Bridge of Water

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PANAMAAND-ITS-BRIDGEOF *WATER

NIDA


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120

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180 1

University of California Berkeley

Revised,


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COMMERCIAL HIGHWAYSOF THE WORLDimportant K.anways______Important Steamship Lines(density of traffic^Steamship Lines -Panama Canal

Cofyright, l


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PANAMAANDITS"BRIDGEOF WATER


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"The Isthmus of Panama, formerly a partof Castella del Oro, is the gateway to the Pacificand the front door of the three Americas, to whichthe Antilles lead up as stepping stones. Formigration, commerce, or war, the Isthmus ofAmerica, with or without a canal, is the mostimportant strategic point in the world."


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ATLANTIC C E A

A relief map of the Canal Zone


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PANAMA AND ITS"BRIDGE OF WATER"

BySTELLA HUMPHREY NIDA

Illustrated

RAND McNALLY & COMPANYCHICAGO NEW YORK


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Copyright, 1915,By RAND MCNALLY & COMPANY

Chicago


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IJ

THE CONTENTSPAGEA Foreword . 9

T/K? Introduction . 11

PART ITHE LAND OF THE PANAMANIANS

INTRODUCTORY . . . . ......... 17EARLY HISTORY

The Arrival of the Spaniards 21THE BUCCANEERSWhen Drake and Morgan Sailed the Seas .... 32

GEOGRAPHY OF THE ISTHMUSPanamanian Products and People 42

THE PANAMA RAILROADThe First Railroad across America 63

PREPARATIONS FOR A CANALThe Beginnings of a Great Waterway 70

DE LESSEPS' FAILUREA Costly Experiment . ..... . . . . . 78

PART IICOMING OF THE AMERICANS

CLEANING UP THE CANAL ZONEWar on Disease, the First Great Task .... 87

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8 The ContentsPAGETHE GATUN DAM AND THE LOCKS

The "Steps" to the "Bridge of Water" 100CULEBRA CUT AND THE SLIDES

A Knotty Problem IllHow THE GOVERNMENT CARED FOR HER EMPLOYEES

The "Labor Question" Answered . 126LEADERS IN THE PROJECT

The Men to Whom We Owe the Panama Canal . . 148THE ZONE A MILITARY RESERVATION

How "Uncle Sam" Protects His Interests .... 166THE CANAL AS A COMMERCIAL HIGHWAY

How It Promotes Our Trade 174THE PANAMA-PACIFIC EXPOSITIONAmerica's Triumphal Celebration 182

A Guide to Pronunciation 188The Glossary 189Suggestions to Teachers 191A Bibliography . 195


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A FOREWORDTHE story of a raging stream made navigable, of amountain chain bridged by an artificial streamof water, of climatic conditions overcome, and ofswamps and jungles made a healthful dwellingplace reads like a romance, but such is the historyof the building of the Panama Canal. It was theconviction of the author in writing this story foryoung people that it should be a familiar tale toevery school child of the grammar grades.The geography and history of the past is largelythe story of man adapting himself to natural condi-tions. In the old days physiographic features, suchas rivers and mountains, determined routes oftravel and commerce. While their effect is stillimportant, the coming of steam and electric powerhas helped man to conquer nature to an astonishingdegree. Deserts are traversed by the iron horse,rivers spanned by monster bridges, and mountainspierced by tunnels. Arid regions are irrigated andmade to yield abundantly and great hills are leveledto plains. The men of the future, instead of search-ing for natural routes, will go about making theirown where they will. The explorer has given placeto the engineer.

This gives a new trend to the study of geography.Emphasis is now placed upon the human side of

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10 A Forewordgeography, upon the mastery of the world's traderoutes. For instance, rivers that are of commercialvalue have a human interest, while little attentionis paid to those that are not navigable, because theyare of no service in the progress of mankind. Theconditions that have helped to make a city greatare of more importance to us than the mere fact ofthe city's greatness, for we shall always be buildingother great cities.To build the Canal required the best thought ofscientists, engineers, and statesmen. Hundreds ofour citizens who were American school children ageneration ago played an important part in theundertaking. It took courage, honest service, un-selfishness, and great faith to gain this superbconquest. What better ideals for our coming citizens?

S.H.N.


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THE INTRODUCTIONTHE building of the Panama Canal broughttogether on the Isthmus a great army of men,splendidly organized and pursuing a peaceful con-quest with all the energy, valor, and heroism thatmight characterize a decisive battle in warfare.But instead of an opposing army of regiments, theattack was directed against mountains, swamps, anddiseases.The results of that conquest, as measured in terms

of service to our country, can be compared only to theheroic services of our greatest wars. As a nation weare indebted to every man who faithfully performedhis duties on the Canal. Many endured privations,and some even met death, but always with the samedauntless courage that has ever led men of likespirit to charge the ramparts of an enemy.It was a battle against nature, and the patriotismrevealed was as strong and as real as has been anyin our proud history. As a national achievementit is worthy of primary consideration in our publicschools, and in providing this school text the authorhas made no small contribution to our nation's good.She has possessed the ''Canal spirit" to a remarkabledegree, and has given the narrative vividness in spiteof its broad scope. The text is, in itself, a tributeto the author's exhaustive and discriminating study

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12 The Introductionof the world's greatest and most fascinating cam-paign of engineering. Having the advantage of apersonal acquaintance with varied features of theCanal enterprise, I am convinced that this book willgive to the school children a correct understandingof the subject, and will increase their interest in, andrespect for, our nation's greatness.The history of any great achievement is thebiography of its leaders. The story of the Panama

Canal is the record of the deeds of great men whowere supported by the patriotic devotion of an army.The Canal record of brilliancy and honor is a longone, and no page stands out with more credit to theAmerican nation than that one which records ourgovernment's marked interest in the highest moral,as well as physical, welfare of the men whom shesent into most trying and depressing conditionsin the heart of the tropics. Such an expression ofChristian ideals has been noted by the nations ofthe world as truly as our achievements in sanitationand engineering.

A. BRUCE MINEARSuperintendent of Club HousesandGeneral Secretary, Y.M.C.A.


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THE LANDOF THEPANAMANIANS


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"When the last dike was blown up at Gam-boa and the water of Gatun Lake was allowed torush into the Cut, it marked a new era in thehistory of the race. For countless ages thenarrow strip of land which is the Isthmus hadbeen soaked with human blood sodden with theromance of olden days. This Canal of oursstands for the new and better times. The oldromance of brawn and blood has given place tothe romance of brains."


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Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y.S.S. "Cristobal," the first ocean-going liner to pass through

the Panama Canal


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PANAMA AND ITS"BRIDGE OF WATER"INTRODUCTORY

ON the seventh day of January, 1914, acertain boat made a short voyage offifty miles in which all the world was inter-ested. This boat, by sailing through thenew Panama Canal from the Pacific Oceanto the Atlantic, proved that the United Statesgovernment had successfully completed themost wonderful piece of engineering knownto history.The Panama Canal cuts in two the Isthmus

of Panama, which joins North America andSouth America. It would take a railroadlocomotive going at ordinary speed less thantwo hours to travel across this narrow isth-mus, but, strange as it may seem, this fiftymiles of waterway has cost the United States$375,000,000 in money, six thousand lives,

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18 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"and ten years of the hardest and braveststruggle.

It is difficult to think in terms of millions.Can you imagine every man, woman, andchild in the United States bringing four silverdollars and placing them in a heap? Itwould be a mountain of money, and it wouldtake it all to pay for this wonderful Canal.It would take seven millions of these dollarsto pay for one mile of the Canal, or aboutsix thousand dollars for a strip of it as longas your foot ruler.The Canal will be of great value to the

world's commerce by shortening the distancefrom the western coast of Europe and theeastern coast of the United States to thewestern shores of North and South Americaand to the coasts of Asia and Australia. Itwill save a great deal of time and money.In order to pay for its upkeep it must earnmore than a million dollars a month bycharging ships a toll for their passage.For four hundred years the world has been


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The Land of the Panamanians 19wishing for a canal across the Isthmus. Whywas it not built long ago? Our government

Adapted from Barrett, "Panama Canal: What It Is, What It Means"The same amount of excavation as that of the Panama Canal wouldmake a tunnel, 14 feet in diameter and 8,000 miles long,which would cut through the center of the earth

is tunneling beds for rivers through moun-tains, building great artificial lakes, andreclaiming miles of sandy desert larger thanthe whole Isthmus of Panama. Why wasit so stupendous a task to build this shortstrip of waterway? Let us go back fourhundred years, and learn the whole storyof the enterprise.


