DARIEN.
Between Caledonia Bay and the Gulf of San Miguel every effort to make a thorough exploration has resulted in failure. Disappointed expectations, arduous but fruitless labors, conflicting reports, failure, starvation, and death have stamped with ill omen every attempt to cross this part of the Isthmus. Baron Humboldt has directed public attention to Darien, and Admiral Davis expresses his deliberate conviction that to this part of the Isthmus we must look for a solution of the question of interoceanic ship communication.
The history of so many attempts, proving so unexpectedly disastrous, supplies much curious and valuable information. From the Paterson colonization scheme to the unfortunate expedition of Lieut. Strain, one word will characterize every attempt. The first settlement of Vasco Nunez, in 1510, after eight years of calamitous trial, was abandoned.
Paterson’s colony was remarkable in the causes which led to its inception; in the ability and statesman-like views of him who conceived a design so vast and benevolent; in the governments enlisted in its favor; in the sufferings of the colonists, and in its final abandonment.
William Paterson, a Scottish clergyman, of fertile resources, and great political sagacity, the original designer of the Bank of England, conceived the magnificent design of establishing a colony upon the shores of Darien, based on principles of religious toleration and free trade, which, occupying the highway of commerce, “grasping the riches of both the Indies, and wresting the keys of commerce from Spain,” should build up, on the shores of two oceans, cities surpassing his own Edinburgh, and rivaling ancient Alexandria. With experience drawn from long study and patient observation, he organized his scheme upon liberal commercial principles, and an enlightened political policy. Scotland, Hamburg, and Holland, contributed the sum of $4,500,000. This large amount surprised London merchants, and spread panic in the board of the East India Company. The unfriendly feeling of this great corporation proved, in the end, fatal to the scheme. Aided by Spanish intrigue, and Dutch rivalry, and bringing their vast machinery to bear against the colonists, by argument and misrepresentation, they induced William III. to issue an edict, forbidding all English colonies in the West Indies from sending provisions, arms, or ammunition to the Scottish colony of Darien.
Of 1,200 colonists, three hundred of whom represented the best blood of Scotland, thirty only returned to tell the story of their sufferings. Dissension, disease, and starvation, had accomplished the usual results. Thus, this design for the union of two great oceans failed; this effort to form a nucleus of a new system of beneficent wealth, and commerce, came to an untimely end.
The Caledonia Bay was no longer frequented by the ships of England, Holland and Scotland, The gold mines of Cana, worked by one thousand men, under the Spanish domination, were destined to remain to the present day, unmolested. The north-western slopes, and the head waters of the Chuquanaqua, reverted to the undisputed possession of the Indians, while, between the lower part of this river and along the Savana, and the Bay of San Miguel, a mongrel population of 1,200 souls cultivate bananas, and impose upon strangers.
Dr. Cullen justly claims to have recalled public attention to the merits of this route. The fine harbors of San Miguel on the Pacific, and of Caledonia Bay and Port Escocés on the Atlantic, taken in connection with the narrowness of the Isthmus, would attract a casual observer. The favorable opinion of Humboldt has led many to look hopefully to this region. The advantageous situation of the Savana River was pointed out by Dr. Cullen, who claims to have “crossed, and recrossed, between Caledonia Bay, and Port Escocés alone, during the rainy season, cutting and marking his way with a machete. From the head of the Savana,” he continues, “a ravine, three leagues in length, extends to Caledonia Bay, and there a canal might be cut with less difficulty than elsewhere, if it were not for the opposition of the natives. From the sea shore (at Caledonia) a plain extends to the base of a ridge, which runs parallel to the coast, and whose summit is 350 feet. This ridge is not quite continuous and unbroken, but is divided by transverse valleys, through which the Aglasenique and Aglatomente, and other rivers have their course, and whose highest elevations do not exceed 150 feet.”
