time inefficient and tyrannical. The French Revolution and the Napoleonic upheaval in Europe found their echo in South America, where one after another the various states threw off the Spanish yoke. But Panama, THE WATER GATE OF PANAMA then known as Terra Firma, was slow to join in the revolutionary activities of her neighbors. It is true that in 1 812 the revolutionists became so active in Bogota, the capital of the province, that the seat of government was temporarily removed to Panama City. But the country as a whole was sluggish. THE REPEATED REVOLUTIONS OF PANAMA 107 'Four classes of citizens, European Spaniards, their sons, born on the Isthmus, and called Creoles, the Indians and the negroes, made up the population and were too diverse by birth and nature to unite for any patriotic purpose. Accordingly through the period of breaking shackles, which made Bolivar famous the world over and created the great group of republics in South America, the state of which the Isthmus was a part remained quiescent. In 1814 revolutionists vainly tried to take Porto Bello, but that famous fortress which never resisted a foreign foe successfully, beat off the patriots. Panama was at this time in high favor at Madrid because of its loyalty and the Cortes passed resolutions for the building of a canal, but went no further. But all the time the revolutionary leaven was working be- neath the surface. In 1821 a field marshal from Spain, charged with the task of crushing out the revolution in Colombia and Ecuador, stripped Porto Bello, San Lorenzo and Panama of the greater part of their garrisons and took them to Guayaquil. By bribes and promises the local patriots persuaded the few soldiers remaining to desert and, with no possibility of resistance, the independence of Panama from Spain was declared. Early in 1822 Panama became the Department of the Isthmus in the Republic of Colombia. It would be idle to describe, even to enumerate, all the revolutions which have disquieted the Isthmus since it first joined Colombia in repudiating the Spanish rule. They have been as thick as insects in the jungle. No physical, social or commercial ties bound Panama to Colombia at any time during their long association. A mountain range divided the two countries and between the cities of Panama and Bogota there was no communication bj^ land. In foreign commerce the province of Panama ex- ceeded the parent state, while the possession of the shortest route across the Isthmus was an asset of which both Bogotans and Panamanians keenly realized the value. Revolutions were annual occurrences, sometimes hard fought, for the people of Panama have plenty of courage in the field; sometimes ended with the first battle. The name of the parent state has been sometimes Colombia, sometimes New Granada; Panama has at times been independent, at others a state of the Federation of New Granada; at one time briefly allied with Ecuador and Venezuela. In 1846 the volume of North American travel across the Fhoto by Underwood a- Underwood ENTRANCE TO MT. HOPE CEMETERY io8 PANAMA AND THE CANAL Isthmus became so great that the United States entered into a treaty with New Granada in which we guaranteed to keep the Isthmus open for transit. That and the building, by American capital of the Panama Railroad, made us a directly interested party in all subsequent revolutions. Of these there were plenty. President Theodore Roosevelt de- fending in 1903 the diplomatic methods by which he "took" Panama, enumerated no fewer than fifty-three revolutions in the fifty-seven years that had elapsed since the signing of the treaty. He summed up the situation thus: "The above is only a partial list of the revolutions, rebellions, insurrections, riots, and other outbreaks that have occurred during the period in question; yet they number fifty-three for the last fifty-seven years. It will be noted that one of them lasted nearly three years before it was quelled ; another for nearly a year. In short, the experience of nearly half a century has shown Colombia to be utterly incapable of keeping order on the Isthmus. Only the active interference of the United States has en- abled her to preserve so much as a semblance of sovereignty. Had it not been for the exercise by the United States of the police power in her interest, her connection with the Isthmus would have been severed long ago." We are apt to think of these revolutions as mere riots, uprisings somewhat after the sort of Fal- staff's seven men in buckram, and savoring much of the opera bouffe. Such, to a great extent they were, and curiously enough none of them, except for its outcome, was less serious or dignified than the final one which won for Panama its freedom from Co- lombia, and for the United States the ten miles' strip across the ocean called the Canal Zone. That was perhaps the only revolution in history by which was created a new and sovereign state, and the issue of which was finally determined by the inability of a CATHEDRAL PLAZA, PANAMA The building in the center was by turns the French and the American Administration Building EARLY PROJECTORS OF A PANAMA CANAL 109 AVENIDA CENTRALE The building with the rounded corner balcony is the American Consulate commanding general to pay the fares for his troops over forty-eight miles of railroad. Of that, how- ever, more hereafter. Of course, during all the revolutions and counter revolutions the idea of the canal had steadily grown. England at one time took a mild interest in it and sent one Horatio Nelson to look over the land. The young naval officer's health failed him and he returned to become in later years the hero of Trafal- gar and the Nile. Later, the great German scientist. Baron von Humboldt, in the course of a famous voyage to South America, spent some time on the Isthmus, and wrote much of its natural features, enumerating nine routes for a canal including of course the one finally adopted. Louis Napoleon, though never on the Isthmus, dreamed out the possi- bilities of a canal when he was a prisoner in the fortress of Ham. Had he succeeded in maintaining jMax- imilian on the throne of Mexico he might have made the Isthmian history very different. Among our own people, De Witt Clinton, builder of the Erie Canal, and Henry Clay, were the first to plan for an American canal across the Isthmus, but without taking practical steps to accomplish it. Canal schemes, however, were almost as numerous as revolutions in the years preceding 1903. Darien, Panama, Tehuantepec, Nicaragua have all been considered at various times, and the last named for some time was a very close second to Panama in favor. There is reason to believe that the govern- ment of the United States deliberately "nursed" the Nicaragua project in order to exact better terms from Colombia, which held the Panama route at an exorbitant figure. no PANAMA AND THE CANAL ANCON HILL AT SUNSET The honor of actually inaugurating the canal work must ever iDelong to the French, as the honor of completing it will accrue to us. It is not the first time either that the French and the Americans worked together to accomplish something on this continent. Yorktown and Panama ought to be re- garded as chapters of the story of a long partner- ship. In 1876 Ferdinand de Lesseps, with the glory of having dug the Suez Canal still untarnished, became interested in the Pan- ama situation as the result of representa- tions made by a French engineer, Napoleon B. Wyse. Lieut; Wyse had made a survey of the Isthmus and, in connection with Gen. Stephen Turr, a Hun- garian, had secured a concession from Co- lombia to run ninety- nine years after the completion of the canal, with a payment to Colombia of $250,- 000 annually after the seventy-fifth year had expired. This fran- chise was transferable by sale to any other private company but could not be sold to a government — a pro- viso which later com- plicated greatly the negotiations with the United States. De Lesseps was in- stantly interested. The honors which had been heaped upon him as the result of his successful operation at Suez were very grate- ful to him. The French temperament is particularly avid of praise and public honor. Moreover, he sincerely be- lieved in the practicability of the plan and, neither at the outset or later, did any one fully enlighten him as to the prodigious obstacles to be encoun- tered. Lieut. Wyse had interested a group of financiers who scented in the scheme a chance for great profits, and to their project the name of De Lesseps was all important. For advertising pur- poses it had the value of that of Roosevelt today. To FliGto bu Undcrmi.id & Underwood ABANDONED FRENCH MACHINERY ON THE CANAL SEA LEVEL OR LOCK CANAL III launch the project successfuUy money was needed, and this they found. Some sort of professional ap- proval, in addition to the De Lesseps name was de- sirable and this they provided by calling to- gether an In- ternat io n al Scientific Con- gress at Paris to discuss the great under- taking. One hundred and sixty-four dele- gates were present, of whom forty- two were engi- neers and only eleven Ameri- cans. It was charged at the time that the congress was more political than scientific and further- more that it was "packed" so as to regis- ter only the will of De Les- seps, who in turn recom- mended in the main such measures as the syndicate putting up the money desired. However, the Congress gave a quasi-public and scientific appearance to a project which was really conceived only as a money-making proposition by a group of financiers. There was and has since been bitter criticism of the vote by which the Congress declared for a sea-level canal — a decision which the French themselves were forced to reverse and which the United States definitely abandoned early in its work. In the French Con- OVERWHELMED BY THE JUNGLE gress there were less than lOO of the 164 delegates present when the vote was taken. Seventy-eight voted for sea-level and a majority of the engineers voted against it. In my description of the canal work the funda- 112 PANAMA AND THE CANAL A LOTTERY TICKET SELLER mental dif- ferences be- tween the respective advantages of the sea- level and the lock type of canal will continually reappear. At this moment it is enough to say that the obstacles to the sea- level plan are to be found in Culebra Hill and the C h a g r e s River. In the lock type of canal the cut at Culebra is 495 feet below the crest of Gold Hill and 364 feet below the crest of Contractor's Hih opposite. The top width of this cut is over half a mile. To carry the canal to sea-level would mean a further cut of eighty-five feet with vastly en- hanced liability of slides. As for the Chagres River, that tricky stream crosses the line of the old French canal twenty- three times. As the river is sometimes three or four feet deep one day and nearly fifty feet deep at the same point the next — a tur- bid, turbulent, roaring torrent, carrying trees, huts and boulders along with it — the canal could obviously not exist with the Chagres in its path. The French device was to "dam the stream some miles above the point at which the canal first crossed it and lead it away through an artificial channel into the Pacific instead of into the Atlantic, where it now empties. This task the Ameri- can engineers have avoided by damming the Chagres at Gatun, and making a great lake eighty-five feet above the level of the sea through which the canal extends and which covers and obliterates the twenty-three river crossings which embarrassed the engineers of the sea-level canal. It is fair to say, however, that today (i9i3),with the lock canal approaching completion, there is a very large and intelligent body of Americans who still hold that the abandonment of the sea-level plan was an error. And it is a curious fact that while De Lesseps was accused of "packing" his congress so as to vote down the report for a lock canal which a majority of the engineers voting favored, Roosevelt, after a majority of his "Inter- national Board of Consulting Engineers" had voted for a sea-level canal, set aside their recommendation and ordered the lock type instead. Immediately after the adjournment of the Inter- national Congress at Paris the stock of the canal company, $60,000,000 as a first issue, was offered to the investing public. It was largely over-sub- scribed. The French are at once a thrifty and an emotional people. Their thrift gives them instant '''S ♦; ^ MACHINERY SEEMINGLY AS HOPELESS AS THIS WAS RECOVERED AND SET TO WORK A RELIC OF THE FRENCH DAYS 113 ► . ■■■■ *• ; > t«i4::^PKH j K w.wr ^ b£i i. Mkl * ^^s ^■^ < Tiijinff ^HRv a ' A*^ - 'V '- "V , . -^ ''c^ iHI J^\>Pjfc- fc^Vaj^^ . ■<;->■■ ■ -4!^ BIK ^.i^s % ' i \ -iJr^ H^H^^ i ;■'>:: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ • • " ■' 1:': ■ ■ mBl^^^m- ■■'■ ..'