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Christopher Columbus, from a portrait supposed to havebeen painted by Jan Van Eyck of Bruges


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EARLY HISTORYTHE ARRIVAL OF THE SPANIARDS

Columbus spent some time on his last voy-age to America sailing on Limon Bay, whichis at the Atlantic entrance to the Canal. Healso explored the Chagres River. Columbusis usually given credit for first exploring theIsthmus of Panama, and the two cities ofColon and Cristobal are named for him.Four years before this time, however, another

A* SALVADOR'.V , .(OOAKAHAHIJrkKlOLA

l$U>R.co

t

A T L A N T I C

OCEANThe voyages of Columbus to the New World

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22 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"Spaniard, Rodrigo de Bastides, had visitedthe shores of the mainland of America at the

The "Santa Maria" theflagship of ColumbusIsthmus. With him was Balboa, who laterbecame governor of the first settlement atNombre de Dios in 1509.The settlement at Nombre de Dios was the

first made on the continent of America. Itwas founded fifty-four years before the settle-ment at St. Augustine, and nearly a hundredyears before that at Jamestown. So Panamais the white man's first home in America.


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The Land of the Panamanians 23

A portrait of Balboa, published by courtesy of the "Bay ViewMagazine" and the Pan American UnionBalboa is said to have been the first white

man to discover the Pacific Ocean. He


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The Land of the Panamanians 25married an Indian princess, and profited byit, for the Indians became his fast friends.They kept telling him of the gold and pre-cious stones he might obtain not far awayon the other coast, but for some time he wasafraid to cross the mountainous jungle. Atlast he started out with one hundred and

ATLANTIC^\V OCEAN

OCEAN

Cuzcb

Routes of early voyagers to Panama


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26 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"ninety men. They traveled very slowly, atthe rate of about two miles a day, and reached

Courtesy of the Pan American UnionBalboa taking possession of the Pacific in the name of Spain,from the bronze frieze in the Pan American Building

the Pacific coast in September, 1513. Balboatook possession of the ocean in the name ofSpain, and called it the

"South Sea."When he returned to Nombre de Dios,

about five months later, he found in his placea new governor, named Pedrarias. The twomen did not get on well together. Balboamade other trips to the Pacific, carryingthe parts of ships. These he put togetheragain, and sailed upon that great body ofwater. But in 1519 Pedrarias succeeded in


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The Land of the Panamanians 27having him beheaded under a false charge,and the real founder of Panama was no more.In the year of Balboa's death a wholecentury before the Pilgrims landed at Ply-mouth the old city of Panama was foundedon the Pacific coast.In 1532 Francisco Pizarro led an expeditionsouthward from Panama on the Pacific coastand conquered the Incas, a remarkable tribe

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood. N. Y."Flat Arch" ruins of Santo Domingo church, city of Panama.This arch, said to be the longest flat arch in the world,has stood more than two hundred years


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28 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"of Indians who lived in splendor in themountains of Peru. They had immense

Francisco Pizarro, from an old engravingtreasures of gold and silver and jewels whichadorned their temples, and all this wealth fellinto the hands of the Spaniards. Extensive


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The Land of the Panamanians 29mines of gold and silver were discovered,and soon great quantities of the preciousmetals were being carried to Spain by wayof Panama.To get this treasure to Spain more easily

the Royal Road was built across the Isthmus.This road was paved with stone and extendedbetween the cities of Nombre de Dios, PortoBello, and Panama. It was said to be wideenough to accommodate two carts abreast,but it was used chiefly by the trains of packmules that crossed in caravans, carryingtreasure and merchandise to and from theking's ships.

After the palaces and the temples of theIncas were stripped of gold, the silver minesof Peru yielded great wealth. Pearls werebrought from the islands in the Pacific, pre-cious stones from the Andes, and dyewoodfrom the coast was exchanged for the mer-chandise brought from Spain to the colonists.The Spanish galleons, or warships, armed withfrom forty to fifty guns, guarded the fleet of


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30 Panama and Its "Bridge of Watermerchantmen that every year carried theking's treasure across the Atlantic to Spain,

C. M. Peacock, photographerA cave near the site of the old city of Panama which is believedto have been used as a hiding-place for treasure

for the course was beset with pirates. TheEnglish allowed the Spaniards to encounter allthe hardships in securing the treasure, andthen lay in wait to take it from them.Although Morgan and Drake were just

plain, everyday pirates, Morgan was actuallyknighted for his daring robberies on the seasand on the Isthmus. Morgan and Drake


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The Land of the Panamanians 31justified their unlawful deeds by claimingthat England was at war with Spain, andthere was also the feud between the Protes-tants and the Catholics to offer as an excusefor this lawlessness.About a hundred years after the founding

of Nombre de Dios the Spaniards settledPorto Bello in a more healthful spot on theAtlantic coast, and removed bag and baggageto this fine port. A yearly fair was heldregularly at Porto Bello, and at that time thepeople crowded there for several weeks, whilethe mule trains were arriving from Panamaand the treasure was being loaded upon theking's ships. Merchants exchanged theirwares for the products brought by the col-onists, and the trade grew year by year, until,it is said, it reached the immense sum oftwo hundred million dollars. For many yearsSpain lived on the wealth brought fromAmerica and the Peruvian mines.


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THE BUCCANEERSWHEN DRAKE AND MORGAN SAILED THE SEAS

SIRFRANCIS DRAKE, when a lad of

eighteen, sailed on the West IndianSeas with his uncle. They nearly lost theirlives through the treachery of the Spaniards,and for the rest of his days Sir Francis seemsto have devoted his energies to getting evenwith that hated nation. A few years later,when he had obtained a vessel of his own, helanded with a troop of young men at Nombrede Dios. He captured the batteries, and be-fore the Spaniards knew what he was doing,he had secured a position where he couldcharge on the city. Instead of resisting, theSpaniards fled. When Drake's men foundthe treasure house so easily at their mercy,they scarcely knew how to proceed, and justas all the wealth was within their grasp theylost their heads.

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Sir Francis Drake


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34 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"A drenching tropical shower came up sud-

denly and with such fury that they thoughtthey were all going to be drowned. Drake,who had received a slight wound in theskirmish, fainted, and his men fled in confu-sion, dragging him with them back to theirships and carrying away only a small part ofthe booty within their reach.When Drake revived he" was naturallyvery much chagrined at the outcome, but hewent to work on a plan to waylay on theRoyal Road one of the mule trains due tocross the Isthmus with the court treasure atabout this time. He first made friends withthe Maroon Indians, who served as hisguides. Under their direction, Drake's menmade the trip safely to Cruces, about half-way across the Isthmus. A little beyond thispoint they lay in wait for the treasuretrain. Soon mule bells were heard tinklingon the Royal Road. All made ready, andthe surprise would have been complete hadnot one of Drake's men misunderstood one


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The Land of the Panamanians 35of the signals given and allowed himself tobe seen by one of the Spanish horsemen.

King Bros., photographersCathedral tower of St. Augustine. The church of which thetower formed a part was destroyed by Morgan, 1671At this the Spaniards became suspicious

and advised a ruse. Usually the treasure ofthe caravan was carried by the first fourteenmules, which went well in advance. In thiscase these were sent to the rear, and mulesloaded with grain and baggage were drivenon ahead. When Drake's men fell upon thebaggage train the mules in the rear were made


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36 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water' 9to retreat, and were hurried back to Panamaat full speed, thus saving the treasure.When Drake realized that he had beenoutwitted he let it be understood that hehad left the Isthmus; but instead of doingthis he joined a French pirate. Then, witha small body of men they hurried back towardNombre de Dios. Here, within hailing dis-tance of the town, they seized another muletrain and secured one hundred thousand

C. M. Peacock, photographerAll that is left of old Spanish cannon as they fell from their

rotting carriages at Porto Bella


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The Land of the Panamanians 37dollars in gold and silver. The story goesthat a large part of this booty had to behastily buried before theSpaniards recovered andcame back to retaketheir treasure. Later,Drake raided Nombre deDios again, and burnedthe city.