Impressed by these favorable representations, and believing Dr. Cullen’s statement of the existence of large gold deposits near Esperitu Santu, and in the diggings of Veraguas, the distinguished capitalists, Sir Charles Fox, John Henderson, and Thomas Brassy, uniting with Dr. Cullen, obtained, by a decree of the Granadian Congress, dated Bogotá, June 1st, 1852, the concession of the exclusive privilege of cutting a ship canal across the Isthmus of Darien, between the Gulf of San Miguel on the Pacific, and the Bay of Caledonia on the Atlantic, with the liberty of selecting any other point on the Atlantic coast between Puerto de Mosquitoes, and the west mouth of the Atrato, for the entrance of the canal; and were granted, besides the lands necessary for the canal and its works, 2,000,000 acres of land, to be selected in any part of the Republic. All the ports of Darien were declared free and neutral.
Notwithstanding these favorable conditions, it was deemed prudent, by the distinguished capitalists above mentioned, to send out a competent engineer to verify the statements of Dr. Cullen. Mr. Lionel Gisborne was selected for the purpose, and was accompanied by Dr. Cullen, to point out the way.
Before arriving in South America Mr. Gisborne, assuming the data supplied by Dr. Cullen to be correct, enters into some interesting speculations. “Let us suppose,” he observes, “the summit level to be 150 feet above the level of the sea. The Atlantic rise of tide is only 3 feet (1′ 5″); that of the Pacific is 25 feet (22 to 23), therefore, the difference in the level, at high and low tide is 11 feet (this, although suppositious, will, I anticipate, not be far from the truth). In such a case I would propose to cut a canal through from ocean to ocean without any locks,” etc.
Proceeding on the supposition of certain “circumstances likely to coexist in a country whose chief geological formation is igneous,” he proposed a second plan. “By embankments placed in the most advantageous position” two lakes are to be formed upon each side of the ridge, which, being cut through, ships can pass from lake to lake, and lock down to either ocean from the opposite extremities. “The only objection” to this plan, is, he thinks, “the loss of land inundated.” “I hope,” he adds, “a tract of country will be found where one or the other of these cases is applicable.” It is very remarkable that Mr. Gisborne found a country adapted to this plan.
This expedition was long delayed in Cartejena, awaiting Dr. Cullen, who was occupied with business connected with the survey before the Congress of Bogotá. “I determined to wait for the English mails,” writes Mr. Gisborne, “due here the 25th, otherwise I should certainly not spend three weeks waiting for Dr. Cullen.” On another day, “an instrumental survey,” he prognosticates, “seems to be out of the question, so that our levels, theodolites, sextants, and chains, will probably remain in the same box Troughton and Simms consigned them to on our departure from England.”
Again, “I have read and listened about Darien Indians, their cruelty and jealousy, until I am callous and unbelieving; but it frets me to remain in doubt, ebbing out an existence in Cartejena. I have determined,” he says, “to wait ten days longer—then D. V. Cullen, or no Cullen, I shall try what can be done with these ungovernable Indians.”
Waiting impatiently, he speculates upon the Aurora Borealis, geology, magnetic observations; ingeniously proposing, by the automatic action of appropriate machinery, to make all meteorological phenomena register its name and mission in a room selected for that purpose. This he calls a “meteorological loom in which the web of time is spun with the present for a pattern.”
“May 29th—The Bogotá mail has come, but no letter from Dr. Cullen. Every thing here is mañana (to-morrow).”
He again takes to speculating on fortifications, and the beauty of the senoritas. A reasonable man would have been contented. But he leaves this primrose path to write, “Dr. Cullen has neither written, nor appeared in person, and I am beginning to have my doubts whether he will do so.” In the meantime Cullen was hammering at the “mañana” Congress at Bogotá.
After waiting six weeks he left Cartejena in disgust, and landed, without the indefatigable Doctor, in Caledonia Bay. Here he spent two days wandering among the hills with his barometer, his spirits going down as the mercury went up.
He was arrested by three half-naked Indians, who, in an unintelligible language, but plainly to be understood gestures, commanded him to follow. This he prudently acquiesced in, but not until he had, as he thought, ascertained the dividing ridge between the Atlantic and the Pacific to be 272 feet above tide. Falling asleep, with a contented mind, he thought he heard the roar of the surf of the Pacific, but his companion, Ford, very shrewdly suggested that they were still within hearing of the Atlantic. With a gentle admonition that they must never be caught there again they were permitted to return to their boat.
