A Tour Through South America

by A. S. Forrest

The early years of the next century saw the first of a number of explorations with the object of determining the most favourable point, and in 1827 Bolivar, the liberator of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru from the yoke of Spain, commissioned Captain Lloyd and M. Falmarc to survey the isthmus. It seems but natural that these two explorers should start from Panama and follow the old road to Cruces. From that point they worked their way down the River Chagres to within a few miles of where it empties itself into the Atlantic.

Their observations led them to the opinion that a canal scheme was premature, and for immediate purposes they recommended a combined rail and water route, by means of a short canal from Limon Bay to the Chagres River, and the use of its tributary the Trinidad, to a spot favourable for a junction whence a railway could be established to the Pacific coast either at Panama or Chorrera. It is curious how subsequent events have endorsed the ideas of these two men, and that developments have followed so closely upon the lines they suggested, by the construction, in the first instance, of a railway the whole distance from Limon Bay to Panama, and then by the present undertaking of a canal to follow almost the same route.

Whether Bolivar purposed carrying out the ideas of the pioneers he sent forth, or was merely calculating possibilities, was never known; for by one of those frequent internal rearrangements which afflict South American republics, New Granada separated from Colombia and formed itself into an independent state.

Thirty years before Bolivar had instigated a survey for canal purposes in the Central American isthmus, Napoleon I had ordered a survey of the Isthmus of Suez with the idea of connecting by canal the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. Possibly this was the origin of the fascination which canal building seems ever since to have exercised over certain minds in France.

The New Granada State had not been long in existence as a separate national entity, ere a French company succeeded in obtaining from its Government a concession for the construction of highways, railroads, or canals, from Panama to the Atlantic coast.

The surveys and plans made by this company during the following years were characteristically optimistic and included a claim to have discovered a route which at no point would reach a higher altitude than thirty-seven feet above the mean level of the Pacific Ocean. Such was the interest aroused in France by this alleged discovery, that M. Guizot, at that time Minister of Foreign Affairs, despatched Napoleon Garella to verify the company’s statements by an independent survey. His survey and report thereon were so much at variance with the statements of the Salomon Company, and his inability to discover the pass through the divide (which they asserted to exist) had such an effect on the prospects of the company as led to its dissolution.

Garella, however, agreed largely with Lloyd’s conclusions, particularly as to the desirability of making Limon Bay the Atlantic terminus of a canal; and his proposition was for a summit level waterway, reached on either side by a series of locks.

Lloyd’s observations had also been proved reliable by the confirmation of Mr. Wheelwright, whose survey was made on behalf of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company trading between Panama and the ports on the Pacific coast. At this time the Atlantic port of the isthmus was Chagres, at the mouth of the river of the same name, to and from which the trade was conducted by the vessels of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, who reopened a line of communication which had been practically abandoned since the Spanish occupation of the isthmus. Anxious to improve their route and add security to the transit of merchandise across the isthmus, this company instructed their colonial superintendent, Captain Liot, R.N., “to obtain such information as might be useful in guiding the directors to a sound opinion as to the practicability of influencing the transit of passengers, specie, etc., between Europe, North America, and the Pacific, making the same pass through the Isthmus of Panama instead of by the route round Cape Horn.”

Captain Liot spent a month in exploring the isthmus in company with Mr. McGeachy, the Crown Surveyor of Jamaica. On his return to England he was deputed by a number of commercial magnates in the City of London to ascertain whether the British Government of the day were willing to afford such guarantees and immunities as would secure a transit company against undue risk, should such a corporation decide to establish a macadamised carriage road, or railroad, from Porto Bello to Panama. The Government discouraged the idea, and the project was abandoned; but Captain Liot subsequently published his manuscript containing his impressions and views, and these are interesting reading, were it only for his striking prediction that, for at least half a century to come, a railway or carriage road were the only two propositions that would pay. The interest aroused at this time in the idea of inter-oceanic communication is evidenced by the Bulwer-Clayton Treaty of 1850, by which the Governments of Great Britain and the United States pledged themselves to do all in their power to facilitate the construction of a canal, and to maintain its neutrality when constructed. During the early fifties the attention of American engineers was more particularly directed to two canal routes farther north, one of which was across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, by way of the Coatzacoalcas River.

Not unknown to Cortez, this route had been surveyed in 1842 by Moro, under the direction of José de Garay, whose scheme for a canal in this district involved a waterway of one hundred and fifty miles in length.