Drake's raids were sec-ond only to those ofHenry Morgan, anotherEnglishman, who, a fewyears later, attackedPorto Bello. He blew upthe fort, with all thesoldiers inside. He made the nuns andfriars prisoners, and forced them to placeagainst the walls of the castle the scalingladders, by means of which he captured it.For fifteen days he tortured the colonists, butat last accepted a ransom of twenty-five thou-sand dollars and returned to the West Indies,

Copyright by Underwood &Underwood, N.Y.Watchtower, old fort,San Lorenzo


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38 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"where he spent the money in riotous living.When this money was gone, Morgan tookSan Lorenzo near the mouth of the ChagresRiver and crossed the Isthmus to take thecity of Panama. Without the leadershipof the Indians who assisted Drake, Morganand his men suffered greatly on the marchacross the Isthmus. Lost in the jungles andthe swamps, much of the time without food,they were bitten by poisonous spiders andsnakes, trapped in the quicksands, and madeill with fever. They reached Panama in aweak and wretched condition. On the savan-nas before the city were the cattle of thePanamanians. Morgan's men killed theseand gorged themselves on the meat beforeit was half roasted.When at last they succeeded in entering

the city they found that ships had beenloaded with the treasure and valuables ofthe natives and that these ships had disap-peared. Some writers say that they hadbeen sunk in the harbor. At any rate, the


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The Land of the Panamanians 39treasure was safe from the buccaneers. Mor-gan took his revenge by torturing the citizens,

C. M. Peacock, photographerA remnant of the old Spanish colonial fortifications. Thesecost so much that King Philip is reported to have said

they ought to be visiblefrom his palace in Madridkilling many of them. Then he burned theold city of Panama to the ground.The new city of that name, which is now

nearly two hundred and fifty years old, wasbuilt several miles from the old city at apoint where it could be strongly fortified.For many years the Spaniards invaded

Mexico, Central America, and South America,


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40 Panama and Its "Bridge of Waternot for purposes of agriculture though thereis no place where the earth gives back somuch for so little labor but to establishtowns where they could sell their merchan-dise. For a century or more, the wealthobtained from Peru and the Pacific islandswas carried across the Isthmus to the cof-fers of Spain, until the mines were at lastexhausted. Then the richest highway theworld has ever known, the Royal Road, was

C. M. Peacock, photographerAn old Spanish bridge on the road from old Panama toPanama City


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The Land of the Panamanians 41allowed to grow up to jungle vines and flowers.To-day the Royal Road may be seen in spots

C. M. Peacock, photographerRuins near the old city of Panama

near the Canal Zone, though its course, likethe route Balboa is said to have taken, liesin some places many miles from the Zone.


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GEOGRAPHY OF THE ISTHMUSPANAMANIAN PRODUCTS AND PEOPLE

AS we have said, the Isthmus of Panamais a narrow strip of land connectingNorth America and South America. Unlesswe study the map, however, we are sure tothink of it as extending north and south,when in reality it extends nearly east andwest. It sounds very strange to people livingin the United States to speak of the sun risingin the Pacific Ocean and setting in the Atlan-tic, but this is actually the case at one placeon the shores of Panama Bay; for the Gulfof Panama is an arm of the Pacific and liesdirectly east of a portion of the CaribbeanSea, which is a part of the Atlantic Ocean.When Balboa crossed the Isthmus he went ina southerly direction, and that is why hecalled the ocean he discovered the South Sea.

All this is to help us remember that the42


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44 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"Canal takes a southeasterly direction fromColon on the Atlantic coast to Panama on thePacific. If we want to fix the city of Panamain our minds we can think of it as being duesouth of Buffalo, New York, or Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania.Perhaps you will be surprised to know thatthe Canal is not built acro'ss the narrowestpart of the Isthmus, which is at the Gulf ofSan Bias, sixty miles east of Colon. At thatpoint it is only thirty miles wide. Why didwe choose a route twenty miles longer?

In the first place, by the San Bias routethere is no large river to help furnish thewaterway, so the amount of digging wouldhave been much greater, because the "back-bone of the continent " is more than twiceas high at this narrow part. Besides this,there has never been a road of any kind madethrough the jungle at San Bias, while at Colonthere was a beaten path, some of it four hun-dred years old. The railroad which had beenbuilt at Colon was also a deciding factor.


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Copyright by Underwood & Underwood. N.Y.Falls on the Rio Chorrera, about twenty miles west ofPanama CityThe Republic of Panama is a trifle smaller

than the state of Indiana. It is composedof seven states, the most important of whichare Bocas del Toro, Chiriqui, Colon, andPanama. Panama comprises one third ofthe whole republic, and across this statestretches the Canal Zone.The Canal Zone is a strip of land extending

five miles on each side of the middle line of


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46 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"the "big ditch." It is, therefore, ten mileswide and reaches from deep water in one

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y.Native soldiers who help guard the Republic of Panama

ocean to deep water in the other, or a distanceof about fifty miles. Over this Zone theUnited States government has absolute con-trol, except for the two Panamanian cities


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The Land of the Panamanians 47of Colon on the Atlantic coast and Panamaon the Pacific. However, the United States

Map of the Canal Zonehas the right in these cities to dictate allmeasures relating to sanitation and health.The state of Panama is only nine degrees,or some six hundred miles, from the equator,so it has a tropical climate. Though the


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48 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"thermometer at times registers high, it seldomaverages above eighty-six degrees. Dark-

A bird 's-eye view of the Canal Zoneness falls suddenly, without twilight, in Pan-ama, and the nights are always comfortable.

It is sometimes said in joke that there aretwo seasons on the Isthmus, a rainy and awet, but this is somewhat exaggerated. How-ever, the rainfall on the Atlantic coast is abouttwelve feet yearly. On the Pacific it is abouthalf as much.


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The Land of the Panamanians 49January, February, March, and sometimes

April are the only dry months. About thefirst of Aprilor May lightshowers falldaily, orvery often,and fromJune to De-cember comeregular Photograph from the New York Zoological SocietyThe South American Tapir, a wild animal

of Panama whose home is amongT h e s u n the f rest treesshines brightly between showers, but work issuspended during the downpours. Sometimesseveral inches of rain fall within a fewhours, which makes raging torrents of thestreams and keeps the vegetation alwaysgreen and luxuriant. It also keeps the groundin a swampy condition. In some places theswamps are hundreds of feet deep.

Grass grows so easily here that fresh -turned earth is green again in a few days.


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50 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"Seventy-five varieties of orchids grow wild,with a great variety of coleus and other

Photograph from the New York Zoological SocietyA queer animal that lives mainly on ants, and from this pecul-iarity gets its name the Great Ant-Eater

tropical plants. One season's growth burieseverything, even houses, if undisturbed. AFrench village large enough to shelter a thou-sand people was dug out of the jungle afteronly a few years of desertion.Many fruits bananas, coconuts, alligator

pears, mangoes grow wild. The big-animallife of Africa is not found in Central America,but insect life is here in great variety. Tapirs,


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The Land of the Panamanians 51ant-eaters, the iguana or lizard, and otherqueer animals abound, while deer and tiger

Photograph from the New York Zoological SocietyThe Iguana, one of the largest of the lizards, is a harmless

creature despite its hideous appearance

cats live on the mountain sides, and thestreams have many alligators. Paroquets,humming birds, and the beautiful whiteheron are common, as are all sorts of tropicalbirds of brilliant plumage. The bites of thepoisonous spiders, the scorpion, and tarantulaare fatal to their victims unless promptlytreated with an antidote. The coral snake,too, is very cotflmon. After the Americans


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52 Panama and Its "Bridge of Watercame, the Canal Zone was soon cleared ofdangerous animal life, the chief of which

was the mos-quito.The natives

are usually ofmixed nation-alities Indi-ans, negroes,and Span-

Photograph from the New York Zoological Society 1a TQ S . .1.116The Tamandua, one of the smaller species . , ,

of ant-eater bpanisn lan-guage is spoken, as a rule. Most of theIndians living on the Isthmus were enslavedby the Spaniards in the early days and thuslost their identity, but there is still one tribe,known as the San f$las Indians, who boastthat no white man ever stayed all night intheir territory. Their women are most care-fully guarded and are seldom seen. The mencome to the Zone to exchange coconuts forsalt and other commodities.The native Panamanian of the lower class


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The Land of the Panamanians 53takes life as easily as possible. Perhaps onebright day two young natives walk off together

Photograph from the New York Zoological SocietyThe nine-banded Armadillo, one of the best-known of tropicalAmerican animalsand with a few poles build a thatched hutin the jungle, and set up a home. Whateverthey lack they borrow from their neighborswho have been housekeeping for a longerperiod. Their food consists chiefly of bana-nas and coconuts, which grow about them inthe wild state. They do very little cookingand wear little clothing. As their familygrows up, the children help gather the foodthat grows wild for them, without labor; and


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54 Panama and Its "Bridge of Watersince there is no effort made by one familyto outshine its neighbors, there is little to

do but sleep and eat.Soon this family helpsstart others to house-keeping, and so theirlazy, simple life goeson. The natives ofthe tropics are notsubject to the feversand other maladiesthat assail foreigners.Two thirds of theThere is a great variety

of undergrowth and many valuable hardwoods, like mahogany and ebony. Perhapsa native will hollow out for his canoe amahogany log that would be worth thou-sands of dollars for furniture in the UnitedStates. It is said that some of the railroadties in the early days were made of thesevaluable hard woods and were dug up yearsafterward in perfect condition.