^'n^>^~ THE POWER OF THE JUNGLE Note how the tree has grown around and into this steel dump car at San Pablo 114 PANAMA AND THE CANAL command of such sums of ready cash as astound financiers of other nations. Their emotional- ism leads them to support any great national enterprise that promises glory for La Patrie, has in it a touch of romance and withal seems eco- nomically safe. The canal enter- prise at the out- set met all these conditions, and the commanding figure of De Lesseps at its head, the man who had made Africa an island and who dogmatically declared, "the Panama Canal will be more easily begun, finished and maintained than the Suez Canal," lured the francs from their hiding places in woolen stockings or under loose hearth stones. It has been the practice of many writers upon the canal to ridicule the unsuccessful effort of the French to complete it; to expatiate upon the theatrical dis- play which attended their earlier operations, and the reckless extravagance which attended the period when the dire possibility of failure first appeared to their vision; to overlook the earnest and effective LA rOLIE DINGLER This house, built by the French for $150,000, was sold for S25.00 by the Americans work do.ne by the Frenchmen ac- tually on the Isthmus while riveting atten- tion on the black- mailers and para- sites in Paris who were destroying the structure at its very founda- tions. It is sig- nificant that none of the real work- ers on the canal do this. Talk with the engi- neers and you will find them enthusiastic over the engineering work done by the French. Those sturdy, alert Americans who are now putting the Big Job through will take pains to give their predecessors the fullest credit for work done, for dirt moved, for surveys made and for machinery designed — a great lot of it is in use on the line today, including machines left exposed in the jungle twenty years. Hundreds of their buildings are still in use. If, after listening to the honest and generous praise expressed by our engineers, the visitor will go out to the cemetery of Mount Hope, near Cristobal, and read the lines on the headstones of French boys who came out full of hope and ambition to be cut down at twenty-two, twenty-five — all NEAR THE PACIFIC ENTRANCE TO THE CANAL The suction dredge is an inheritance from the French and still working SOME OF THE FINISHED WORK OF THE FRENCH 115 boyish ages — he will reflect that it is ill to laugh because the forlorn hope does not carry the breast- works, but only opens the way for the main army. And there are many little French graveyards scat- tered about the Isthmus which make one who comes upon them unawares feel that the really vital thing about the French connection with the canal was not that the first blast which it had been prepared to celebrate with some pomp failed to explode, or that the young engineers did not understand that cham- largely by our force in carrying material for the Gatun dam. At the Pacific entrance they had dug a narrow channel three miles long which we are still using. We paid the French company $40,000,000 for all its rights on the Isthmus. There are various rumors as to who got the money. Some, it is believed, never went far from New York, for with all their thrift the French are no match for our high financiers. But whoever got the money we got a good bargain. The estimate of our own commission WHERE THE FRENCH DID THEIR BEST WORK The greatest amount of excavations by the French was in Culebra Cut pagne mixed but badly with a humid and malarial climate, but that the flower of a great and generous nation gave their lives in a struggle with hostile nature before science had equipped man with the knowledge to make the struggle equal. Today along a great part of our canal line the marks of the French attainments are apparent. From Limon Bay, at the Atlantic end of the canal, our engineers for some reason determined upon an entirely new line for our canal, instead of following the French waterway, which was dug for seven miles to a depth of fifteen feet, and for eight miles further, seven feet deep. This canal has been used very in 191 1 values the physical property thus trans- ferred at $42,799,826. Bad luck, both comic and tragic, seemed to attend the French endeavors. Count De Lesseps, v.'ith a national fondness for the dramatic, arranged two ceremonies to properly dignify the actual beginning of work upon the canal. The first was to be the breaking of ground for the Pacific entrance, which was to be at the mouth of the Rio Grande River in the Bay of Panama. A distinguished company gathered on the boat chartered for the occasion at Panama, and there was much feasting, speaking and toasting. Every one was so imbued wdth enthusiasm Ii6 PANAMA AND THE CANAL AN OLD SPANISH CHURCH This edifice, still standing at Nata, is said to be the oldest church in Panama that no one thought of so material a thing as the tide. On the Pacific coast the tide rises and falls twenty feet or more, and while the guests were emptying their glasses the receding tide was emptying the bay whither they were bound. When they arrived they found that nearly two miles of coral rock and mud flats separated them from the shore where the historic sod was to be turned. Ac- cordingly, excavation w^as begun pro forma in a champagne box filled with earth on the deck of the ship. The little daughter of De Lesseps dealt the first blow of the pick, followed by representatives of Colombia. To complete the ceremony the Bishop of Panama gravely blessed the work thus auspiciously begun, and the canal builders steamed back to Panama. Later, the same party assembled to witness the first blast at Culebra — for the French made the first attack on that redoubtable fortress, which after the lapse of thirty-five years is stubbornly resisting our American sappers and miners. But after due preparations, including wine, the fair hand of Mile. Ferdinande De Lesseps pressed the button — and nothing happened. Some fault in the connections made the electric spark impotent, and the chroniclers of the time do not record exactly when the blast was actually fired. But in the official canal paper the ceremony was described -as "perfectly successful," and the reporter added that picturesque detail which Koko said ' ' imparts an artistic verisimilitude to an other- PHoto by Underwood & Underwood JUNCTURE OF FRENCH AND AMERICAN CANALS The American Canal is the wider, and affords the more direct route to the sea THE FINANCIAL ABERRATIONS OF DE LESSEPS 117 PART OF THE TOLL OF LIFE This cemetery on the westerly slope of Ancon Hill is one of the Zone's pathetic spots wise bald and uninteresting statement of fact," by saying that the rocks were "much less resistant than we had expected." These needless ceremonies and the false reports which attended them were merely what in our cyni- cal age and nation are called press-agent "stunts," and were necessitated by the need for interesting the French people in the work, lest they let the mar- ket for the shares slump. They were early symp- toms of the evil that culminated in the revelations of blackmail and forced tribute paid the French press when the final collapse was impending and inevit- able. De Lesseps indeed was a master in the art of "working the press," and had he confined his ac- tivities to that, without interfering with his engi- neers, history might have told a different story of his canal management. But lest doubt should seize upon would-be investors, he continually cut down the estimates of his engineers, and issued flamboyant proclamations announcing triumphs that had not been won and prophesying a rate of progress that never could be attained. When his very capable Technical Commission, headed by Col. George M. Totten, the builder of the Panama Railroad, esti- mated the total cost of the canal at $168,600,000, he took the report to his cabin on shipboard and there arbitrarily, with no possible new data, lopped off about $37,000,000. Even at that, he calmly cap- italized his company at 600,000,000 francs or $120,- 000,000, though his own estimate of the cost of the canal exceeded that amount by more than $12,000,- 000. One-half of his capital stock or $60,000,000 the Count had reserved for the United States, but sold not a dollar's worth. The $60,000,000 first offered in France was, however, eagerly subscribed. Of course it was wholly insufficient. We know, what the unfortunate French investors Ii8 PANAMA AND THE CANAL Photo by Underwood tt I'luhnrood THE ANCON HOSPITAL GROUNDS The beauty of the grounds is due to early French planning riers of disease germs was not dreamed of. Be- yond building ex- cellent hospitals for the sick, some of which we still use, and dosing both sick and well liberally with qui- nine, they had no plan of campaign against "Yellow Jack." As a re- sult, death stalked grimly among them, and the sto- ries written of his ravages are ghast- ly. On the south side of Ancon Hill, where the quarry has gashed the hillside, stood, could not, and their directors probably did not know, until recently, a large frame house, built for Jules that the canal could never be built by a private Dingier, first director-general of canal work. It company seeking profit. Neither could it be built by private contract, as we discovered after some discour- aging experiences of our own. The French builders were at the mercy of the stock market. A hurtful rumor, true or false, might at any time shut off their money supplies. Experience has pretty thoroughly demonstrated that the confidence of the investing public cannot long be maintained by false reports or futile promises, but both of these devices the French worked until the inevitable catas- trophe. Disease on the Isthmus cooperated with distrust in Paris to bring about failure. The French in 1880 knew nothing of the modern scientific sys- tems for checking yellow-fever con- tagion and the spread of malaria. a sunken railroad The part mosquitoes play as car- Nine feet below the boat is the roadbed of the old Panama railroad YELLOW FEVERS' TOLL OF FRENCH LIVES 119 The low houses were built by the French : all screening added by Americans cost $150,000, though perhaps worth a third of that sum, and was called "La Folie Dingier." But it was a rather tragic folly for poor Dingier, for be- fore he had fairly moved into it his wife, son and daughter died of yellow fever and he returned to Paris to die too of a broken heart. His house, in which he anticipated such happiness, became a smallpox hospital, and was finally sold for $25 with the stip- ulation that the purchaser remove it. A dinner was given M. Henri Boinne, secretary- general of the company. Some one remarked that there were thirteen at the table, whereupon the guest of honor remarked gaily that as he was the last to come he would have to pay for all. In two weeks he was dead — yellow fever. Others at the dinner followed him. Of the members of one sur- veying party on the upper waters of the Chagres — a region I myself visited without a suggestion of ill effects — every one, twenty-two in all, were pros- trated by disease and ten died. Bunau-Varilla, whose name is closely linked with the canal, says: "Out of every one hundred individuals arriving on the Isthmus, I can say without exaggeration that only twenty have been able to remain at their posts at the working stations, and even in that number many who were able to present an appearance of health had lost much of their courage." Col. Gorgas tells of a party of eighteen young Frenchmen who came to the Isthmus, all but one of whom died within a month. The Mother Superior of the nursing sisters in the French hospital at Ancon lost by fever twenty-one out of twenty-four sisters who had accompanied her to the Isthmus. How great was the total loss of French lives can only be guessed. The hospital records show that at Ancon, 1041 patients died of yellow fever. Col. Gorgas figures that as many died outside the hos- pital. All the French records are more or less in- complete and their authenticity doubtful because apprehension for the tender hopes and fears of the shareholders led to the suppression of unpleasant facts. The customary guess is that two out of every three Frenchmen who went to the Isthmus died there. Col. Gorgas, who at one time figures the total loss during the French regime at 16,500, recently raised his estimate to 22,000, these figures of course including negro workmen. Little or no I20 PANAMA AND THE CANAL effort was made to induce sanitary living, as under the Americans, and so ignorant were the French — as indeed all physicians were at that time — of the causes of the spread of yellow fever, that they set the legs of the hospital beds in shallow pans of water to keep the ants from creeping to the beds. The ants were stopped, but the water bred hosts of wrigglers from which came the deadly stegomyia mosquito, which carries the yellow-fever poison from the patient to the well person. Had the hospital been designed to spread instead of to cure disease its managers could not have planned better. It is