A Tour Through South America

by A. S. Forrest

The large hospital at Colon, built upon piles over the seashore, was erected originally by the French, but has been improved and modernised until it is as well equipped as any similar institution. There has not been a case of yellow fever within its walls for some years now, and the many screens that formerly were placed around the beds have all been stored away, except one, left as a specimen to show visitors the methods employed in isolating patients suffering from the dread disease.

Colon has changed very much during the last ten years. The fires of 1885 and 1890 destroyed a great many of the wooden buildings of which it was formerly composed; and the only old buildings of any pretensions to durability are the railway station and offices, and a church which was built by the pioneers of the isthmian route in the middle of the last century. Reorganised and rebuilt for the purposes of the Atlantic terminus of the canal, the most prominent features of the town to-day are the large wharves and warehouses for the reception of the materials and supplies for the vast project. Laundries, bakeries, schools, court-houses and administration buildings, dwellings for employees, hotels, stores and machine shops, have been erected on this erstwhile mangrove swamp, an undertaking in itself of great magnitude.

A new railway terminus has been built. The trains which run each way, three times daily, across the isthmus to Panama, carry passengers and baggage to that city and to the numerous wayside stations along the route. They are always crowded with employees of the Canal Commission, and travellers on their way, via the Pacific port, to countries on the western side of South America.

Along the route of the canal, which follows closely the line of the railway, a busy scene of activity is presented. Only those who have travelled backwards and forwards over the line many times, and have branched off along the numerous side tracks that have been laid to carry the excavated earth to convenient or necessary dumping grounds, can be properly impressed with the magnitude and difficulty of the operations, as evidenced not only by the existing works, but by continual reminders of the French enterprise, in hundreds of disused and obsolete trucks, engines and dredgers which lie half-sunk in deep morasses or overgrown with dense vegetation.

The towns and villages that have sprung up along the line of the canal have grown rapidly during the last two or three years, for although the French had erected over two thousand buildings during their occupation, the new owners have added so largely to that number that such towns as Empire, Culebra, Las Cascadas, and Gatum are quite important and considerable centres of industry, with schools, hotels, court-houses and large dwelling houses scattered through them.

The headquarters of the Canal Commission are at Culebra, and it is here also that the largest excavation work is going on. The hill of Culebra (which means a “serpent”) is about thirty-six miles from Colon and ten from Panama, and it was at this point that the two French companies concentrated their efforts. The canal in course of construction, and now nearing completion, is a high-level one, the amount of excavation being considerably less than that required if De Lesseps’ original plan of a sea-level route had been adhered to.

Thousands of persons every year visit this famous cutting, for in it the majority of the great steam shovels are at work. The progress being made is apparent, for on the long terraces the positions of the steam shovels are always altering. Every now and then a great cloud of smoke and dust, followed by a deafening roar, intimates that blasting operations are in full swing. Dumpcars of the latest pattern have superseded the old French ones; and the trains are now composed of a series of new trucks, coupled together, one side of each car being left open with a movable iron plate connecting it with its neighbour. A large truck at on end of the train contains a powerful engine, which pulls a steel plough along the trucks, emptying them of rock and dirt when the desired dumping ground is reached. All day these long trains filled with spoil move backwards and forwards through the cutting, at the different levels made for them by the steam shovels. Gangs of labourers are kept busy laying the tracks to enable the shovels to carve their way into the huge rocky hill. The problem of keeping up a supply of men, fit to stand the climate, has been solved by importing on to the scene Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, and West Indians, and they have endured the climate surprisingly. It is astonishing that in a shade temperature of from 89-91 so much energy can be displayed. In the rainy season the conditions become very difficult to contend against. The River Chagres rises and carries away long tracks of the railway, putting a stop to operations for days at a time. The rainfall amounts on an average to about one hundred and forty inches per annum, most of it falling from September to May. Yet the work proceeds rapidly in spite of the rain. The houses built for the labourers are all supplied with drying rooms, which are very necessary adjuncts to any dwelling on the isthmus, for otherwise it would be impossible to have any dry clothing.

But for the bad climatic and health conditions, the Panama Canal would have been finished long ere this, and had the De Lesseps company had the advantages of modern sanitary methods, the history of the canal might be different. In England it has been customary to hear exaggerated accounts of wasted money and material in Panama until the very name is almost synonymous with fraud and deceit. But on the spot the American engineers have discovered many evidences of the enormous amount of genuine work accomplished by the early companies, under depressing circumstances and difficulties. Much that they did has been utilised, houses, hospitals, and hotels have been put into order, and have proved of great assistance to the present owners. The task of keeping up a working force of thirty thousand men, feeding, housing, and caring for them, can only be appreciated by those who are acquainted with the tropics. As all nationalities are to be found in the vast army at work, this means that the labour camps to accommodate them have to be kept separate and the food supplies carefully chosen, in accordance with the various tastes of different nations. The world at large is the market in which the authorities buy their provisions. It is bewildering to the layman, and impossible for him to understand the numerous engineering problems into which the work is divided. The rival schemes of high level, low level, and sea level, have been subjected to the criticism of the world’s most expert engineers for over a quarter of a century, and although the original plan of a sea level waterway was abandoned by De Lesseps, it is still held by many experts to be the only satisfactory one. The canal scheme that is at present proceeding is one of locks. The River Chagres, which rises in the surrounding hills, is subject to enormous floods, and in the rainy season great tracts of country on the Atlantic side of the isthmus are under water. Villages and workshops are swamped, the railway tracks swept away and disorganisation sets in.

THE FIRST LABOUR CAMP, GATUM.