Copyright by Underwood &Underwood, N.Y.A charcoal sellerIsthmus is wooded.


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Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y.Native Indians in their long "dug-outs" or cayukas. These"boats " are hollowed out of a single log and are paddled or

poled from the stern


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Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y.Cholo Indians in the interior of Panama pounding rice in awooden mortar


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The Land of the Panamanians 57We wonder, perhaps, why these costlywoods are not brought to the United States,

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y,A street in a native village just outside the Canal Zonewhere they are so highly prized. There areseveral reasons. In the first place, if a manor a company is ready to buy land in Panamait is almost impossible to get a title to it.Then there are no bridges or roads reachingback into the country to help in getting prod-ucts to the coast where they may be shipped,and it is just as difficult to get machineryand provisions into the country as it is to


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n

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y.Wash day on the Isthmus. The usual way the work is doneby the natives


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The Land of the Panamanians . 59get the products out. The third and worsttrouble is the labor question. The natives

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y.Homes in the banana belt. Here Nature provides nearlyeverything the native needs and he will not work

will not work, no matter how much moneyyou offer them. It is said a native family iswell supplied when the man works two daysa week, and he has no thought of laying upanything for the future. Very often thefather of a family starts off to town anddoes enough work on the way to buy a few


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60 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water''needles or furnish his other simple needs.The banana industry of the United Fruit

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y.Unloading bananas for the northern markets. These are

brought from the interior in the "dug-outs" or cayukasof the Indians

Company in Bocas del Toro is the biggestenterprise in the republic. The companycontrols good harbors and brings its laborfrom the West Indies. The Darien Gold-Mining Company runs a small steamer everyweek to Panama. They also bring their


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62 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"labor from abroad, but the cost of transporta-tion eats up their profits. Pineapples, coco-nuts, vegetable ivory, rubber, cacao, and thecabinet woods will some day be shipped inquantities to the United States.

Pearl fishing on the southern coast is nowa profitable industry. The mother-of-pearlalone pays the expense of collecting andthe real pearls are clear profit. Twenty orthirty ships with their diving apparatus areconstantly at work pearl fishing among theislands and up and down the coasts. ,There are fine rubber trees growing wild in

Darien. Cattle raising is a paying industry,for the many juicy grasses feed cattle verycheaply and they can be driven to a shippingpoint. At Boquete is a colony raising coffee.


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THE PANAMA RAILROADTHE FIRST RAILROAD ACROSS AMERICA

THE first railroad to cross the Americancontinent was that built across theIsthmus between Colon and Panama City.Probably it was the costliest railroad everbuilt, for less than fifty miles of track costthe builders seven million dollars or about$140,000 a mile. More than this, it is oftenstated that every tie of the railroad cost ahuman life. However much this may beexaggerated, it is true that thousands of liveswere sacrificed to the undertaking.The work was begun in 1850 by three

Americans, Aspinwall, Chancy, and Stevens.The first train went over the track in January,1855. Only eight miles of track in a year!But courage won. The first eight mileswere the hardest to build. The men workedwaist-deep in the swamps, chopping away the

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64 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"tangled undergrowth with their lunches tiedto their hats to keep them from mud and

C. M. Peacock, photographerThe re-located Panama railroad, looking south from La Pitacut, where the road is built on a high level around Gold Hill

insects. They were exposed to the bites ofpoisonous snakes and spiders, and crazed byswarms of mosquitoes. Hundreds died fromfever and other diseases, and many slippedfrom sight forever in the treacherous quick-sands.The constant summer heat and rain, with


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The Land of the Panamanians 65the decaying vegetation, send forth a poison-ous vapor that is very trying to foreigners.

C. M. Peacock, photographerA section of the embankment over which the Panama railroadcrosses an arm of Gatun Lake

The Black Swamp, just out of Colon, is stillregarded as a bottomless pit, while some ofthe swamps near the Atlantic coast are knownto be from one hundred and eighty to twohundred feet deep. Tons of stone and cordsof wood were put in to make a roadbed forthe railroad, but the greedy earth swallowedthem up and yawned for more. Part of the


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66 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"road across the swamp was virtually built onan immense pontoon bridge.Under these conditions it was next toimpossible to secure labor. Many national-ities were tried without success. A band ofChinese that were brought over were soaffected by the horrors of the jungle thathundreds of them committed suicide.To build the fifty miles of track the builders

had to overcome not only bottomless marshesbut tangled jungles, raging streams, and rockymountains, while disease and death lurkedon every hand. The numberless streamsmade many bridges necessary. Most of thematerial used in the construction work wasbrought from great distances. Food, metal,and even ties were brought from the UnitedStates and England, for there was no way ofpreparing the wood already on the ground.Next to the Canal itself, the building of therailroad was a most remarkable piece of engi-

neering. It is said that the road earned twomillion dollars while it was being built. It


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The Land of the Panamanians 67was about half done during the time that thegold seekers were rushing to California, and

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y.Lifting a span of the Panama railroad bridge at Gamboa toallow the passage of a dredge up the Chagres Riverarm of Gatun Lake

because there was no other road crossing theAmerican continent, many came by way ofthe Isthmus, riding as far as the railroad wascompleted and finishing the journey as bestthey might. In the early days, twenty-fivedollars was charged for a single fare and fivecents a pound for baggage; later, the ratewas reduced to $2.40 across the Isthmus, orfive cents a mile.


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68 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"When the United States built her first

railroad across the desert in 1869 the profits

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y.Panama railroad bridge at Gamboa with span removed

of the Panama railroad declined. It waspurchased by the French in 1881 for eighteenmillion dollars, and later sold to the Americangovernment when it took over the Canalproject in 1904.While work on the Canal was going on,

seven passenger trains crossed the Isthmusevery day. The trip could be made in lessthan an hour without stops; but the pas-senger trains were required to give the right


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The Land of the Panamanians 69of way to the dirt trains, except on a very fewoccasions. Special engines and cars have tobe built for this road, because it is a five-footgauge, which means that the rails are fivefeet apart. In the United States, on thestandard gauge, they are four feet eight andone half inches apart. The Canal playedhavoc with part of the roadbed, so that agreat deal of money was spent to rebuildthe road out of the way of Gatun Lake.When a few gaps are filled there will berailroad communication through Mexico,Guatemala, and Nicaragua to Costa Rica,which last country joins Panama. In time,the Canal will be reached by rail from theUnited States. In connection with the rail-road our government has had six ships plyingbetween New York and Colon, which hasbeen the only line to the Isthmus flying theAmerican flag.


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PREPARATIONS FOR A CANALTHE BEGINNINGS OF A GREAT WATERWAY

THE project of making a canal across theIsthmus was first proposed to Charles Vof Spain in 1523 by Cortes. Charles hadsent Cortes to find a natural waterway acrossthe Isthmus, which the Indians continuedto tell the white men was there. Cortes,of course, failed to find a river that wouldallow him to reach the Pacific. He wasevidently an enterprising fellow, for when hecould not find what he wanted he proposedto his cousin, who accompanied him, that hedraw some plans for an artificial waterwayor canal which could be made at any one offour places. This cousin, Saavedra Ceron,was a civil engineer, so he proceeded to drawfour sets of plans for a canal: one by wayof Lake Nicaragua, one across Tehuantepec,one across Darien, and one across Panama.

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Before these plans could be seriously con-sidered, however, King Charles died.

Hernando Cortes, who, it is said, first proposed anIsthmian canal. From the portrait painted byCharles Wilson Peale, now in IndependenceHall, Philadelphia

Another king, Philip II, who came afterCharles, laid the matter before his friars for


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72 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water' 9

counsel. They quoted their Bibles, saying,"What God hath joined together, let no manput asunder." So the Spaniards went onhunting for a natural waterway and for threehundred years the scheme for a canal rested.