a curi- ous fact that, in a situation in which the toll of death is heaviest, man is apt to be most reck- less and riot- ous in his pleas ure s. The old drink- ing song of the English guardsmen beleaguered during the Indian mutiny voices the almost univer- sal desire of strong men to flaunt a gay defiance in the face of death: "Stand! Stand to your glasses steady, 'Tis all we have left to prize, One cup to the dead already, Hurrah, for the next that dies". Wine, wassail and, I fear, women were much in evidence during the hectic period of the French activities. The people of the two Isthmian towns still speak of it as the temps de luxe. Dismal thrift was banished and extravagance was the rule. Salaries were prodigious. Some high officials were paid from $50,000 to $100,000 a year with houses, carriages, traveling expenses and uncounted inci- dentals. Expenditures for residences were lavish, and the nature of the structures still standing shows NEGRO QUARTERS, FRENCH TOWN OF EMPIRE Paving and sanitary arrangements due to American regime that graft was the chief factor in the cost. The director-general had a $40,000 bath-house, and a private railway car costing $42,000 — which is cur- iously enough almost exactly $1000 for each mile of the railroad it traversed. The hospital buildings at Colon cost $1,400,000 and one has but to look at them today to wonder how even the $400,000 was spent. The big graft that finally was one of the prime factors in wrecking the company was in Paris, but enough went on in Colon and Panama to make those two towns as full of easy money as a mining camp after a big strike. The pleasures of such a society are not re- fined. Gam- bling and drinking were the less seri- ous vices. A French com- mentator of the time re- marks, ' ' Most of the com- mercial business of Panama is transacted standing and imbibing cocktails — always the eternal cocktail ! Afterward, if the consumer had the time and money to lose, he had only to cross the hall to find himself in a little room, crowded with people where roulette was going on. Oh this roulette, how much it has cost all grades of canal employees! Its proprietor must make vast profits. Admission is absolutely free ; whoever wishes may join in the play. A demo- cratic mob pushes and crowds around the table. One is elbowed at the same time by a negro, almost in rags, anxiously thrusting forward his ten sous, and by a portly merchant with his pockets stuffed with piasters and bank notes". These towns, which bought and consumed French champagnes and other wines by the shipload, could not afford to build a water system. Water was peddled in the streets by men carrying great jars, THE VALUE OF THE FRENCH WORK 121 or conducting carts with tanks. There were mil- lions for roulette, poker and the lottery, but nothing for sewers or pavements and during the wet season the people, natives and French both, waded ankle deep in filth which would have driven a blooded Berkshire hog from his sty. When from these man- created conditions of drink and dirt, disease was bred and men died like the vermin among which they lived, they blamed the climate, or the Chagres River. Amidst it all the work went on. So much stress has been laid upon the riot in the towns that one forgets the patient digging out on the hills and in the jungle. In 1912 the Secretary of the United States Canal Commission estimated the amount of excavation done by the French, useful to our canal, at 29,709,000 cubic yards worth $25,389,000. That by no means represented all their work, for our shift in the line of the canal made much of their excavation valueless. Between Gold Hill and Con- tractor's Hill in the Culebra Cut, where our struggle with the obstinate resistance of nature has been fiercest, the French cut down 161 feet, all of it serviceable to us. Their surveys and plats are inval- uable, and their machinery, which tourists seeing some pieces abandoned to the jungle condemn in the lump, has been of substantial value to us both for use and for sale. But under the conditions as they found them, the French could never have completed the canal. Only a government could be equal to that task. Presi- dent Roosevelt found to his own satisfaction at least that neither private contract nor civilian man- agement was adequate. Most emphatically, if the desire for profit was to be the sole animating force the canal could never be built at all. When the FILTH THAT WOULD DRFVE A BERKSHTRE FEOM HIS STY A typical scene in the negro quart-ers of Colon during the period of French activity in Panama 122 PANAMA AND THE CANAL Photo Oy Underwood and Underwood CANAL VALLEY NEAR PEDRO MIGUEL Through the line of hills in the background extends the deepest part of the Culebra Cut discovery that the canal enterprise would never be a ''big bonanza" dawned on the French stockholders distrust was rapidly succeeded by panic. Vainly did De Lesseps repeat his favorite formula, "The canal will be built." Vainly did the officers of the company pay tribute to the blackmailers that sprung up on every side — journalists, politicians, dis- charged employees, every man who knew a weak point in the company's armor. Reorganizations, new stock issues, changes of plan, appeals for gov- ernment aid, bond issues,- followed one after another. The sea-level canal was abandoned and a lock canal substituted. After repeated petitions the French Chamber of Deputies, salved with some of the spoil, authorized an issue of lottery bonds and bankruptcy was temporarily averted. A new com- pany was formed but the work languished, just enough in fact being done to keep the concession alive. After efforts to enlist the cooperation of the United States, the company in despair offered to sell out altogether to that government, and after that proffer the center of interest was transferred from Paris to Washington. The French had spent in all about $260,000,000 and sacrificed about 2000 French lives before they drew the fires from their dredges, left their steam shovels in the jungle and turned the task over to the great American Republic. CHAPTER VII THE UNITED STATES BEGINS WORK HE probable failure of the French became apparent some years before the actual collapse occurred and public opinion in the United States was quite ready for the assump- tion of the work and its expense by our govern- m e n t . decisive. The French had no rights that they could sell except the right of veto conferred by their ownership of the Panama Railroad. Their franchise from Colombia expressly prohibited its transfer to any other government, so it was un- salable. But the charter of the Panama Rail- road, which the French had acquired, provided that no interoceanic canal should be built in Co- Of course that opinion was not wholly spontaneous — public opinion rarely is, notwithstanding the idealists. There were many parties in interest who found it profitable to enlist various agen- cies for awakening public opin- ion in this country to the point of buying the French property and saving something out of the wreck for the French stockholders. But, as a matter of fact, little artificial agitation was needful. The people of the United States readily agreed that a trans-isth- mian canal should be built and owned by the United States government. There was honest difference of opinion as to the most practicable route and even today in the face of the victory over nature at Panama there are many who hold that the Nica- ragua route would have been better. Naturally the start made by the French had something to do with turning the decision in favor of the Isthmus, but it was not Photo by Underwood & Ujidcrwood PANAMA SOLDIERS GOING TO CHURCH 123 124 PANAMA AND THE CANAL lombia without the consent of the railroad corpora- tion. This to some extent gave the French the whiphand. What they had to seU was the con- trolling stock of the railroad company, the land they had acquired in Colombia, the machinery on the spot and the work they had completed. But all of this was of little value without a franchise from Colombia and the one the French held could not be transferred to a govern- ment, and was of little worth anyway as it would expire in 19 lo, unless the canal were completed by that year — a physical impossi- bility. In 1898 the race of the battleship "Oregon" around Cape Horn to join the United States fleet off Cuba in the Spanish - American war offered just tne graphic and specific argument necessary to fix the de- termination of the American people to dig that canal and to own it. That voyage of 10,000 miles which might have been avoided by a ditch fifty miles long revolted the common sense of the nation, and the demand for instant action on the canal question was universal. Accordingly in 1899 President McKinley appointed what was known as the Walker Commission, because headed by Admiral John G. Walker, to investigate all Central American routes. They had the data collected during almost a century at their disposal and very speedily settled down to the alternative between the Panama and the Nicaragua routes. Over this choice controversy raged long and noisily. While it was in progress the bullet of an assassin ended the life of President McKinley and Theo- dore Roosevelt succeeded him. THE OFFICIAL UMPIRE, COCLE The Isthmian Canal was precisely the great, epoch-marking spectacular enterprise to enlist the utmost enthusiasm and energy of this peculiarly dynamic President. A man of strong convictions he favored the Panama route — and got it. He believed in a lock canal — and enforced his beliefs over the report of the engineers whose expert profes- sional opinions he invited. Of a militant tempera- ment he thought the canal should be dug by the army — and that is the way it was built. Not over tolerant of other people's rights he thought the United States should have a free hand over the canal and adjacent territory — and when Colombia, which happened to own that territory, was slow in ac- cepting this view he set up out of nothing over night the new Republic of Panama, recognized it as a sovereign state two days afterwards, concluded a treaty with it, giving the United States all he thought it should have, and years later, in a moment of frankness declared "I took Panama, and left Congress to debate it later." About the political morality and the personal ethics of the Roosevelt solution of the diplomatic problem there will ever be varying opinions. Colombia is still mourning for her ravished province of Panama and refuses to be comforted even at a price of $10,000,000 which has been tentatively offered as salve for the wound. But that the canal in 191 3 is just about ten years nearer completion than it would be had not Roose- velt been President in 1903 is a proposition generally accepted. History — which is not always moral — is apt to applaud results regardless of methods, and Photo hy Underwood & Underwood THE MAN AND THE MACHINE President Roosevelt and the monster steam shovel figure largely in the story of Panama 125 126 PANAMA AND THE CANAL the Republic and Canal of Panama are likely to be Roosevelt's most enduring monuments — though the canal may outlast the Republic. Prior to this time there had been several sporadic negotiations opened with different nations of Central America for canal rights. The most important one was a treaty signed at Bogota in 1870 by an envoy especially authorized by President Grant. But this treaty was never ratified by our Senate, and was amended out of acceptable form by the Colombian Senate. For the purposes of this narrative we may well consider the diplomatic history of the canal to begin with the passage of the Spooner act in 1902. This act, written by Senator John C. Spooner of Wisconsin, authorized the Panama route if the French property could be bought for $40,000,000 and the necessary right of way secured from Colom- bia. Failing this the Commission of seven members created by the act was authorized to open negotia- tions with Nicaragua. Events made it quite appar- ent that the Nicaragua clause was inserted merely as a club to be used in the negotiations with Co- Photo by Undenvood & Underwood LANDING PIGS FOR MARKET THE TRAIL NEAR CULEBRA lombia and the French company. With the latter it proved highly effective, for although the American attorney for the company, Mr. William Nelson Cromwell, fixed a price at first upon the property of $101,141,500 an apparently active opening of negotiations with Nicaragua caused an immediate drop to the prescribed $40,000,000. With that offer in hand the Commission unanimously reported to the President in favor of the Panama route. The Republic of Colombia was less tractable, and naturally so as it held a stronger hand. When negotiations began the French concession had but seven years more of life. If their progress could be prolonged for that period practically all that the United States would have paid the French would be paid to Colombia. Meanwhile the French