Naturally, he could not forbear another fling at the helpless Dr. Cullen. “I had not much faith in Dr. Cullen’s map, as his descriptions of land south-west of Port Escocés were directly contrary to the fact.”
The comment, on his failure may puzzle the reader. “I am far more satisfied at having failed in crossing from Port Escocés than to have crossed and returned (supposing that was possible with safety), and reported a summit 275 feet, when, within a few miles, one of 40 is to be got further inland.”
“It is dangerous to argue by induction,” observes Mr. Gisborne, and he gives 238 pages in illustration of this truth.
Nothing daunted by his failure to effect a transit from the Atlantic side of the Isthmus, he determines to proceed to Panama, and to make another attempt from San Miguel on the Pacific. Proceeding up the Savana river he disembarked with his Asst. Ford, who had charge of the mountain barometer, and penetrating two days’ journey into the interior, he is warned by a log over a stream that he had reached the country of his enemies, the Caledonia Indians. Remembering their parting injunction he returned.
“A dreamy hope of success,” he writes, “is strengthened by inductive argument, the cause of former failures leads to generalizations of geological theories, and topographical analogy, and it was this conviction that cheered me under all difficulties, making suffering an indispensable appendage of success.”
Consoling himself with such reflections he met Dr. Cullen at Panama, in high dudgeon. The Doctor reproached him with having broken his instructions, and required that he should return to San Miguel. Gisborne was recalcitrant. “Feeling satisfied that a ship canal could be made across Darien, he urged Dr. Cullen to come to England, and, as he said he was without money, I offered to advance the passage money.”
This generous offer was accepted. Having found, as he believed, a summit of 150 feet above tide, corresponding with Dr. Cullen’s statement, he submits two plans to his employers. One for a thorough-cut without locks; the other by the junction of two lakes, for which he had found a suitable physical conformity, in remarkable harmony with his prophetic speculations before reaching Cartejena.
The first plan was estimated to cost £12,500,000, or about $62,500,000.
The friends of the measure in London were elated by the representations of the expeditionists.
The Atlantic and Pacific Junction Company was incorporated by royal charter, or act of Parliament. The capital, limited to £15,000,000, was disposed of in shares of £100 each. A deposit of ten shillings on each share was to be made without further liability, forming a sum of £75,000 for preliminary expenses.
A provisional directory was organized, with Lord Wharncliffe as chairman. Upon the publication of their prospectus, a lively correspondence sprang up between the London Times and Sir Charles Fox. The writer of the Times is charged with want of appreciation of the merits of the Darien route, and retorts, that if no one is to question Sir Charles Fox’s views, or even speak of their inaccuracies, there must be an end of discussion.
While this controversy was raging, another expedition was being organized, in numbers and appliances far exceeding any previous attempt, with the same object. England, France, and the United States coöperated with New Granada. Not since the landing of Paterson had so formidable an expedition appeared in that region.
When the Virago entered the Bay of San Miguel, the Scorpion and l’Espeigle, with Mr. Gisborne and Dr. Cullen on board, anchored in Caledonia Bay. The French ship, La Chimere, and the American corvette, Cyane, Lieut. Strain, at the same time joined the expedition, raising the united crews to the number of 700 men.
The Granadian Government, in furtherance of the object of the expedition, had established a depot near the junction of the rivers Savana and Lara. It was confidently believed that the practicability of the Darien route was about to be set at rest forever.
Relying on Mr. Gisborne’s and Dr. Cullen’s reports, Lieut. Strain, with a party of twenty-seven men, two Granadian Commissioners, and ten days’ provisions, pushed forward up the bed of the Caledonia River. Here, taking advantage of an opening among the trees, he examined, with a spy-glass, the range of Cordillera, to find a semi-circular chain 1500 to 2000 feet in height. He concluded that this route could not be that alluded to by Mr. Gisborne and Dr. Cullen. He still pushed forward up arduous ascents. A seaman of the Cyane climbed a tree to reconnoiter the country, and reported nothing but hills and mountains in every direction. For a pathetic account of this unfortunate expedition, the reader is referred to Harper’s Monthly, Vol. X.