In 1821 Panama became independent ofSpain and was for many years subject toColombia. Shortly after this, England got afoothold at Nicaragua and became interestedin the Isthmus. In 1835 the United Statesbegan to realize that the Isthmus of Panamawas of more value to our nation than itcould possibly be to any other, and PresidentJackson investigated the problem of digginga canal across it. In 1848 he made a treatywith Colombia which gave the sole right ofcrossing the Isthmus "by railroad, road, orcanal" to the United States. In return ourgovernment promised to protect the rightsand powers of Colombia against other nations,and pledged herself to keep neutral (that is,not to use for warfare) any line of transit,or travel, that she should make across the


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The Land of the Panamanians 73Isthmus. This made it possible to build thePanama railroad.As England had her hands on a portion of

the Isthmus, it was necessary for us to makea treaty with that nation. In this treaty,made in 1850, England and the United Statesboth agreed that as nations they would notbuild a canal across the Isthmus for fiftyyears, or allow any other government en-trance to the Central American country forthat purpose. However, they jointly prom-ised to protect any private company thatwould undertake the work.There were many things that made the

building of a canal difficult. In the firstplace, the Colombian government was sus-picious of foreigners and very hard to dealwith, and although it was only fifty milesacross the Isthmus, every mile offered a tre-mendous obstacle.The first of these was the Chagres River,

which is a large stream rising in the San BiasMountains. It runs for some distance parallel


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74 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"with the coast in a zigzag course midwaybetween the two oceans. When within afew miles of Colon it originally turned atright angles and emptied into the CaribbeanSea. For a stretch of seventeen miles fromthe sea the bed of the river was only a trifleabove sea level; but from Bohio to CulebraCut it rose to forty-eight feet above sea level.The Chagres River crossed the proposedroute of the Canal twenty-three times betweenObispo and Gatun. It had twenty-six tribu-taries, and in the rainy season had been knownto rise twenty-five feet within twenty-fourhours. Could anything be harder to manage ?The Cordillera Mountains, or the divide

between the oceans, were about five hundredfeet above sea level at the highest point inthe route of the Canal. The harbors oneither coast were poor. Because of the shapeof Panama Bay the tides on the Pacific coastrise twenty-one feet, while on the Atlanticcoast they rise two and one half feet. In therainy season a great amount of silt is carried


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The Land of the Panamanians 75out into the harbors by the raging streams.All these were most serious problems for theengineer to overcome.But this was not all. The constant rains

and the peculiar formation of the rocks under-lying the mountains caused many landslidesthat filled up the excavations almost as fastas they could be made. The labor problemwas unusually hard, for, as we have said,the natives of the tropics will not workand the laborers brought in from the outsidecould not endure the conditions of climate, butsickened and died.Aside from the many poisonous spiders

and snakes, the excessive rainfall and thedense vegetation of the swamps make anideal breeding place for myriads of mosquitoes,which have been proved to be disease carriers.It was a long time before people suspectedthat the dread yellow fever, that was almostcertain to be fatal to foreigners, was carriedfrom a sick to a well person by the bite of acertain mosquito.


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76 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"By long and careful experimenting in the

West Indies, the taking of grave risks, andthe sacrifice of life, the responsibility wasfastened on this small insect. The investiga-tors first showed, by sleeping many nightsin the bed and clothing of yellow-fever vic-tims who had died, that the disease wasnot contracted by contact. -Then, by carefulobservation, it was proved beyond a doubtthat a certain kind of mosquito, calledstegomyia, that bit a person suffering withyellow fever, could, after a few days, infecta well person with its bite.Malaria also was spread from one person to

another by another variety of mosquito, calledanopheles. People who came in the earlydays contracted cholera from drinking thewater and eating the fruit that grew wild.Of course the idea of a sea-level canal

pleased everybody best. A long, dug-outchannel where boats might sail without inter-ruption, and which would never grow too smallfor the largest ship that might ever be built,


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The Land of the Panamanians 77was naturally to be preferred. Many of theengineers argued that it would cost only alittle more time and trouble to build thecanal at sea level. On the other hand, themore thoughtful contended that it was easierto control the Chagres River by using itthan by trying to make new beds for it andall its tributaries. They advocated the build-ing of a dam across the valley where theChagres flowed which would convert the riverinto a colossal lake lying eighty-five feetabove sea level. By means of this andanother small lake, made in the same manner,they proposed to lift the ships over the divideon a great "bridge of water." The boatswere to be carried up to this higher level bymeans of immense water elevators, or locks,on one side of the divide and lowered by thesame device on the other side to the level ofthe sea once more. This was known as the"lock type" of canal, or the lock plan.


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DE LESSEES' FAILUREA COSTLY EXPERIMENT

WHILE the Panama railroad was inprocess of building, General Grant,with eighteen hundred soldiers, crossed theIsthmus on his way to the Pacific coast, losingeighty of his men with cholera on the trip. Hewas greatly impressed with the hardships ofthe journey, and was convinced of the benefita canal would be to our country. One of thefirst things he did when he became Presidentof the United States was to send to the gov-ernment of Colombia, of which Panama was apart, to arrange for a right of way across theIsthmus. His messenger met with anythingbut a cordial reception at the hands of theColombian government, so Grant turned hisattention to the Nicaragua route. At this,Colombia gave to a French company the rightof way the United States had been seeking.

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The Land of the Panamanians 79A French company was organized with an

immense capital, and Ferdinand de Lesseps

Brown Bros., N.Y., photographersCount Ferdinand de Lesseps, the famous builderof the Suez Canal

was chosen to build the canal. De Lessepshad but recently completed the Suez Canal,


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80 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"which connects the Mediterranean Sea withthe Red Sea, so every one had great faith inhim. De Lesseps was more than seventyyears old when he undertook the great task,but he was confident of his ability to do thework. The words, "The canal will be built,"were ever on his tongue. Although manyof the best engineers disagreed with him, heplanned to dig a canal about twenty-ninefeet deep, at sea level. He promised that itshould be completed in eight years, and pro-ceeded to let contracts for various parts ofthe job.He pushed the work hard, but very soonthe obstacles began to appear. The floodsof the Chagres River which, as we have said,rises prodigiously in the rainy season, proveda factor he had not reckoned with. He hadplanned to get the river out of his way bybuilding through the mountains a tunnel, tenmiles long, which would carry it to the Pacificslope; but to change the course of this seeth-ing torrent with its numerous tributaries was


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The Land of the Panamanians 81a mightier task than he dreamed. Slidesagain and again filled up his excavations at

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y.A dump-car, left by the French, imbedded in the trunk of a treeCulebra Cut, and his men died by hundreds.At last he was on the point of giving up

the plan of a sea-level canal and turning tothe lock type; but he had spent so muchmoney and had accomplished so little thatthe company began to distrust him, and notenough money could be raised to proceed withnew plans. He had built beautiful hospitalson the Isthmus to care for his men, but there

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82 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"had been no attempt to prevent illness. Itis said that out of every hundred men whocame, only twenty were fit to work more thana few days. After spending $260,000,000,and excavating about seventy million cubicyards of earth, de Lesseps was forced to throwup his hands and go back to France in dis-grace. He lost his mind worrying over hisfailure, and died in 1894.Some half-hearted attempts were made to

continue the work, but the French companycould not revive the interest in it sufficientlyto raise funds to complete it. To keep theright of way, a few men were kept workingon the line until it was sold to the Americans.Much of the machinery used by the Frenchwas of use to the Americans in the beginning

of their work. The hospitals and some of thehouses built by de Lesseps were especiallyuseful. The most important work that theFrench had done was between Gold Hilland Contractor's Hill, where the elevationof the divide is the greatest. They had


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The Land of the Panamanians 83lowered the divide from three hundred andtwelve feet to one hundred and sixty-one feet,

Copyright by Keystone View Co.Culebra Cut, showing Gold Hill on the right and Contractor'sHill at the left

removing about thirty million cubic yards ofearth in the route that was of actual valueto our workmen; but a large part of theirexcavations were of no use to us because ourroute was different from theirs.


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84 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"The United States paid the French com-

pany forty million dollars for their rights,including the railroad. This also includedtheir records and surveys, but since theFrench were unsuccessful, much of the workwas gone over. After all, the greatest goodwe obtained from the French was the knowl-edge that made it possible for us to avoid theirmistakes and profit by their experience.


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II

COMING OFTHE AMERICANS


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"We own half of an unusually big waterfallat Niagara. We have some mountains out Westwhich rival the Alps, and a bit of fine grain landin between. But we have never had an accom-plishment like this Canal to toast of before.Something we as a nation have done ourselves

and not entirely for ourselves. 1 '


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CLEANING UP THE CANAL ZONEWAR ON DISEASE, THE FIRST GREAT TASK

DURING the Spanish-American War thebattleship "Oregon," then stationed onour Pacific coast, was needed on the Atlantic.It took so long for it to make the ten thousandmile journey from San Francisco around CapeHorn that every citizen of the United Statesawoke to the immediate need of a canal atthe Isthmus for the prompt and adequateprotection of our coasts and the convenienceof our navy.