property was wholly unsalable without a Colombian fran- chise. The one weak point in the Colombian armor was the possibility that the United States might finally turn to Nicaragua, but this contin- gency was made unlikely by the report of the Com- mission, and by the general desire of the American people which was undoubtedly for the Panama route. In 1903 the Colombian Minister at Washington negotiated with Senator Hay a treaty which by a lucky chance failed of ratification in the Panama Senate. It never reached our Senate, but it is quite incredible that it could have succeeded there, for it had several features that would have led to endless disagreement between the two countries — • might indeed have resulted in the United States annexing Colombia altogether. For example the Canal Zone was to be governed by a joint commis- sion of the two countries — Colombia remaining WHY PANAMA WANTED INDEPENDENCE 127 sovereign over the territory. The United States was to explicitly guarantee the sovereignty of Colombia against all the world. Colombia was to police the Zone. Each of these sections was big with possibilities of trouble. That Colombia did not speedily ratify this treaty would be inexplicable, for it was all to the Colombian good, except for the fact that by delaying any action for seven years the French property along the line of the canal, valued at $40,000,000, would drop into the Colombian treasury. Delay, however, while good enough for the Co- lombians, did not suit the Panamanians, nor did it please Theodore Roosevelt, whom Providence, while richly endowing him otherwise, had not invested with patience in the face of opposition. The Pana- manians, by whom for the purposes of this narrative I mean chiefly the residents of Colon and the city of Panama, wanted to see some American money spent in their various marts of trade. The French were rapidlj^ disappearing. The business of all their commercial institutions from dry goods stores down to saloons was falling off. Even the lottery did not thrive as of yore and the proprietors of the lesser games of chance, that in those days were run quite openly, were reduced to the precarious busi- ness of robbing each other. All these and other vested interests called for immediate negotiation of any sort of a treaty which would open the spigots of Uncle Sam's kegs of cash over the two thirsty Isthmian towns. It was irksome too to think that the parent state of Colombia would make the treaty and handle the cash accruing under it. The Yankees were ready to pay $10,000,000 down, and it was believed a further rental of $250,000 for the right to build a canal every foot of which would be on IN THE BANANA COUNTRY, ON THE COAST NEAR BOCAS DEL TORO 128 PANAMA AND THE CANAL the territory of the Province of Panama. If Panama was a sovereign state instead of merely a province, all this money would be used for the benefit of but 400,000 people, including Indians and negroes, who of course could not be expected to have much to say about its use. If employed in public works, it would only have to spread over about 32,000 square miles, or a territory a little smaller than Indiana. But of course it would chiefly go to the two cities. On the other hand if Colombia made this treaty the capital city Bogota would get the lion's share of the spoil, and for that matter all the prov- inces would share in the division with Panama, which had the goods for sale. What more natural than that the Pan- amanians should turn their thoughts toward seces- sion from Co- lombia. It was no novel channel for their meditations, for, as has been pointed out already, there had been 53 revolutions in Colom- bia in 57 years. Red revolution had become a com- monplace except for the poor fellows who got them- selves killed in them, or the widows and children thrown on the charity of a rather uncharitable people. Always hitherto the result of the revolu- tions had been the same — Panama had either been whipped into subjection, or had voluntarily returned to the domination of Colombia. But that was be- fore there was a $10,000,000 prize at stake. In several of these revolutions the United States had interfered, always in behalf of Colombia and always with fatal effect upon the hopes of the Photo bv Vndericood & Underwood THE BEST RESIDENCE SECTION, COLON revolutionists. For the key to the military situa- tion in Panama was the railroad. In every well ordered revolution — for the business of revolting had become a science — the conspirators began by corrupting the federal soldiers at Panama city where alone any garrison was maintained. This done they proclaimed Panama a free and independent state. As there was no land communication between Bogota and the Isthmus the federal government was compelled to send its troops to Colon and thence across the Isthmus to Panama by railroad. If the revolu- tionists could destroy or ob- struct the rail- road their chances for success would be greatly en- hanced. But imder a treaty with Colombia in 1846 the Uni- ted States guaranteed the neutrality of the rail- road and this guarantee was sensibly con- structed to include the task of keeping the line open for traffic. In several revolutions, therefore. United States marines were detailed to guard the Kne, and Colombia being thus enabled to pour its superior forces into Panama crushed out rebellion with com- parative ease. If the experience of the 53 revolutions counted for anything, it indicated that Panama could not throw off the Colombian yoke as long as the United States kept the railroad open for Colom- bian troops. Let us consider the situation toward the mid- summer of 1903. In Washington was the Roose- velt administration keenly eager to have the canal work begun as a great deed to display to the nation - -3 O v: ■- 5 :a 3 o g Z O M o ■£ a o = " z =^ < S ■" ~ a — o s lU .- cS OUR SHARE IN THE REVOLUTION 129 in the coming presidential campaign. In New York was Mr. WilHam Nelson Cromwell, representing the French company and quite as keen for action which would enable him to sell the United States $40,- 000,000 worth of French machinery and uncompleted canal. At Bogota was the Colombian legislature talking the Hay-Herrara treaty to death and giving every indication of a purpose of killing it. Spanning the Isthmus was the all important railroad which was part of the property the French so greatly desired to sell. And at Panama and Colon were groups of influential men, high financiers in a small way — a leader among them was the owner ^ ^^^ i of the Panama lottery — exceed- HT ingly anxious to have the " handling of that $10,000,- J tj 000 which the United m P Jfl and Colon the revolutionary Junta conspired, and sent emissaries to Washington to sound the govern- ment there on its attitude in case of a revolution. To their aid came Mr. Cromwell and M. Bunau- Varilla, a highly distinguished French engineer also interested in the plight of his countrymen. Dr. Amador was States would pay for a fran- chise, and quite desirous to have the coun- try tributary to those two towns sudden- ly populated by 40,000 to 50,000 canal workmen, all drawing money from the United States and spending it there. What hap- pened was in- evitable. Un- der the con- ditions existing only two things could have pre- vented the successful revolution which did occur — the quick ratification of a satisfactory treaty between the United States and Colombia, or an observance by the United States of the spirit as well as the letter of neutrality in the inevitable revolution. Neither of these things happened. The Congress at Bogota failed to ratify the treaty. In Panama '^: ^r:m THE OLD FIRE CISTERN, PANAMA .a^^' chosen to 0^' - •I sound the then Secretary of State John ■■ Hay. He was _^^^ told, accord- ing to trust- worthy re- ports, that \ \ \ ^ \ \ ^ : while the United States guaranteed 'I'j , ai Colombia 1 f ^s against for- ^Bbeaak'-vb ■ 'i^wn^^^lB eign aggres- ■;.; :;^;.'l^ : -■-■ sion it did not ■ '' ■: i •"■ ' •- "< bind itself to protect the >:.i.: .^IjLjSU-'; sovereignty of ^i.' * '^'^ •'•♦■■■ that state against do- :*:Ri:i-^'fjHri mestic revolu- • ■ ; ■ ;! tion. In the event of such mAvw- ' an uprising ■ n, T'^ all it was .._''*>.. bound to do was to see that traffic over the rail- road was un- impeded. This sounded and enough, but thf ?re were minds io nists to see t hat this policy still sounds fair among the revolu opened the way for a successful revolution at last. For this is the way in which the policy worked when put to the test — and indeed some of the incidents indicate that the Roosevelt administra- tion went somewhat beyond the letter of the rule Secretary Hay had laid down. Our government 130 PANAMA AND THE CANAL knew before the revolutionary blow was struck that it was imminent. It is said indeed that when the revolutionists suggested September 22nd as the date for the spontaneous uprising of the people the Secretary sagaciously suggested that the Con- gress of Colombia would not then have adjourned and that it might seem ir- regular to base a revolu- tion on the omission of the legislature to act when it was still in session and could correct that omission. For this, or some other reason, the revolution was postponed until November 5th. The Colombian minister at Washington kept his government advised of the suspicious activity there of the agents of the Junta and warmly advised the heavy reen- forcement of the garri- son at Panama. But his home government was slow to follow his advice. When it did move it was checked by the French managers of the railroad. Colombia's only con- siderable seaport on the Pacific is Buenaventura and at this point troops were collected to reen- force Panama. Two Co- lombian gunboats in har- bor at Panama were ordered to go after the troops. Coal was needed for the voyage. The only source of coal supplies on the Isthmus was the Panama Railroad .which had long made a prac- tice of selling the fuel to all comers. But to the request of the Colombian navy for coal at this time the railroad agent, evidently primed for the occasion, put in a reluctant negative. All his coal was at Colon, and the pressure of commercial busi- ness was so great that he could not move it across Photo by Underwood & Underwood THE TWO PRESIDENTS; the Isthmus in season to be of use to the gunboats. So those troops stayed at Buenaventiora and the Junta at Panama went on with its plotting. Now Colombia tried another plan to reenforce its Panama garrison — or to replace it, for by this time the troops that had been there were won over to the smoldering conspiracy. About four hundred sol- diers were sent down by the Gulf and landed at Colon. That they were landed at all seems like a slight error in carrying out the Roosevelt policy, for in the harbor of Co- lon lay the United States cruiser "Nashville" and gunboat "Dixie" whose commanders had this desptach from the Secre- tary of the Navy : "Maintain free and un- interrupted transit. If in- terruption is threatened by armed force occupy line of railroad. Prevent landing of any armed force with hostile intent either govern- ment or insurgent, either at Colon, Porto Bello or other points." Now there are some curious features about this despatch. On No- vember 2nd, its date, there was no insurrec- tion, therefore no insur- gents. If the adminis- tration intended to take official cognizance of the activities of the Junta it must have known that the conspirators had no ships and could not there- fore plan landing any forces. The order then was plainly designed to prevent Colombia from landing troops in its own territory — a most extraordinary policy to adopt toward a friendly nation. It was furthermore an order equivalent to assuring the success of the, foreshadowed revolution, for as there was no way except by sea for Colombia to send ROOSEVELT AND AMADOR A REVOLUTION WITHOUT A SINGLE BATTLE 131 CHOLO CHIEF AND HIS THIRD WIFE The Chief is said to have poisoned her two predecessors troops to put down the insurgents, it was evident that for the United States by its superior force to close the sea against her was to give Panama over to the revolutionists. However 400 troops were landed on the 3rd of November. The commander of the "Nashville" probably thought his orders only operative in case of an outbreak of insurrection and thus far there had been none. It became time for the railroad com- pany to declare its second check — which in this case was checkmate. When the two generals in com- mand of the Colombian forces ordered special trains to transport their men to Panama the agent blandly asked for pre- payment of the fares — some- thing above $2000. The generals were embarrassed. They had no funds. It was of course the business of the road, under its charter from Colombia, to transport the troops on demand, and it was the part of the gen- erals to use their troops to compel it to do so. Tak- ing the matter under advisement they went alone across to Panama to investigate