The control of this river has been the subject of much anxious thought and the experts’ opinion on it would fill volumes. The present plan entailed the building of the great dam at Gatum, about seven miles from the Atlantic terminus of the canal. This is now nearly completed and fills a gap between two ranges of hills, and much of the excavated material from the Culebra cutting (thirty miles distant) was dumped here. As the dam is about a mile and a quarter in length and half a mile in thickness, over two million cubic yards of material have been used for its construction. It has great controlling water sluices and locks, and completes the range of high ground, which will enclose an immense lake eighty-five feet above the sea level, having an area of over one hundred and seventy square miles. Towns and villages at present existing in the territory that extends from Gatum to Culebra will disappear when the great dam is finished, and the water is already being allowed to collect to form the great lake. Double sets of locks have been built at Gatum to raise ships up from the canal, a height of eighty-five feet. Vessels of one thousand feet in length and one hundred feet beam have been anticipated, and there will be accommodation for such boats when they shall be built and present themselves for entrance to the canal. The navigation channel through the great Gatum Lake will have a depth of at least forty-five feet and a width at bottom of one thousand feet until the Culebra cutting is reached, where the width will be diminished to two hundred feet. About ten miles from the Pacific terminus of the canal, at Pedro Miguel, the summit level will cease, at a series of locks which will lower vessels thirty feet, into a channel five hundred feet in width and about one mile in length. Two more locks at Miraflores will lower vessels to the Pacific sea level. The channel from Miraflores to Balboa (the Pacific terminus) will have a width of five hundred feet right to the open sea. Dredging operations are being carried on for the purpose of deepening and widening the channels at the Pacific and Atlantic entrances. Large wharves for the reception of steamers have been erected at Balboa, and dry docks for repairing have been constructed. In Panama itself, although the city does not belong to the United States Government, much money and time have been spent in putting it into a proper sanitary condition, for by treaty with the Panamanian Government the Canal Commission have jurisdiction over all matters connected with health. This ancient Spanish city has now been properly drained and a good water supply laid on, streets which were formerly quagmires in the rainy season, have been transformed by stone pavements thoroughly well laid by the Commission, but charged up to the Panamanian Government.
THE OLD CHURCH ON THE ISLAND OF TOBAGO, OFF PANAMA.
There are over five thousand white employees on the work. Police, magistrates, school officers, medical men, mining engineers, surveyors, train conductors, hotel managers, overseers, foremen, clerks, dispensers, judges, mechanics, detectives, chemists, teachers, indeed quite a state has grown up upon this tropical belt, which but for the work in hand would be unexplored bush. The engineering shops at Matachin have grown under the commission to four times the size of the original French buildings, and are capable of accommodating for repairs and putting together over twenty large locomotives at one time. Steam shovels, cranes, trucks, ploughs, and rolling stock generally undergo repairs in these shops. Everywhere along the line improved, modern, up-to-date buildings are occupied as fast as they can be erected, and the social side of life is highly developed. Dances, concerts, and amateur theatricals are always going forward, while of out-of-door sports the national game of baseball is easily first favourite. Everything is done by the authorities to make life on the isthmus as pleasant and enjoyable as possible, and very different from the early days when necessities were difficult to obtain and luxuries impossible. Ice is delivered to all the houses on the Canal Zone daily at a small charge, and bread, vegetables, meat, everything in fact that a dainty mortal can desire, is easily obtainable at the Commission’s Stores, so that in this land of “Perpetual Thirst” there is little of hardship and much of pleasure for the workers who have to live exiled from home.
The Commission has made a rule that every white employee shall take an annual holiday and spend it in the United States, so that there is much coming and going between the States and Panama. In fact, very few stay for long and the ranks are being continually reinforced with fresh recruits. The Commission have also a splendid sanatorium situated on the island of Tobago, a few miles south of Panama. Here, amidst perfect surroundings, the convalescents are nursed back to health and strength and tended with the utmost care. Even strangers who are not in any way connected with the canal, avail themselves of this retreat, and many Panamanians make it a holiday resort. At the foot of Ancon Hill, just outside the city of Panama, the Canal Commission have built a magnificent hotel capable of accommodating over three hundred first-class guests. It was opened in time to receive President Roosevelt when he paid his memorable visit to the isthmus in November, 1906, and since then has housed many other distinguished visitors.
CHAPTER V
Of the Labourers on the Isthmus
THE most difficult problem that has to be faced by undertakers of transit and construction schemes in South America is that of labour. The natives of the tropical latitudes have little inclination or incentive to give their time and strength to the furthering of projects that are introduced into their countries, and it has always been necessary to any enterprise on the isthmus requiring a large labour force to import men from other places.
The first experiment was made many years ago by the early Spanish settlers, who found it impossible in many places to subdue the native Indians. Negroes from Africa were imported, but many of them contrived to escape from the tasks set them by their enterprising masters, and found their way into the country districts and gradually mixed with Indians they fell in with, and so introduced new blood into the original stock of the country. An attempt to introduce labour on to the isthmus of Panama was made by the promoters and builders of the railway with disastrous results.
The Chinese, who prove so efficient as labourers in nearly every other part of the world, were a great disappointment, and although they are to be found to-day on the isthmus in large numbers, they are not employed in any calling that requires great strength and endurance.
The negroes who were imported proved to be the best available labour, and ever since the railway was established the islands in the Caribbean Sea have furnished much of the labour for Panama.