After the war was over, President McKinleyappointed an Isthmian Canal Commissionof seven men, known as the I. C. C., to pushthe matter. Negotiations were again begunwith Colombia, but when President Roose-velt took the chair there seemed to be littlehope of their reaching an agreement. Wewere finally on the point of settling on the

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88 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"Nicaragua route when Panama, which iscredited with having had fifty-three revolu-

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y.Independence Day in Panama City

tions in fifty-seven years, rose once moreagainst the Colombian government and de-clared its independence. The United Statesseized the occasion to escape further dealingwith the leaders of the Colombian governmentby promptly recognizing the independence ofPanama and making a treaty with her.For a cash payment of ten million dollars

and the promise of $250,000 yearly after 1913,the United States obtained the control of the


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90 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"Canal Zone that we have before described.The French rights and the railroad werebought for forty million dollars and a newtreaty was made with Great Britain. Thenew treaty of 1901 did away with the pledgesof the treaty of 1850 and allowed the UnitedStates government to "construct, operate,and control a canal," with a" free hand overthe canal in time of war and the right offortifying it as they see fit.

In 1904, the I. C. C., or the Commissionappointed to dig the Canal, took charge ofthe Canal Zone. John F. Wallace was ap-pointed chief engineer, George W. Davis,governor of the Canal Zone, and ColonelW. C. Gorgas was made head of the HealthDepartment, which was to clean up the CanalZone and make it a fit place to live in whilethe work of digging the Canal was carried on.At this time it was not decided whether theCanal should be built at sea level or afterthe lock plan.

Colonel Gorgas started in to do two things:


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Coming of the Americans 91to clean up the cities of Panama and Colon,and to kill all the mosquitoes. He had had

Copyright by Clinedinst, Washington, D.C.Colonel William C. Gorgas, Chief Sanitary Officer

of the Canal Zonesuccessful experience in this work in theWest Indies and was a man admirably fitted


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92 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"for the work. First of all, he understood theprejudices of the natives and knew how tohandle them tactfully. It was said of himthat "Gorgas can feed you liquid quinineand jolly you into thinking you like it." Inthe early days in Cuba there were many whomade light of the war against the mosquitoes.Once one of Gorgas' superiors said to him:

"Is it worth while to spend all this moneyto save the lives of a few niggers? ""That's not the point, General," replied

Gorgas. "We are doing it to save your life,and that is worth while."The Panamanians were slipshod and care-

less. They were immune to malaria andyellow fever, and those of the better class wereaccustomed to getting favors from their offi-cers by means of bribes. But Gorgas turnedevery family out of its home for twenty-fourhours while he fumigated the house. All thehouses in the city of Panama were fumigatedwithin two weeks, and he did it without oppo-sition, by humoring and managing the people.


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Coming of the Americans 93He built sewers and waterworks, and forced

the residents of the city to connect thepipes that he laid under-ground. He also insistedon their disposing of allwaste and garbage in asanitary manner, insteadof dumping it into thestreets, as they had pre-viously done. The large CopyrightbyKeystoneviewco.stone basins standing in ^ unitary drip bandthe courtyards, which had for many yearsheld their supply of water, were a breedingplace for mosquitoes. These were banishedand a reservoir was made in the mountainstwelve miles from the city of Panama, andfrom this the water was piped to all the houses.The streets were paved and a great stridetoward sanitary living had been made. Thesame measures were used in Colon.Then began the war upon the mosquitoes.

Since the life of a mosquito is short, it wasbelieved the quickest way of getting rid of


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94 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"them was to prevent as many as possiblefrom hatching. The mosquito lays her eggson the top of stagnant pools or standingwater. When the young mosquitoes or wig-glers hatch they live in the water, but come tothe surface very often for air. Kerosene wasfound to be fatal to the wigglers, so all thepools of standing water, and even some of thesmaller running streams, were kept coveredwith a scum of crude oil, or "larvacide." Afterthe rains this was constantly renewed bynegroes with sprinkling cans. If the youngmosquito gets a lungful of larvacide he nevercomes to the top again.Attempts were then made to prevent themosquito from depositing eggs, by destroying

all the breeding places. Even the footprint ofa cow in the soggy ground, after a few inchesof water oozes into it, becomes a fine hatch-ing place for the eggs of the malarial mos-quito, and any small vessel standing outsidethrough the rainy season may become a mos-quito hatcher. That the sun might readily


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Coming of the Americans 95dry up the puddles, hundreds of men wereput to work with scythes or machetes to cut

Applying "larvacide" by the use of the knapsack sprayerthe grass and tropical growth. Swampyground near the living quarters was drainedor filled in, and every building was screened.Mosquitoes of all kinds and sizes were

caught and put into cages covered with everysort of netting until it was found which wasthe best mesh for excluding them. When


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96 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water 9 'the new houses were built the architectsplanned them so that as little wire as possiblewas needed, for copper wire is the only sortthat will stand the wet climate and a few feetmore or less of this on the many houses madequite a difference in expense. It is estimatedthat it cost almost one million dollars toscreen the government houses and otherbuildings in the Canal Zone.The yellow-fever mosquito breeds only

near houses, so this variety was easier to con-trol. The health department saw to it thateverything that would hold a few drops ofwater was gathered up, and it is laughinglysaid that if a mosquito was seen within thewalls of a house the sanitary officer was sentfor just as we would send for the police ifwe found a burglar.While killing the mosquitoes did away with

yellow fever, malaria still continued to betroublesome. Quinine was bought by theton and shipped to the Canal Zone. Everyemployee was urged to take three grains a


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Coming of the Americans 97day, and visitors had it served to them atmeals at the hotels and on the boats enteringthe harbor. Vaccination ofeach person who came to theCanal Zone to live was in-sisted upon unless he couldshow a scar.

In every town or settle-ment there were government Mosquito whose stingdispensaries, each with a phy- spreads yellow feversician in charge provided by the government,and a sanitary officer to inspect all housesand conditions of living. The French hospi-tals at Ancon Hill and Colon were renovatedand furnished with all modern apparatus,and hospital cars were attached to passengertrains to take the sick there to be treated.A sick person was not allowed to remain athome except with the permission of the vil-lage physician. In this way epidemics weresoon conquered. The physicians and nursesat the hospital were of the very best, so thatevery one had perfect care. At Taboga7


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98 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"Island, where there is a sanitarium, the con-valescents found delightful quarters.

A general view of Ancon hospitals as seen from Tivoli Hotel,AnconIn the first year an epidemic of yellow fever

took thirty-seven Americans, but there havebeen few cases since then. It cost $150,000,-000 to clean up the Zone, but during the lastfew years there has been a very small deathrate. None but well persons were allowedto enter the Zone for employment or to remain,and those failing seriously in health were


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Coming of the Americans 99sent back home, which perhaps explains, tosome extent, the small number of deathsreported.On the whole, health has been reasonablyassured for the white man in a tropical climateif he is willing to live decently and health-fully, keeps clean, and leaves liquor alone.The people in the Zone not only learned manylessons of proper living but have taughtthem to the whole world. If under all thehard conditions of a new country it is possibleto be free from flies and mosquitoes, we shouldcertainly not allow ourselves to tolerate themin civilization.


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THE GATUN DAM AND THE LOCKSTHE "STEPS" TO THE " BRIDGE OF WATER"

AFTER two and one half years of prepar-ation, the work on the Canal began inearnest. President Roosevelt and Secretaryof State Taft both lent their influence to thelock type of canal, which decided Congressin its favor, and in 1906 the I. C. C. began theprocess of damming the Chagres River. AtGatun, the valley of this river was about oneand one half miles wide. By closing thisspace with a monster dam the river wasforced to spread out into a mammoth lakeone hundred and sixty-four square miles inextent, surrounded by a circle of hills. Thelake reaches from Gatun to Obispo, wherethe Canal crosses the mountains, and pro-vides twenty-three miles, or nearly one half,of the waterway of the Canal.To build the dam, rock and earth excavated

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Coming of the Americans 101at Culebra Cut were loaded upon cars, carriedout on large trestles, and dumped in two long

Gatun upper locks, showing the various gates in course ofconstruction

heaps, forming a double wall, seventy-fivehundred feet long, across the valley. Thespace between these parallel walls of rockwas then flooded with muddy water, and,when the mud had settled, the water wasdrained off, leaving a core of solid earthbetween the walls of rock. Thus was formedan artificial hill half a mile thick at the base.