After forty days of wandering, subsisting for the time chiefly on sour palmetto berries, emaciated with hunger, lacerated with thorns, sick, and half naked, Strain, having hastened ahead of his party, sought succor in Yvisa. Proceeding to the Savana, he presented himself to the English agent, who, receiving him with every kindness, shed tears at the sight. Securing assistance, which was reluctantly granted, at Yvisa, he hastily returned to find the remnant of his party, feebly struggling back toward Caledonia Bay, having lost five of their number, among whom were the two Granadian Commissioners.
Strain, mistaking the Chuquanaqua for the Savana, reached the Pacific by the longest route. He claims that his expedition “has disproved a magnificent preconceived theory,” and that instead of a summit-level of 150 feet, it is at least 1000 feet.
Three days after the departure of Strain, “another party, composed of English and French together, under the guidance of Dr. Cullen and Mr. Gisborne, set out from the same point, and endeavored to follow in his track.” “Gisborne and Cullen could not follow their own maps,” and after having “penetrated not more than six miles in all, returned.” Mr. Gisborne, observes the narrator in the Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, “dementait complétement” his former statements. They failed to confirm the first statements, and the London company, organized with such high hopes, was dissolved.
On the heels of Gisborne and Cullen, the Granadian expedition, under the command of Codazzi, made a cotemporaneous essay. “How far,” says Strain, “it penetrated is not known; but, struggling over the space of a mile, it was broken up, and returned after having lost several men.”
While failure and misfortune was befalling the exploring parties starting from the Atlantic coast, another attempt was made at the same time to effect a transit from the now notable Savana. Capt. Prevost, of the Virago, after advancing twenty-six miles, at the rate of one and one-half miles per day, returned again to the Savana, followed, says Mr. Gisborne, by two hundred hostile Indians. Four sailors, left to guard a depot of provisions, were found murdered.
Capt. Prevost failed to find a practicable pass. Crossing valleys which probably led to the Pacific, the altitude of which is not given, he terminated his survey at a summit of 1080 feet above the level of the ocean. “L’execution de canal interoceaneque était devenue á peu pris impracticable,” remarks the reviewer.
After an examination of the maps of Gisborne, Prevost, Strain, and Codazzi, there seems to be a general agreement in placing the summit of the ridge at not less than one thousand feet above the level of the tide. The united maps of Prevost and Gisborne exhibit their routes, proceeding from opposite points and intersecting, and the continuous profile between the two oceans fails to solve the question of a practicable route. As one of these parties had the advantage of Dr. Cullen’s personal guidance, it is but fair to allow him to supplement his first statement by an explanation of the causes which led to a failure so complete and unexpected.
Speaking of the party from the Virago, he observes that Capt. Prevost “directed his explorations too far to the north-west.” That when it stopped he was but thirty miles from the point where the line should pass.
Strain, on the other hand, erred by going “too far to the south-west.” In a word, the true line is to be found in the golden mean in which Aristotle places all virtue.
But he has so far modified his first statement that he now thinks a line, “with tunneling,” may be found between Sucubti and Port Escocés. Under nine heads, he enumerates the advantages of this route.
The reader has, perhaps, concluded that, like Pantagruel’s army, this subject is pretty well covered with tongue, and he may even adopt the conclusion of a distinguished attorney-general upon the fallibility of this unruly member. But one or two of the nine may be quoted. Under No. 7 Dr. Cullen states the land rises to nine hundred and thirty feet, and that here a tunnel will be required. No. 8 states that between this point and the Pacific no obstacle is to be found. The divide of one hundred and fifty feet, first discovered by Dr. Cullen, expanded to ten times that altitude.
If men of intelligence and education can so err, all statements of persons whose previous habits and studies have not fitted them for passing judgment upon the relative merits of different canal routes should be received with caution.
The failure of this formidable effort of four Governments to discover a practicable route for a ship canal between Caledonia Bay and the Gulf of San Miguel, while it disappointed reasonable expectation, stimulated public curiosity. The French, in nowise discouraged, determined to make another effort. The Granadian Minister, Francisco Martin, and Senator F. Barrow, signed, at Paris, a treaty embodying certain concession.