the situation. There they were met by Gen. Huertas, in command of the garrison who first gave them a good dinner and then put them under arrest informing them that Panama had revolted, was now an independent re- public, and that he was part of the new regime. There was no more to it in Panama. The two gen- erals submitted gracefully. The Junta arrested all the Colombian officials in Panama, who thereupon readily took oath of fealty to the new government. A street mob, mainly boys, paraded cheering for Panama Libre. The Panama flag sprung into be- ing, and the revolution was complete. Out in the harbor lay three Colombian gunboats. Two swiftly displayed Panama flags which by singu- lar good fortune were in their lockers. The third with a fine show of loyalty fired two shells over the insurgent city, one of which, bursting, slew an inno- cent Chinaman smoking opium in his bunk. The city responded with an ineffective shot or two from the seawall and the sole defender of the sovereignty of Colombia pulled down its flag. Fhotu uu Prof. Luu NATIVE HOUSE AND GROUP AT PUERTA PINAS 132 PANAMA AND THE CANAL At the other end of the line the situation was more serious and might well have caused bloodshed. Col. Torres, in charge of the troops there, on hearing the news from Panama demanded a train at once, threatening that unless it was furnished he woidd attack the Americans in the town. He had more than 400 armed men, while on the "Nashville" were but 192 marines. In such a contest the Colombians could have relied upon much assistance from the natives. With a guard of 42 marines employees of the railroad prepared its stone freight house for de- fense while American women and children were sent to vessels in the harbor. The Colombian colonel had fixed two o'clock as the hour for beginning hos- tilities but when that time arrived he invited a con- ference, and it was finally agreed that both parties should retire from Colon, while he went to Panama to consult with the jailed generals. During his absence the "Dixie" arrived with 400 marines, and a little later the "Atlanta" with 1000. With this overwhelming force against him Col. Torres recognized that the United States was back of the railroad's refusal of transportation and so yielded. With his troops he sailed again for Carta- gena. Two days after the revolution — bloodless save for the sleeping Chinaman — the United States recog- nized the Republic of Panama. Twelve days later, with M. Bunau-Varilla who had by cable been ap- pointed min- ister to Washington, ^^^i M^^ ^ treaty was conclud- ed by which WHAT THEY CALL A STREET IN T0I3AGA HINDOO MERCHANTS ON THE ZONE the United States was granted all it desired for the furtherance of the canal project. Much of the subsequent time of President Roosevelt was taken up in arguing that he had not gone beyond the proper bounds of diplomacy in getting this advan- tage, but the world though accepting the result has ever been incredulous of his protestations of good, faith. And the end is not yet. Colombia has not condoned the part taken by the United States, and the State Department has long been endeavoring to discover some way, not too mortifying to our national self-esteem, by which we may allay Colom- bia's discontent. And as for that nation it has per- sistently refused to recognize Pan- ama as independ- ent, one of the results of which has been that the perpetrators o f crime on the Isthmus may skip blithely over the line to Bo- TREATY RIGHTS OF THE UNITED STATES 133 gota or Cartagena and enjoy life free from dread of extra- dition. Briefly summar- ized the terms of the treaty thus expe- ditiously secured are : 1 . The guaranty of the independence of the Republic of Panama. 2. The grant to the United States of a strip of land from ocean to ocean, ex- tending for five miles on each side of the canal, to be called the Canal Zone and over which the United States has absolute jurisdiction. From this Zone the cities of Panama and Colon are explicitly ex- cluded. 3. All railway and canal rights in the Zone are ceded to the United States and its property therein is exempted from taxation. 4. The United States has the right to police, gar- rison and fortify the Zone. 5. The United States is granted sanitary juris- diction over the cities of Panama and Colon, and is vested with the right to preserve order in the Re- public, should the Panamanian government in the judgment of the United States fail to do so. 6. As a condition of the treaty the United States paid to Panama $10,000,000 in cash, and in 1913 began the annual payment of $250,000 in perpetuity. Thus equipped with all necessary international authority for the work of building the canal Presi- dent Roosevelt plunged with equal vehemence and audacity into the actual constructive work. If he strained to the breaking point the rights of a friendly nation to get his treaty, he afterwards tested even further the elasticity of the power of a President to act without Congressional authority. We may hastily pass over the steps forward. Mr. Cromwell was paid the $40,000,000 for the French stockholders, and at once there arose a prodigious CHAME BEACH, PACIFIC COAST Where sand is obtained for locks on the Pacific division outcry that the Frenchmen got but little out of it; that their stock had been bought for a few cents on the dollar by speculative Americans; that these Americans had financed the "revolution" and that some of the stock was held by persons very close to the administration. None of these charges was proved, but all left a rather bad impression on the public mind. However the United States received full value for the money. April 28, 1904, Congress appropriated the $10,000,000 due Panama, and with Pholo bjj Underwood it- Vndtricood FRENCH DRY DOCK, CRISTOBAL 134 PANAMA AND THE CANAL IDAHO MONTANA SOUlH DAKOTA MWNESOTA L iii<'°''^l!< ) ( V Pf 1 lOW/V X '•;'R^.»SAife'r?«V^?$t UTAH tCMioivNyy^ ^ 'i — -\^ .^j5^v----^v-a-<->-^-f'^?2^ NEW ,,,...*i«-'-j3Ss-'^>:ft'''^'''PT~j OHIO / — c:==rr~r7lr 'T^ OKLA:-iO^^'^ ARKANSAS ^^/' si--- NORTH CAeO'-lN& WHAT THE WORK EXPENDED ON THE CANAL MIGHT HAVE DONE Build a Chinese wall from San Francisco to New York, or dig a ditch lo feet deep and 55 feet wide across the United States at its widest part the title thus clear Lieutenant Mark Brooke, U. S. A., at 7:30 A. M. May 4th, formally took over the territory in the name of the United States. An excellent opportunity for pomp and ceremony, for fuss and feathers was thus wasted. There were ;neither speeches, nor thundering salutes and the hour was obviously unpropitious for champagne. ' ' They order these things better in France, ' ' as "Uncle Toby" was wont to say. When little more than a decade shall have rolled away after that wasted ceremonial moment the visitor to the Isthmus will gaze upon the greatest completed public work of this or any other past age. To conceive of some task that man may accom- plish in future that will exceed in magnitude this one is in itself a tax upon the most vivid imagina- tion. To what great work of the past can we com- pare this one of the present? The great Chinese wall has been celebrated in all history as one of man's most gigantic efforts. It is 1500 miles long and would reach from San Francisco to St. Louis. But the rock and dirt taken from the Panama Canal would build a wall as high and thick as the Chinese wonder, 2500 miles long and reach from San Francisco to New York in a bee-line. We cross thousands of miles of ocean to see the great Pyramid of Cheops, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. But the "spoil" taken from the canal prism would build sixty-three such pyra- mids which put in a row would fill Broadway from the Battery to Harlem, or a distance of nine miles. The Panama Canal is but fifty miles long, but if we could imagine the United States as perfectly level, the amount of excavation done at Panama would dig a canal ten feet deep and fifty-five feet wide across the United States at its broadest part. \ Ctnirtcsy ^cienli/'C American A GRAPHIC COMPARISON The " spoil " taken from the canal would build 63 pyramids the size of Cheops in Broadway from the Battery to Harlem ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE MAGNITUDE OF THE CANAL WORK 135 New York City boasts of its great Pennsylvania terminal, and its sky -piercing Wool worth Building; Washington is proud y/\:-~^ of its towering Washington Mon White House and the ument, the WHAT THE PANAMA CONCRETE WOULD DO buildings adjacent thereto. But the concrete used in the locks and dams of the canal would make a pyramid 400 feet high, covering the great railway station; the material taken from Culebra cut alone would make a pyramid topping the Woolworth tower by 100 feet, and covering the city from Chambers to Fulton Street, and from the City Hall* to West Broadway; while the total soil excavated in the Canal Zone would form a pyramid 4200 feet or four fifths of a mile high, and of equal base line obliterating not only the Washington Monument but the White House, Treasury, the State, War and Navy Buildings and the finest part of official Washington as well. Jules Verne once, in imagination, drove a tunnel through the center of the earth, but the little cylindrical tubes drilled for the dyna- mite cartridges on "the line" (as people at Panama refer to the Canal Zone) would, if placed end to end, pierce this great globe of ours from side to side; while the dirt cars that have carried ofl the material would, if made up in one train, reach four times around the world. But enough of the merely big. Let us consider the spectacle which would confront that visitor whom, in an earlier chapter, we took from Colon to view Porto Bello and San Lorenzo. After finishing those historical pilgrimages if he desired to see the canal in its completed state- — say after 19 14 — he would take a ship at the great concrete docks at Cristobal which will have supplanted as the resting places Courtesy Scientific American PROPORTIONS OF SOME OF THE CANAL WORK for the world's shipping the earlier timber wharves at Colon. Steaming out into the magnificent Limon Bay, the vessel passes into the channel dredged out some three miles into the turbulent Caribbean, and protected from the harsh northers by the massive Toro Point breakwater. The vessel's prow is turned toward the land, not westward as one would think of a ship bound from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but almost due south. The channel through which she steams is 500 feet wide at the bottom, and 41 feet deep at low tide. It extends seven miles to the first interruption at Gatun, a tide water stream all the way. The shores are low, covered with tropical foliage, and littered along the water line with the debris of recent construc- tion work. After steaming about six miles someone familiar with the line will be able to point out over the port side of the ship the juncture of the old French canal with the com- pleted one, and if the jun- gle has not grown up too thick the narrow channel of the former can be traced reaching back to Colon by the side of the Panama Rail- road. This canal was used by the Americans throughout the con- struction work. At this point the shores rise higher and one on the bridge, or at the bow, will be able to clearly discern far ahead a long hill sloping gently upward on each side of the canal, and cut at masses of white ma- ship comes nearer gigantic locks, pairs by three to a total height of 85 feet. the center with great sonry, which as the are seen to be rising in steps Courtesii ::,cienti;iC American THE " SPOIL " FROM CULEBRA CUT WOULD DO THIS 136 PANAMA AND THE CANAL Photo by Underwood & Underuood IN A TYPICAL LOCK The bridge across is temporary, for construction purposes only. Gates are still skeletonized awaiting the steel sheathing For 1000 feet straight out into the center of the canal extends a massive concrete pier, the continuation of the center wall, or partition, between the pairs of locks, while to right and left side walls flare out, to the full width of the canal, like a gigantic U, or a funnel guiding the ships toward the straight pathway up- ward and onward. A graceful lighthouse guides the ships at night, while all along the central pier and guide wall electric lights in pairs give this outpost of civilization in the jungle something of the air at night of a brightly lighted boulevard. Up to this time the ship had been proceeding under her own steam and at about full speed. Now slow- ing down she gradually comet to a full stop alongside the central guide wall. Here will be waiting four electric locomotives, two on the central, two on the side wall. Made fast, bow and stern, the satellites start off with the ship in tow. It will take an hour and a half to pass the three locks at Gatun and ar- rangements will probably be made for passengers to leave the ship and walk by its side if desired, as it climbs the three steps to the waters of