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102 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"This substantial, broad-based dam, whenovergrown with green, looked so much like

The "spillway," Gatun Dam, looking south from the bridgethe natural hill formations surrounding therest of the valley that it was hard to tellwhere the dam began and where it left off.The water of the Chagres River can, at leastonce and a half times every year, supply thisimmense lake with water deep enough to beeasily navigable so there is no danger of adearth of water in this part of the Canal. Tokeep the surplus water from running over andwashing away the top of the dam, the " spill-way, " a series of crescent-shaped openings,


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Coming of the Americans 103lined with concrete and furnished with sluicegates, was built through the middle of

Copyright by the Keystone View Co.The huge conductors which carry waste water to be transformed

into powerit. It is arranged to hold back the waterof the Gatun Dam in the dry season, and inthe wet season to allow all of the extra sup-ply to run off to the sea. However, our


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104 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"government is thrifty enough to see that onits way this waste water is used to generate

A view of the concrete work in progress for the walls of the upperlocks at Gatun

electricity for lighting the Canal and to furnishpower to run the electric locomotives thattow the ships through the locks.The locks at Gatun are gigantic concrete

tanks, six in number, arranged in pairs.Each lock is big enough for a ship one thou-sand feet long, one hundred and ten feetwide, and with a draft of forty-five feet, to


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Coming of the Americans 105float in easily. If you can think of twentyfifty-foot lots in a row, you will see that itmakes a very long block. If you can imaginenine-story buildings on both sides of a streetone hundred and ten feet wide, in this longblock, you can get some idea of the size ofone of these immense locks.The locks are arranged in pairs, as we have

said, so that while one ship is going upstairsby means of the set of three huge steps,another ship may be coming downstairs onthe other side. The locks are separated bythick walls of concrete and closed by steelgates.The lock, or elevator, system cost fifty-

eight million dollars. Mammoth concreteplants for mixing the concrete were erected atGatun and Miraflores, and just as concretewalls are made on a smaller scale, so thesegigantic pieces of masonry were built withcarload after carload of the mixed cementwhich was dumped into the forms andtamped into place by laborers. The crushed


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106 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"rock for making the concrete was broughtfrom Porto Bello, twenty miles east of Colon,

Copyright by the Keystone View CcA concrete-mixing plant at Gatun Locksand the sand was brought from Nombre deDios, forty miles east of that city.

In each of the outside walls of the locks andin the center wall are tunnels eighteen feetin diameter which fill the locks with waterwhen a ship is to be elevated to the lock above.Valves, operated by electricity, regulate theflow of the water. The gates for the locks


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Coming of the Americans 107cost more than five million dollars, andthe forty-six that fit out the twelve locks

International News ServiceA steamer in the first lock, in which the water has risenwere made in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.The ship climbs up to the great lake eighty-

five feet above sea level in this way: Thegates of the first, or lower, lock swing openand four electric mules, or locomotives, runout on the guide wall, fasten to the ship,and tow it into the locks, just as the realmules used to tow ships along a canal years


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108 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"ago. No ship is allowed to enter the lockunder her own steam, but is pulled throughby the electric mules. When the ship issafely within the first lock, the gates are closedand the water comes in through the tunnelsat the sides of the locks, filling the huge tank,and as it does so the ship is gradually liftedby the rising water to the level of the gatesof the next lock, which is twenty-seven andone half feet above. This is nicely illustratedby placing a toy ship in a bathtub and seeingit rise to the top as the water is turned on tofill the tub.Then the second pair of gates swings open

and the electric mules draw the ship throughinto the second lock. In the same mannerthe boat is raised twenty-seven and one halffeet higher in this second lock. In the thirdlock it is elevated thirty feet by the sameprocess, and when released into Gatun Lakeit sails out under its own steam eighty-fivefeet above the level of the sea. It takes lessthan an hour and a half for a boat to climb


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Coming of the Americans 109these three steps. Every precaution, suchas guard chains and inner gates, is taken to

International News ServiceThe first steamer starting on her trip through the Canal. At

the left may be seen one of the electric towing locomotivesprevent the ship from bumping into the wallsof the locks or ramming the gates.To prevent misunderstanding of signals,which is the usual cause of accidents, one manwill have charge of the guiding of the shipthrough the locks. Stationed on the middlewall, he will have before him a control-boardwith a model of the locks which shows the


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110 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"exact position of the ship in the locks andof every fender and every guard chain. He

GATUN LAKEaJij Miles LEVELDIAGRAM OF PANAMA LOCK TYPE OF CANAL

stands before this board and throws all theswitches which open and close the gates andcontrol the supply of water. Every motionof the ship is under his control, except thepower of the electric mules.

Since only a few ships are so large as torequire all the space furnished by the locks,arrangements are made so that more than oneboat may be admitted into the lock at thesame time, by intermediate gates which allowtwo small vessels to be elevated at once, thussaving power, water, and time. After sail-ing across Gatun Lake the ship has coveredtwenty-three miles of the journey, and thenpasses through Culebra Cut.


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CULEBRA CUT AND THE SLIDESA KNOTTY PROBLEM

NINE miles of the Canal, from Bas Obispoto Pedro Miguel, had to be excavatedfrom solid rock. The deepest cut, at Gold Hill,necessitated going down two hundred andseventy-two feet. This channel is calledCulebra Cut, and is at no point less than threehundred feet wide at the bottom; in someplaces it is one thousand feet wide. TheFrench as we have said, had removed nineteenmillion cubic yards of dirt here, and theirmachinery was used the first year by theworkmen from the United States. Whenserious work was begun by our country tre-mendous steam shovels were used, in thisfashion: Compressed air drills dug deepholes. These were charged with dynamite,which was exploded by electricity while themen were gone to lunch or after working

in


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112 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water' 9hours. Small charges of powder were firstset off in the drill holes to make them large

One of the big steam shovels loading rock at Culebra Cut

enough for the larger charges. Many boat-loads of dynamite, almost thirty thousandtons, have been used in the Cut; at one timeas much as twenty-six tons were used to teardown an entire hillside.The rock thus dislodged was gathered upin the large steel-lined dippers of the steamshovels, which are great machines weighing


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Coming of the Americans 113one hundred and five tons. Some of thedippers of these great steam engines gobbledup as much as eight tons at one mouthful.They were then swung into position over thedirt cars and the load was dumped, ready forhauling away. Sometimes rocks lifted inthis manner fell so heavily that the cars werebroken when the load was dumped uponthem. The contests between these steamshovels working in the Cut to see which wouldhave the greatest number of cubic yards toits credit each day was like a great game.To keep an empty dirt car always readyto receive the dipper loads in a canon onlythree hundred feet wide meant an almostconstant shifting of tracks. One clever manwho was employed in the Zone invented alocomotive machine called a track-shifter.It has a crane that takes the rails and ties upbodily and places them to one side, three feetor more, as fast as a bed is made to receivethem. It is operated by nine men and cando the work of five hundred men in a day.


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114 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"Hundreds of men worked to change the

tracks as fast as the steam shovels cut away

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y.A labor train arriving at Culebra station at the close of a day'sworkthe earth and rock. Even then it wasimpossible to keep the steam shovels busymore than six hours a day. There wereseventy-five miles of track in the Cut, andsome of it had to be shifted constantly. Atthe time the greatest amount of work wasbeing done in the Cut, six thousand menwere employed in the daytime, and aboutfour hundred were kept busy at night to keepthe steam shovels in repair, to refill their


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Coming of the Americans 115coal bins, blast more material for the shovels,and anything else that might be done to fur-ther the work in the Cut in the daytime. Themen were carried to the Cut from the varioustowns along the line by the labor trains.From one hundred and fifty to one hundredand seventy-five trains, each made up of

twenty-one dirt cars loaded with rock andearth, left the Cut each day. Some of thiswas used to build the walls of the GatunDam; much was used to fill in four hundredacres on the Pacific coast and to constructa breakwater at Balboa, while millions ofyards were required for the fills in relocatingthe Panama railroad, and some of the loadswere merely sent to the dumps.

In building the walls at the dam a wonder-ful system of procedure was carried out. Thedirt trains ran out on tracks that were on theedge of the walls, and an unloading plowwhich swept the material down the bankwas scraped over the flat cars by a steel rope.Spreaders were pushed over the new surface


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116 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"thus built up and the track-shifter moved thetrack over to the new roadbed.

Rains interfered with the excavation workin the Cut. Work ceased during the worstdownpours, but the Cut was dug at a slantso that the water ran off of its own accord.Rivers that crossed the line of the Canalwere diverted by digging new channels forthem.