According to agreement, the survey was to be conducted from the head of the Chuquanaqua toward the village of Monti, where Codazzi represented a summit of 460 feet.
M. Bourdiol, Civil Engineer, with a party of fifteen persons—afterward increased to twenty by the addition of some natives—proceeded carefully, cutting their way, and chaining and leveling at the rate of about a mile a day. Reaching the Chuquanaqua below the junction of the Sucubti, he was compelled to desist, by the approach of the rainy season. He returned to Panama after an absence of sixty days.
The nearest approach to a determination of a pass by M. Bourdiol appears in the rather equivocal statement, that the origin of the valley of Monti is one hundred and eighty-two metres (about 597 feet).
If all of these explorers had left some permanent mark at the termination of their surveys, succeeding parties could have taken up the line where the former left off, and the determination of a practicable route could have been made in one-half the time now required.
M. Bourdiol affirms that he verified the height of the Sucubti, as given by Codazzi and Gisborne, but it is not apparent how he found the same points determined by these engineers.
Where so many failed, with every accessory and advantage likely to assure success, the pertinent inquiry suggests itself, Is there any one fact in common which may serve to explain failures so universal? All find difficulties in cutting the way, requiring natives accustomed to the use of the machete; all are misled by imperfect maps, which fail to give the altitude of the passes and the true course of the rivers. While one party is turned back by the rainy season, another is stopped by the Indians, another by want of time. But one party succeeded in crossing from sea to sea, but under such circumstances that each day was a struggle for existence, to the exclusion of the scientific objects of the expedition.
The hostility of the Indians, although not always stated, appears to have been the chief obstacle to a careful exploration; and internal dissension concurred to bring failure upon the best appointed of these expeditions.
The following table presents, at one view, all that is known of the Darien routes:
| NAMES. | LOCALITY. | SUMMIT REPORTED | REMARKS. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FEET. | |||||
| Cullen | Savana, Port Escocés | 150? | “Crossed and recrossed?” | ||
| Gisborne | ““ | 150? | Saw across to former position? | ||
| Cullen |  | Started at | 980! | | Second attempt and |
| Gisborne | Caledonia Bay. | failed to cross over. | |||
| Strain | Caledonia Bay. | 1000+ | Lost his way on the Chuquanaqua. | ||
| Prevost | Savana River. | 1080 | Did not see the Pacific. | ||
| Bourdiol | ““ | 597? | Turned back by rain. | ||
It would appear, at the first glance, that the question of a practicable route across the Isthmus of Darien was settled by these explorers.[8] Dr. Cullen, notwithstanding the unfortunate result of his early prognostications, still remains sanguine, and opines that the valleys of the Aglatomente and Aglasenaca afford levels favorable to a canal; but Gisborne’s map represents the water-shed of the Aglasenaca at 1,020 feet above the level of the sea, and supplies no indications of a lower summit. But Capt. Prevost gives some important testimony. In a letter to Admiral Moresby, written after the return of his expedition, he speaks of valleys at a lower level than any yet discovered, leading to the Pacific. His map confirms this statement. Capt. Parsons, R. N., of the Scorpion, testifies to the same effect. From the deck of his vessel he could discern a very decided break in the ridge, which appeared continuous when viewed from other points.
These estimates we have learned to receive with caution. “A dreamy hope of success is strengthened by inductive argument,” observes Mr. Gisborne, “the cause of former failures leads to generalizations,” etc., and such faint lights have so far proved veritable will-o’-the-wisps. In the present instance, concurrent opinion is highly favorable. The appearance of isolated summits, and disjointed and dislocated character of schistose and trychitic rock; the testimony of Prevost and Parsons, to the appearance of a break in the ridge; the fact that Col. Hughes found at Panama a summit of two hundred and eighty feet above the sea, at two miles north of the line, upon which Garella could not find less than four hundred and fifty-nine feet above the same level; all these facts, if not “confirmations strong as proofs of Holy Writ,” are more than “trifles light as air,” and go far to confirm the opinion that the Isthmus of Darien has not been sufficiently explored.