Gatun Lake 85 feet above. Probably the first thing the observant passenger will notice is that as the ship steams into the open lock the great gates which are to close behind her and hold the water which flows in from below, slowly lifting her to the lock above, are folded flush with the wall, a recess having been built to receive them. The chamber which the vessel has entered is 1000 feet long, if the full water capacity be em- ployed, no feet wide and will raise the ship 28}^ feet. If the ship is a comparatively small one the full length of the lock will not be used, as interme- diate gates are provided which will permit the use of 400 or 600 feet of the lock as required — thus saving water, which means saving power, for the water that raises and lowers the sk.ps also generates electric power which will be employed in several ways. Back of each pair of gates is a second pair of emergency gates folded back flush with the wall and only to be used in case of injury to the first pair. On the floor of the canal at the entrance to the lock lies a great chain, attached to machinery which, at the first sign of a ship's becoming unmanageable, will raise it and bar the passage. Nearly all serious accidents which have occurred to locks have been due to vessels of which control has been lost, by THE PASSAGE OF THE CANAL LOCKS 137 some error in telegraphing from the bridge to the engine room. For this reason at Panama vessels once in the locks will be controlled wholly by the four locomotives on the lock walls which can check its momentum at the slightest sign of danger. Their own engines will be shut down. Finally at the upper entrance to the locks is an emergency dam built on the guide wall. It is evident that if an acci- dent should happen to the gates of the upper lock the water on the upper level would rush with destruc- tive force against the lower ones, perhaps sweeping away one after the other and wrecking the canal disastrously. To avert this the emergency dams are swung on a pivot, something like a drawbridge, athwart the lock and great plates let down one after the other, stayed by the perpendicular steel frame- work until the rush of the waters is checked. A caisson is then sunk against these plates, making the dam complete. The method of construction and operation of these locks will be more fully described in a later chapter. What has been outlined here can be fully observed by the voyager in transit. The machinery by which all is operated is concealed in the masonry crypts below, but the traveler may find cheer and certainty of safety in the assurance of the engineer who took me through the cavernous passages — "It's all made fool proof". Leaving the Gatun locks and going toward the Pacific the ship enters Gatun Lake, a great arti- ficial body of water 85 feet above tide water. This is the ultimate height to which the vessel must climb, and it has reached it in the three steps of the Gatun locks. To descend from Gatun Lake to the Pacific level she drops down one lock at Pedro Miguel, 303/3 feet; and two locks at Miraflores with a total descent of 547^ feet. Returning from the Pacific to the Atlantic the locks of course are taken in reverse order, the ascent beginning at Miraflores and the complete descent being made at Gatun. Fboto by Underwood & Underwood LOCK AT PEDRO MIGUEL UNDER CONSTRUCTION The picture shows strikingly the construction of the locks in pairs, the inner pair being for precautionary purposes PANAMA AND THE CANAL Gatun Lake constitutes really the major part of the canal, and the channel through it extends in a some- ,«»- what tortuous course for about twenty- four miles. So broad is the channel dredged — ranging from 500 to 1000 feet in width and 45 to 85 in depth — that vessels will proceed at full speed, a very material ad- vantage, as in ordi- nary canals half speed or even less is pre- RANGE TOWER AT PACIFIC ENTRANCE scribed in order to avoid the erosion of the banks The lake which the voyager by Panama will tra- verse will in time be- come a scenic feature of the trip that can- not fail to delight those who gaze upon it. But for some years to come it will be ghastly, a living realization of some of the pictures emanat- ing from the abnor- mal brain of Gustave Dore. On either side of the ship gaunt gray trunks of dead trees rise from the placid water, draped in some instances with the Spanish moss f amUiar , to residents of our southern states, though not abundant on the Isthmus. More of the trees are hung with the trailing ropes of vines once bright with green foliage and brilliant flowers, now gray and dead like the parent trunk. Only the orchids and the air plants will continue to give some slight hint of life to the dull gray monotony of death. For a time, too, it must be expected that the atmosphere will be as offensive as the scene is depressing, for it has been found that the tropical foliage in rotting gives out a most penetrating and disagreeable odor. The scientists have determined to their own satisfaction that it is not prejudicial to health, but the men who have been working in the camps near the shores of the rising lake declare it emphatically destructive of comfort. The unfortunate trees are drowned. Plunging their roots beneath the waters causes their death as infallibly, but not so quickly, as to fill a man's lungs with the same fluid brings on his end. The Canal Commission has not been oblivious to the disadvan- tages, both aesthetic and practical, of this great body of dead timber standing in the lake, but it has found the cost of removing it prohibitive. Careful esti- mates fix the total expense for doing quickly what nature will do gratis in time at $2,000,000. The many small inlets and backwaters of the lake more- BIRD's EYE VIEW OF PEDRO MIGUEL LOCKS SPECTACULAR FEATURES OF GATUN LAKE 139 over will afford breeding places for the mosquitos and other pestilent insects which the larvacide man with his can and pump can never reach, and no earthly ingenuity can wholly purify. One vegetable phenomenon of the lake, now ex- ceedingly common, will persist for some time after the ocean-going steamers begin to ply those waters, namely the floating islands. These range from a few feet to several acres in extent, and are formed by portions of the spongy bed of the lake being broken away by the action of the water, and carried off Florida and Louisiana. Conditions in Gatun Lake are ideal for it and the officials are studying methods of checking its spread from the very beginning. The waters of the lake cover 164 square miles and are at points eighty-five feet deep. In the main this vast expanse of water, one of the largest of artificial reservoirs, containing about 183 billion cubic feet of water, is supplied by the Chagres River, though several smaller streams add to its volume. Be- fore the dam was built two or three score yards measured the Chagres at its widest point. Now the l-iiolo oy u/*Li;/au. THE VEGETABLE MARTYRS The trees in the district flooded by Gatun Lake are being slowly drowned and will finally disappear by the current, or the winds acting upon the aquatic plants on the surface. They gradually assume a size and consistency that will make them, if not com- bated, a serious menace to navigation. At present the sole method of dealing with them is to tow them down to the dam and send them over the spillway, but some more speedy and efficacious method is yet to be devised. However as the trees now standing fall and disintegrate, and the actual shores of the lake recede further from the canal the islands will become fewer, and the space in which they can gather without impediment to navigation greater. Another menace to a clear channel which has put in an appearance is the water hyacinth which has prac- tically destroyed the navigability of streams in waters are backed up into the interior far beyond the borders of the Canal Zone, along the course of every little waterway that flowed into the Chagres, and busy launches may ply above the sites of buried Indian towns. The towns themselves will not be submerged, for the cane and palm-thatched huts will float away on the rising tide. Indeed from the ships little sign of native life will appear, unless it be Indians in cayucas making their way to market. For the announced policy of the government is to depopulate the Zone. All the Indian rights to the soil have been purchased and the inliabitants re- morselessly ordered to move out beyond the five- mile strip on either side of the canal. This is un- fortunate as it will rob the trip of what might have 140 PANAMA AND THE CANAL been a scenic feature, for the Indians love to build their villages near the water, which is in fact their principal highway, and but for this prohibition would probably rebuild as near the sites of their obliterated towns as the waters would permit. In passing through the lake the canal describes eight angles, and the atten- tive traveler will find inter- est in watching the range lights by which the ship is guided when navigat- ing the chan- nel by day or by night — for there need be no cessation of passage be- cause of dark- ness. These range lights are lighthouses of reenf orced con- crete so placed in pairs that one towers ab o ve the other at a dis- tance back of the lower one of several hun- dred feet. The pilot keeping these two in line will know he is keeping to the center of his channel until the appearance of two others on either port or starboard bow warns him that the time has come to turn. The towers are of graceful design, and to come upon one springing sixty feet or more into the air from a dense jungle clustering about its very base is to have a new ex- perience in the picturesque. They will need no resident light keepers, for most are on a general electric light circuit. Some of the more inaccessible NATIVE STREET AT TABOGA however are stocked with compressed acetylene which will burn over six months without recharging. The whole canal indeed from its beginning miles out in the Atlantic to its end under the blue Pacific will be lighted with buoys, beacons, lighthouses and light posts along the locks until its course is almost as easily followed as a "great white way." Sportsmen believe that this great artificial lake will in time become a notable breeding place for fish and game. Many of our migratory northern birds, includ- ing several varieties of ducks, now hibernate at the Isth- mus, and this broad ex- '''^^*"' panse of placid water, with its innumerable inlets pene- trating a land densely cov- ered with vege- tation, should become for them a favor- ite shelter. The population will be sparse, and mainly as much as five miles away from the line of the canal through which the great steamers will c e aselessly pass. During the period of its construction that portion of the canal which will lie below the surface of Gatun Lake was plentifully sprinkled with native villages, and held two or three considerable con- struction towns. Of the latter Gorgona was the largest, which toward the end of canal construction attained a population of about 4000. In the earlier history of the Isthmus Gorgona was a noted stopping place for those crossing the neck, but it seems to have been famed chiefly for the badness of its ac- THE ABANDONMENT OF CANAL TOWNS 141 •comodations. Otis says of it, "The town of Gorgona was noted in the earlier days of the river travd as the place where the wet and jaded trav- eler was accustomed to worry out the night on a rawhide, exposed to the insects and the rain, and in the morning, if he was fortunate regale himself on jerked beef and plantains. " The French established railroad shops here which the Americans greatly enlarged. As a result this town and the neighboring village of Matachin became considerable cen- ters of industry and Gorgona was one of the pleasantest places of residence ■on "the line." Its Y. M. C. A. clubhouse was one of the largest and best equipped on the whole Zone, and the town was well supplied with churches and schools. By the end of 1913 all this will be changed. The shop will have been moved to the great new port of Balboa; such of the houses and official build- ings as could economically be torn down and reerect- ed will have been thus disposed of. Much of the two towns will be covered by the lake, but on the higher portions of the site will stand for some years deserted ruins which the all-conquering jungle will finally take l-lioto by Underwood & UnUerwuod GAMBOA BRIDGE WITH CHAGRES AT FLOOD For contrasting picture sliowing the river in dry season, see page 192 THE Y. M. C. A. CLUB HOUSE AT GATUN for its own. The railroad which once served its active people will have been moved away to the other side of the canal and Gorgona will have returned to the primitive wilderness whence Pizarro and the gold hunters awakened it. Near its site is the hill miscalled Balboa's and from the steamships' decks the wooden cross that stands on its summit may be clearly