Slides increased the time of the work in theCut an entire year, for they carried as muchdirt into the Cut as was taken out in the bestyear's record. Imagine the chagrin of theworkers when they came one morning andfound the Cut almost filled with earth by aslide that had occurred in the night!The slides may be divided into two classes:

gravity slides and deformation slides. Thefirst are likely to occur in the wet season.They are layers of earth of porous materialthrough which the water soaks, making aslippery layer between them and a harderlayer of rock beneath all. The soapy, slippery


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Coming of the Americans 117layer between the top layer and the hardlayer beneath acts like a layer of ice on a

Copyright by the Keystone View Co.Crevasses which precede the landslides

sloping surface, sending the top into theexcavation with a movement like a glacier.Such was the Cucaracha slide that made themost trouble. It bothered the French, and


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118 Panama and Its "Bridge of Waterthen was quiet for a number of years. In1907 it started in the night and without

Copyright by the Keystone View Co.A view of Culebra Cut, showing the Cucaracha slidewarning shot almost across the Canal opening,and for ten days kept up a glacier-like move-ment of about fourteen feet every twentyfour hours. It filled the opening and piledup a mass thirty feet high on the west bankof the Cut. It threw nearly a million cubic


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Coming of the Americans 119yards of material into the Canal, and theoperation of dirt trains was delayed a month.In 1913 it carried two million five hundredthousand yards more into the Cut.Deformation slides are due to unstable rock

formations of very great depth. They areaffected by the steepness and height of theslopes, and by the blasting. The underlyinglayer of rock is unable to support the weightabove it, and it squeezes out sidewise intothe bottom of the Cut like a mammoth tubeof paste. Some of these slidas filled up thebottom from ' fifteen to thirty feet. Theyusually occurred in the dry season and wereabsolutely unforeseen. One of them extendedover an area of seventy-five acres, with tenmillion cubic yards of material to be removed,and another covered fifty acres, necessitatingseven million cubic yards of extra digging.Altogether, the slides easily increased thelabor of digging the Canal one fourth. Theyhave, however, proved the foresight of themen who contended that we never could dig


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120 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"a sea-level canal. When the blasting is doneand the water presses continually on the

The "Ancon" passing through Culebra Cut near Empire atthe official opening, of the Canal

banks the engineers believe that the slideswill give no further trouble.The Culebra Cut is nine miles long, with a

curve for every mile. It is, in fact, the onlyreal piece of canal on the route, as the restis river, lake, or bay adapted to the purpose.At the southern end of the Cut are the PedroMiguel Locks, a single pair, which lower the


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Coming of the Americans 121ships thirty feet to Miraflores Lake, formedby the Cocoli and other rivers, by a dam, andby the locks at PedroMiguel. Miraflores Lakesupplies a mile and onehalf of the Canal andconveys the ships to theMiraflores Locks, whichare two pairs similar tothe first two of the GatunLocks. These lower theboats again to sea level.Thus you will see that

the Panama Canal is a"bridge of water " with three pairs of stair-ways, or steps, at either end of a chain oflakes and rivers. It takes, altogether, aboutthree hours for a ship to climb up and downthe locks and about ten hours to traverse theentire length of the Canal. Lighthouses,which are stationed at points of vantage fromone end of the Canal to the other, furnisheither electricity or gas, so that perfect light

Copyright by theKeystone View Co.A range lighton locks at Gatun


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Coming of the Americans 123is always provided for the route, night or day.As we have said, the bays at both the

Atlantic and Pacific entrances to the Canalwere shallow and filled with silt by the rivers.Of course, neither was deep enough for theuse of ocean steamers. Three methods ofexcavation have been used in digging theseven miles of sea-level channel on the Atlan-tic side and the eight miles on the Pacificcoast. On the Atlantic side, steam shovelsdug down to forty feet belo,w sea level, whilegreat dikes- held back the water. The re-mainder of the work has been done by dredges,or "sand suckers/' which are large-bodiedboats that suck up the sandy water into theirhulks, allow the water to drain off, and removethe sand to other points.A deeper channel was provided on thePacific coast, because of the high tides.Storms are not dangerous here, but the cur-rents deposited so much silt in the channelthat a breakwater was necessary. The Paci-fic breakwater runs from the mainland to the


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124 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"islands three miles out in the bay. Fortifi-cations are built here. Balboa, located on

Brown Bros., photographersThe Pacific coast breakwater three miles of made land trans-

portedfrom Culebra Cutbuilt-up ground, is the real Pacific terminalof the Canal. Besides dredging the channel,the low ground, to the extent of about fourhundred acres, near this point has been builtup, or filled in, with rock and earth from theexcavations and the dredging in the channel.A general equipment, costing twenty milliondollars, for the future use of boats passing


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Coming of the Americans 125through the Canal, is established at Balboa.There are machine shops, dry docks, wharvesand warehouses, and further supplies of allsorts.The breakwater in the Atlantic Ocean

surrounds Limon Bay, and the forts are builtat Toro Point. Steam dredges will be keptat work in both harbors to keep the channelsclear.

NOTE. On April 28, 1915, President Wilson signed a billchanging the name of Culebra Cut to Gaillard Cut in honor ofthe late Colonel D. D. Gaillard, engineer in charge of the Cut,who gave his life to the work.


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HOW THE GOVERNMENT CARED FORHER EMPLOYEESTHE "LABOR QUESTION" ANSWEREDTHE money of the Panamanians is all incoin, or hard money, for no paper is

used. By an arrangement with our govern-ment their standard coin, the peso, is recog-nized as half a dollar of our money. Todistinguish between the skilled workers andthe common laborers in the Zone the formerwere called "gold employees" and the latter"silver employees." All the Americans andother skilled workers were paid in Americanmoney, which is known as "gold," and thelaborers from other nations were paid in Pana-manian money, which is known as "silver."More than forty nationalities were repre-

sented by the forty-five thousand personsliving in the Canal Zone as employees. TheAmericans numbered about one sixth of the

126


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Coming of the Americans 127population, they being the doctors, nurses,teachers, electricians, mechanics, masons, en-

Both faces of the "peso," the standard coin of Panamagineers, and the heads of all supervisory work.The colored laborer was most common, a

great number coming from Jamaica and theother West Indies. The best service wasrendered by the European laborers whocame chiefly from Spain and Italy. It is saidone Spaniard could do the work of twoJamaicans. Every nation in the world wasrepresented in some capacity. It was com-monly said: "In the Canal Zone you canstand on a corner and see the world go by/'

Because of the great variety of names andnations and the fact that a large number


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128 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"could neither read nor write their names,every employee was provided with a brasscheck, for identification, which he was re-quired to present before he could draw hispay. The pay car went across the Isthmusonce a month, taking three days for the trip,and the bank at Empire sometimes handledthree million dollars a month. Out of the$375,000,000 paid for the Canal, $150,000,000was paid for labor.

After the first two years of the occupationof the Zone the problem of providing foodand merchandise for the employees wasworked out in this manner: Everything wasfurnished by the government through a com-missary department, whose headquarters wereat Cristobal. The government had a laun-dry, a bakery which put out many thousandsof loaves of bread a day, an ice-cream plant,an ice factory, cold-storage accommodations,and all sorts of merchandise. No cash saleswere made at the commissary, but books ofcoupons containing from five to ten dollars*


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Coming of the Americans 129worth of slips, each equivalent to from oneto twenty-five cents, were issued to employees.

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y.Sunday market for Canal laborers at Pedro Miguel. Thevenders spread their wares on the grass and manyshrewd bargains are driven

The cost of these books was deducted fromthe employee's salary, and the slips weretorn off and used as money by the commissarydepartment, somewhat as we use books ofice tickets here.Very early in the morning a special train

with refrigerator cars left Cristobal withfresh supplies for all the towns along the line.Commissary wagons were waiting in each


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130 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"town ready to carry the produce to the pur-chaser, who had ordered it the day before.Almost every luxury common in the UnitedStates was provided by the department.The meals served at the hotels were verymuch like those served in the United States,and, it is said, cost less.

In 1905 the Commission _ advertised freequarters to both married and single men.Aside from the rent, fuel and distilled waterwere also furnished free. Ice was delivered

Type of house built for four families by the United StatesGovernment. In the distance is the schoolhouse


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Coming of the Americans 131and garbage was removed without charge.The houses were furnished, except for bed-

Labor quarters built by the United States Governmentthroughout the Canal Zone

ding and other personal belongings. Thisincluded electric lights and telephones, whenthey were needed for the man's work. Thesegenerous measures were taken to encouragehome life in the Zone, because in the earlydays the men stayed so short a time onaccount of homesickness. A married man,under these conditions, could live as cheaply


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132 Panama and Its "Bridge of Water"as a single man, and when he had his familywith him and was saving more money thanhe could in the States he was likely to becontented. At the best, however, the lifewas hard on the women who came, and thosewho were brave enough to conquer theirlonging for home and encourage their hus-bands in their work deserve much credit.The houses built by the government were

painted wooden structures, without plaster.On the outside they were all colored alike,a light drab, while the interiors were likelyto be white or green. Some were singledwellings; others housed two, and somefour, families. Quarters were assigned ac-cording to the size of the man's salary. Onlythin clothing is used the year around inPanama, which allowed a great saving ofexpense in dress. The men often wore whiteduck for dress. Panama hats were not wornso commonly as one might think, for mostPanama hats are not made in Panama, butin Colombia and Ecu

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Bridge of Water