seen. Soon after passing Gorgona and Matachin the high bridge by which the railroad crosses the Chagres at Gamboa, with its seven stone piers will be visible over the starboard side. This point is of some interest as being the spot at which the water was kept out of the long trench at Culebra. A dyke, partly artificial, here obstructed the canal cut and carried the railroad across to Las Cascadas, Empire, Cule- bra and other considerable towns all abandoned, together with that branch of the road, upon the completion of the canal. Now the ship passes into the most spectacular part of the voyage — the Culebra Cut. During the process of con- struction this stretch of the work vied with the great dam at Gatun for the distinction of being the most interest- ing and picturesque part of 142 PANAMA AND THE CANAL the work. Something of the spectacular effect then presented will be lost when the ships begin to pass. The sense of the magnitude of the work will not so greatly impress the traveler standing on the deck of a ship, floating on the surface of the canal which is here 45 feet deep, as it would were he stand- ing at the bottom of the cut. He will lose about 75 feet of the actual height, as commanded by the earlier traveler who looked up at the towering height of Contractors Hill from the very floor of the colossal excavation. He will lose, too, much of the almost barbaric coloring of the newly opened cut where bright red vied with chrome yellow in startling the eye, and almost every shade of the chromatic scale had its representative in the freshly uncovered strata of earth. The tropical foliage grows swiftly, and long before the new waterway will have become an accustomed path to the ships of all nations the sloping banks will be thickly covered with vegetation. It is indeed the purpose of the Commission to encourage the growth of such vegetation by planting, in the belief that the roots will tie the soil together and lessen the danger of slides and washouts. The hills that here tower aloft on either side of the canal form part of the great continental divide that, all the way from Alaska to the Straits of Magellan divides the Pacific from the Atlantic watershed. This is its lowest point. Gold Hill, its greatest eminence, rises 495 feet above the bottom of the canal, which in turn is 40 feet above sea level. The story of the gigantic task of cutting through this ridge, of the new problems which arose in almost every week's work, and of the ways in which they were met and overcome will necessitate a chapter to itself. Those who float swiftly along in well-appointed steamships through the almost straight channel 300 feet wide at the bottom, between towering hills, will find the sensation the more memorable if they will study somewhat the figures showing the proportions of the work, the full fruition of which they are enjoying. At Pedro Miguel a single lock lets the ship down to another little lake hardly two miles across to Miraflores where two more locks drop it down to tide water. From Miraflores the traveler can see the great bulk of Ancon Hill looming up seven miles Photo by Underwood t& Underwood WORKING IN CULEBRA CUT The picture is taken at a comparatively quiet time, only two dirt trains being visible THE PACIFIC TERMINUS OP THE CANAL 143 Pholo bu Undermood tt Underwood IIIRAFLORES LOCK IN MARCH, I913 This lock is in two stories with a total lift of 56% feet; the Pacific tides rise in the canal to the lower lock of smaller coastwise vessels will gather here to take cargoes for the ports of Central America, or for Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and other Pacific states of South America. The Canal Commission is building great docks for the accommodation of both through away, denoting the proximity of the city of Panama which lies huddled under its Pacific front. Practi- cally one great rock is Ancon Hill, and its landward face is badly scarred by the enormous quarry which the Commission has worked to furnish stone for construction work. At its base is the new port of Balboa which is destined to be in time a great dis- tributing point for the Pacific coast of both North and South America. For the vessels coming through the canal from the Atlantic must, from Balboa, turn north or south or proceed direct across the Pacific to those Asiatic markets of which the old-time mariners so fondly dreamed. Fleets naos, perico and flamenco islands to be fortified 144 PANAMA AND THE CANAL and local shipping; storage docks and pockets for coal and tanks for oil. The coaling plant will have a capacity of about 100,000 tons, of which about one-half will be submerged. One dry dock will take a ship 1000 feet long and 105 feet wide — the width of the dock itself being no feet. There will be also a smaller dock. One pier, of the most modern design, equipped with unloading cranes and 2200 feet long is already complete, and the plans for additional piers are prepared. The estimated cost of the terminals at Balboa is $15,000,000. The Suez Canal created no town such as Balboa is likely to be, for conditions with it were wholly different. Port Said at the Mediterranean end and Aden at the Red Sea terminus are coaling stations, nothing more. Geographical considerations how- ever are likely to give to both Balboa and Cristobal — particularly the former — prime importance as points of transshipment. The machine shops long in Gorgona and Matachin have been removed to Balboa, and though since the completion of the canal the number of their employes has been greatly decreased, the work of repairing and outfitting vessels may be expected to maintain a large population of mechanics. The administra- tion offices now at Culebra will also be moved to Balboa, which in fact is likely to become the chief town of the Canal Zone. Here is to be an em- ployes' club house, built of concrete blocks at a cost of $52,000. Like the other club houses established during the construction period it will be under the direct administration of the Y. M. C. A. The town of Balboa, and the club house will be in no small de- gree the fruit of the earnest endeavor of Col. Goethals -S .^i^filEi^lH 1 V- , i. -MJa ^^^^^fnl-"°^^^^'^^rl W Qjjg^^^ B i .• : , '-y^^i^-arfi BEGINNING OF NEW BALBOA DOCKS THE OLD PACIFIC MAIL DOCKS AT BALBOA to build there a town that shall be a credit to the nation, and a place of comfort for those who in- habit it. His estimate presented to Congress of the cost and character of the houses to be furnished to officers of various grades and certain public buildings may be interesting here. The material is all to be concrete blocks: Governor's house $25,000 Commissioners' and high officials' houses, each 15,000 Houses of this type to have large center room, a sitting room, dining room, bath, kitchen and four bed rooms. Families drawing $200 a month 6, coo Families drawing less, in 4-family buildings. . 4,000 Bachelor quarters, for 50 50,000 Besides these buildings for personal occupance Balboa will contain — unless the original plans are materially modified : Hotel $22,500 Commissary 63,000 School 32 ,000 Police station and court 3 7, 000 When Col. Goethals was presenting his estimates to Congress in 19 13 the members of the Committee on Appropriations looked somewhat askance on the club-house feature of his requests, and this colloquy occurred : "The Chairman: 'A $52,000 club house?' "Col. Goethals: 'Yes, sir. We need a good club house, because we should give them some amusement, and keep them out of Panama. I believe in the club-house principle.' " The Chairman: 'That is all right, but you must con- template a very elaborate house? ' " Col. Goethals: 'Yes, sir. I want to make a town there that will be a credit to the United States government.'" Looking out to sea from the prow of a ship enter- ing the Pacific Ocean you will notice three conical THE FORTS AT THE PACIFIC ENTRANCE 145 islands rising abruptly from the waves, to a height of three or four hundred feet. To be more precise the one nearest the shore ceased to be an island when the busy dirt trains of the Canal Commission dumped into the sea some millions of cubic yards of material taken from the Culebra Cut, forming at once a great area of artificial land which may in en- suing centuries have its value, and a breakwater which intercepts a local current that for a time gave the canal builders much trouble by filling the channel with silt. The three islands, Naos, Flamenco, and Perico are utilized by the United States as sites for powerful forts. The policy of the War Department necessarily prevents any description here of the forts planned or their arma- ment. Every government jeal- ously guards from the merely curious a view of its defensive works, and the intruder with a camera, however harmless and inoffensive he may be, is severely dealt with as though he had pro- faned the Holy of Holies. Des- pite these drastic precautions against the harmless tourist it is a recognized fact that every government has in its files plans and descriptions of the forts of any power with which it is at all likely to become involved in war. It may be said, however, with- out entering into prohibited de- tails, that by the fortifications on the islands, and on the hills adjacent to the canal entrance, as well as b}^ a permanent sys- tem of submarine mines the Pa- cific entrance to the canal is made as nearly impregnable as the art of war permits. The locks at Miraflores are seven miles inland and the effective range of naval guns is fourteen miles, so that but for the fortifications and a fleet of our own to hold the hostile fleet well out to sea the very keystone of the canal structure would be menaced. Our government in building its new terminal city at Balboa had before it a very striking illustration of the way in which nations covet just such towns. Russia on completing her trans-Siberian railroad built at Port Arthur a terminal even grander and more costly than our new outpost on the Pacific. But the Japanese flag now waves over Port Arthur — and incidentally the fortifications of that famous terminal were also considered impregnable. Perhaps the impregnable fort like the unsinkable ship is yet to be found. Photo by Underwood & Underwood THE PACIFIC GATEWAY The gun points to canal entrance; high hills in the background are beyond the canal 146 PANAMA AND THE CANAL At Balboa the trip through the completed canal will be ended. It has covered a fraction over fifty miles, and has consumed, according to the speed of the ship and the "smartness" of her handling in locks, from seven to ten hours. He who was fortunate enough to make that voyage may well reflect on the weeks of time and the thousands of tons of coal neces- sary to carry his vessel from Colon to Balboa had the canal not existed. From Balboa to the ancient and yet gay city of Panama runs a trolley line by which the passenger, whose ship remains in port for a few days, or even a few hours, may with but little cost of time or money visit one of the quaintest towns on the North Ameri- can continent. If the climate, or the seemingly in- eradicable sluggishness of the Panamanian do not intervene the two towns should grow into one, though iheir governments must remain distinct, as the Republic of Panama naturally clings to its capi- tal city. But seemingly the prospect of a great new port at his doors, open to the commerce of all the world, where ships from Hamburg and Hong Kong, from London and Lima, from Copenhagen and from Melbourne may all meet in passing their world-wide ways, excites the Panamanian not a whit. He exists content with his town as it is, reaching out but little for the new trade which this busy mart next door to him should bring. No new hotels, are rising within the line of the old walls ; no new air of haste or enter- prise enlivens the placid streets and plazas. Per- haps in time Balboa may be the big town, and Pan- ama as much outworn as that other Panama which Morgan left a mere group of ruins. It were a pity should it be so, for no new town, built of neat cement blocks, with a Y. M. C. A. club house as its crown- ing point of gaiety, can ever have the charm which even the casual visitor finds in ragged, bright- colored, crowded, gay and perhaps naughty Panama. I'lialu bij I'luUricOQd iV- i'ndcrwood COMPLETED CANAL AT COROZAL CHAPTER VIII THE FOR]\IATIVE PERIOD IMERICAN control of the canal, as I have already pointed out, was taken over without any particular cere- mony immediately after the payment to Panama of the $10,000,000 provided for in the treaty. Indeed so slight was the friction in- cident to the transfer of ownership from the French to the Americans that several hundred la- borers employed on the Culebra Cut went on with their work serenely unconscious of any change in management. But though work was uninterrupted the organization of the directing force took time and thought. It took more than that. It demanded the testing out of men in high place and the rejection of the unfit ; patient ex- perimenting with methods and the abandonment of those that failed ,to produce re- sults. There was a long period of this experimental work which sorely tried the patience of the American people •before the canal - digging organi- ■ zation fell into its stride and moved on with a certain and resistless progress toward the goal. In accordance with the Spooner act President Roosevelt on March 8, 1904, appointed the first Isthmian Canal Commission with the following per- sonnel : Admiral John G. Walker, U. S. N., Chairman, Major General George W. Davis, U. S. A., William Barclay Parsons, William H. Burr, Benjamin M. Harrod, Carl Ewald Gunsky, Frank J. Hecker. In 19 1 3 when the canal approached completion not one of these gentlemen was associated with it. Death had carried away Admiral Walker, but official mortality had ended the canal-digging careers of the tnolo bi/ Underwood it Underwood TUNNEL FOR THE OBISPO DIVERSION CANAL 148 PANAMA AND THE CANAL others. Indeed under the rule of President Roose- velt the tenure of office of Isthmian Commissioners was exceedingly slender and the whole commission as originally designed was finally abolished being re- placed by one rriade up, with one exception, of officers of the army and navy. The first commission visited the Isthmus, stayed precisely 24 days, ordered some new surveys and returned to the United States. The most important fact about its visit was that it was accompanied to the scene of work by an army surgeon, one Dr. W. C. Gorgas, who had been engaged in cleaning up Havana. Major Gorgas, to give him his army title, was not at this time a mem- ber of the Commission but had been ap- pointed Chief Sanitary Officer. I shall have much to say of his work in a later chapter; as for that matter Fame will have much to say of him in later ages. Col. Goethals, who wil" share that pinnacle was not at this time associated with the canal work. Coinci- dently with the Com.- mission's visit the President appointed as chief engineer, John F. Wallace, at the mo- Ptioto hy Underwood & Underwood THE TWO COLONELS 1905, to April I, 1907, and Col. George W. Goethals from April i, 1907, to the time of pubhcation of this book and doubtless for a very considerable period thereafter. Each of these officials encountered new problems, serious obstacles, heartbreaking delays and disap- pointments. Two broke down under the strain; doubtless the one who took up the work last profited by both the errors and the successes of his predeces- sors. It is but human nature to give the high- est applause to him who is in at the death, to immortalize the soldier who plants the flag on the citadel, for- getting him who fell making a breach in the outer breastworks and thereby made possible the ultimate triumph. Wallace at the very outset had to overcome one grim and unrelent- ing enemy which was largely subdued before his successors took up the work. Yellow fever and malaria ravaged the Isthmus, as they had done from time immemorial, and al- though Sanitary Officer Gorgas was there with knowledge of how to put that foe to rout the campaign was yet ment general manager W. C. Gorgas and George W. Goethals, whose combined work gave the canal ^o be begun. They say to the world -^ that Wallace had a of the Illinois Central Railroad. His salary was fixed at $25,000 a year. In telling the story of the digging of the Panama Canal we shall find throughout that the engineer outshines the Commission; the executive rather than the legislative is the ruling force. The story therefore groups itself into three chapters of very unequal length — namely the administrations as chief engineers of John F. Wallace, from June i, 1904, to June 28, 1905; John F. Stevens, June 30, lurking dread that before he could finish the canal the canal would finish him, and indeed he had sound reasons for that fear. He found the head- quarters of the chief engineer in the building on Avenida Centrale now occupied by the United States legation, but prior to his time tenanted by the French Director-General. The streets of the town were unpaved, ankle deep in foul mire in the rainy season, and covered with germ-laden dust when dry. There THE BEGINNING OF WORK UNDER WALLACE 149 being no sewers the townsfolk with airy indifference to pub- lic health emptied their slops from the second-story win- dows feeling they had made sufficient concession to the general welfare if they warned passersby before tilting the bucket. Yellow fever was al- ways present in isolated cases, and by the time Wallace had been on the job a few months it became epidemic, and among the victims was the wife of his secretary . However, the new chief engineer tackled the job with energy. There was quite enough to enlist his best energies. It must be remembered that at this date the fundamental problem of a sea level vs. a lock canal had not been determined — was not definitely settled indeed until 1906. Accordingly Engineer Wallace's first work was getting ready to work. He found 746 men tickling the surface of Culebra Cut with hand tools; the old French houses, all there were for the new force had been seized upon by natives or overrun by the jungle; .while the French had left great quantities of serviceable machinery it had been aban- doned in the open and required careful overhauling before being fit for use; the railroad was inadequate in track mileage and in equipment. Above all the labor problem was yet to be successfully solved. In his one year's service Wallace repaired 357 French houses and built 48 new ones, but the task of housing the employees was still far from completed. Men swarm.ed over the old French machinery, cutting away the jungle, dousing the metal with kerosene and cleaning off the rust. Floating dredges were set to work in the channel at the Atlantic end — which incidentally has been abandoned in the completed plans for the canal though it was used in preliminary con- struction. The railroad was reequipped and extended and the foundation laid for the thoroughly up-to-date road it now is. Meanwhile the surveying parties were busy in the field collecting the data from which after a prolonged period of discussion, the vexed question of the type of caral. should be determined. IN THE HOSPITAL GROUNDS 150 PANAMA AND THE CANAL Two factors in the situation made Wallace's job the hardest. The Commission made its head- quarters in Washington, 2000 miles or a week's journey away from the job, and the American people, eager for action, were making the air resound with cries of "make the dirt fly!" In a sense Wallace's position was not unlike that of Gen. McClellan in the opening months of the Civil War when the slogan of the northern press was "On to Richmond," and no thought was given to the obstacles in the path, or the wisdom of preparing fully for the campaign be- for it was begun. There are many who hold today that if Wallace had been deaf to those who wanted to see the dirt fly, had taken the men off the work of excavation until the type of canal had been deter- mined and all necessary housing and sanitation work had been completed, the results attained would have been better, and the strain which broke down this really capable engineer would have been averted. Red tape immeasurable wound about the Chief Engineer and all his assistants. Requisitions had to go to the Commission for approval and the Commission clung to Washington tenaciously, as all federal commissions do wherever the work they are commissioned to perform may be situated. During the Civil War days a story was current of a Major being examined for promotion to a colonelcy. "Now, Major," asked an examiner, "we will con- sider, if you please, the case of a regiment just ordered into battle. What is the usual position of the colonel in such a case?" "On Pennsylvania Avenue, about Willard's Hotel," responded the Major bravely and truth- fully. The officers who directed Wallace's fighting force clung to Pennsylvania Avenue and its asphalt rather than abide with Avenida Centrale and its mud. So too did succeeding commissions until Theodore Roosevelt, who. had a personal penchant for being on the firing line, ordered that all members of the Commission should reside on the Isthmus. At that he had trouble enforcing the order except with the Army and Navy officers who made up five-sevenths of the Commission. How great was the delay caused by red tape and absentee authorities cannot be estimated. When requisitions for supplies reached Washington the regulations required that bids be advertised for. I rather discredit the current story that when a young Panamanian arrived at Ancon Hospital and the mother proved unable to furnish him with food, the doctor in charge was officially notified that if he bought a nursing bottle without advertising thirty days for bids he must do so at his own expense. That story seems too strikingly illustrative of red- tape to be true. But it is true that after Col. FUuLu bij UTKtcrwood tfc Underwood FRENCH COTTAGES ON THE WATER FRONT, CRISTOBAL THE ABSENTEE COMMISSIONERS AND THE RED TAPE 151 Gorgas had worked out his plans for fur- nishing run- ning water to Panama, and doing away with the cis- terns and great jars in which the residents stored water and bred mos- quitoes, it took nine months to get the iron pipes, ordinary ones at that, to Panama. M e anw h i 1 e street paving and sewerage were held up and when Wal- lace wired the Commission to hurry he was told to be less extravagant in his use of the cable. No man suf- fered more from this sort of official delay and stupidity than did Col. Gorgas. If any man was fighting for life it was he — not for his own life but that of the thousands who were working, or yet to work on the canal. Yet when he called for wire netting to screen out the malarial mosquitos he was rebuked by the Commission as if he were asking it merely to contribute to the luxury of the employees. The amount of ingenuity expended by the Com- mission in suggesting ways in which wire netting might be saved would be admirable as indicative of a desire to guard the public purse, except for the fact that in saving netting they were wasting hu- man lives. The same policy was pursued when ap- peals came in for additional equipment for the hospi- tals, for new machinery, for wider authority. When- PAY DAY FOR THE BLACK LABOR ever anything was to be done on the canal line the first word from Washington was always criticism — the policy instant- ly applied was delay. Allowing for the disadvan- tages under which he la- bored Mr. Wal- lace achieved great results in his year of ser- vice on the Isthmus. But his connection with the canal was ended in a way about which must ever hang some element of mystery. He complained bitterly, per- sistently and justly about the conditions in which he was com- pelled to work and found in President Roosevelt a sympathetic and a reasonable auditor. Indeed, moved by the Chief Engineer's appeals, the Presi- dent endeavored to secure from Congress authority to substitute a Commission of three for the un- wieldy body of seven with which Wallace found it so hard to make headway. Failing in this the President characteristically enough did by indirec- tion what Congress would not permit him to do directly. He demanded and received the resigna- tions of all the original commissioners, and ap- pointed a new board with the following members : Theodore P. Shonts, Chairman, Charles E. Magoon, Governor of the Canal Zone, John F. Wallace, Chief Engineer,. 152 PANAMA AND THE CANAL Mordecai T. Endicott, Peter C. Hains, Oswald H. Ernst, Benjamin M. Harrod. As in the case of the earUer commissioners none of these remained to see the work to a conclusion. This commission, though similar in form, was vastly different in fact from its predecessor. The President in appointing it had directed that its first three members should constitute an ex- ecutive committee, and that two of these. Gov. Magoon and Engineer Wallace, should reside continuously on the Zone. To further con- centrate power in Mr. Wallace's hands he was made Vice-President of the Panama Railroad. The President thus se- cured practically all he had asked of Congress, for the executive com- mittee of three was as powerful as the smaller commission which Con- gress had refused him. In all this organization Mr. Wallace had been consulted at every step. He stayed for two months in Washington while the changes were in progress and ex- pressed his entire ap- proval of them. It was therefore with the ut- most amazement that the President received from him, shortly after his return to the Isthmus, a cable requesting a new conference and hinting at his resignation. At the moment that cable message was sent Panama was shuddering in the grasp of the last yel- low fever epidemic that has devastated that terri- tory. Perhaps had Col. Gorgas secured his wire netting earlier, or Wallace's appeals for water pipes Photo by UndtTtLuod