While the sail through the great canal will be an extraordinary delight, the railroad ride will also afford much pleasure. On leaving Colon the line passes various docks, the Government printing plant, the marine shop and dry dock at Mount Hope, and the main storehouse of supplies for canal and railroad. On the east side of the railroad, opposite the warehouse, is Mount Hope Cemetery, where many French and others are buried, on a knoll which for a time was called Monkey Hill on account of the many monkeys there. These creatures are found in the woods all over the Isthmus. Stone piers which may be seen on the east beyond Mindi were erected by the French for a viaduct with the design of relocating the railroad. This, obviously necessary for the Americans, has been accomplished at a cost of nearly $9,000,000. In the swamp lands along here much papyrus is growing.
New Gatun. From Colon to Gatun a distance of 7 miles the track rises 95 feet. New Gatun, on the hill, is a village but a few years old, the site of the ancient town now being covered by the dam. In 1904 Gatun was a busy place on the Chagres River, where sometimes 100 dugouts loaded with bananas would tie at the bank, and seven or eight car loads a week would be shipped. In former days the railroad followed up the Chagres Valley, but now it is obliged to turn east to make a detour around the lake. It is desirable to alight here to examine the locks and if possible the spillway. Along the edge of the lock walls may be seen the cog rail for the towing locomotives, and farther back the return track without center cog. Tall concrete columns along the top of the walls are the standards for electric lights to illuminate the locks. Tall towers, apparently light houses, are range lights on the center lines of the straight stretches of the canal, so that a vessel lining up with the tower would know it was on the center line of the canal. From the building on Gatun hill containing the office of the Division Engineer may be had the best view of the canal obtainable from any one point. Northward are the waters of Limon Bay; and the masts of shipping at Colon harbor are visible. Close at hand are the locks and dam and a broad stretch of the lake.
Leaving Gatun the new road turns east along Gatun ridge, then south with pretty glimpses of the jungle, crossing the Gatun Valley to Monte Lirio. From this point it skirts the east shore of the lake to Bas Obispo at the beginning of the Culebra Cut. Several immense embankments were necessary to cross the Gatun Valley section above the surface of the lake, and others were made for dumping the spoil from Culebra Cut near its north end. Half a mile beyond Monte Lirio the railroad crosses the Gatun River by a steel girder bridge 318 feet long, built in three spans, one of which may be lifted to permit access by boat to the upper arm of the lake. Another steel girder bridge, one-quarter of a mile long, crosses the Chagres River at Gamboa, with the channel span a 200-foot truss, the other fourteen, plate girder spans, each 80 feet long. From this bridge, at the north end of which a new town-site has been laid out, a glimpse of the northern end of Culebra Cut may be had. It was originally expected to carry the road through the Cut, 10 feet above the water level, but the slides making this impracticable, the relocation has been made by cutting through a ridge of solid rock and working around east of Gold Hill, passing Culebra at a distance of 2 miles. Then the track runs down the Pedro Miguel Valley to Pedro Miguel Station, where it is within 300 feet of the locks. The highest elevation of the track is 270 feet above the sea about opposite Las Cascadas. The Continental Divide is crossed 240 feet above the sea in about the same line as Culebra.
Journeying by the new road from Gatun, the old traveler or resident will miss some familiar names, the bearers of which, if not concealed under water, are now remote and vanishing. Lion and Tiger Hills were small hamlets, but Bohio was quite a place, where the French had a machine shop. It was once considered as a possible site for the locks and dam. Frijoles (beans) and Tabernilla have been places of some importance and Gorgona of more, because here were the American machine shops, now removed to Balboa. The place with the peculiar name Matachin, which everybody remembered, will not be covered over with water, but like others farther on will relapse into a small hamlet. The prevalent notion that this name was derived from matar, to kill, and Chino, and was applied on account of the wholesale deaths of Chinese is incorrect. It is the Spanish word meaning a dance by grotesque figures.
Bas Obispo beyond Gamboa is one of the old places still visible, at the north end of the Culebra Cut. Near by, December 12, 1908, occurred the greatest accident in the construction of the Canal when 44,000 pounds of 45 per cent dynamite which had been packed into fifty-three holes were set off by the explosion of one, as the last hole was being tamped. As the hour was 11.10 many men were passing home to lunch. The hillside, falling into the Cut, as had been planned for a later hour, buried several men, and others were struck by flying rock. In all twenty-six were killed and a dozen permanently maimed. Near Bas Obispo is Camp Elliott, where a battalion of marines has long been stationed.
Empire. Las Cascadas, where once a stream tumbled down a precipice 40 feet towards the Chagres, formerly came next, then Empire, one of the largest of the Canal villages. Here the French began excavations in the Cut, as previously mentioned, January 20, 1882, before a large assemblage of officials of the Canal Company and of Panama. The work was blessed by the Bishop and the too common champagne celebrated the occasion.
Culebra was the real capital of the Zone after John F. Stevens in 1906 moved his quarters there from Ancon. Here has been the home and office of Col. Goethals, the head of everything, and of other prominent officials. In 1908 Culebra had a population of 5516, but is now much smaller. The side of the hill towards the Cut has been gradually slipping away, taking a part of the village, but so slowly that the houses were first removed to the rear slopes.
The average depth of the Cut through its nine miles of length is 120 feet. The heaviest point is near Culebra village between Gold Hill on the east side and Contractors’ Hill on the west, where the depth averages 375 feet. The summit of Gold Hill is 660 feet above the sea, of Contractors’ Hill, 410 feet. Beyond Gold Hill is the troublesome Cucuracha slide, though the largest is the one at the Culebra village on the west. One slide here involved 1,550,000 cubic yards. At this point the Cut is about 2000 feet across. The dwellings of the employees here, as at Christobal and all along the line, look very pretty and comfortable with their screened verandas. Market facilities have been good with prices generally lower than at home for meat and other things brought in cold storage from the States. The climate is not objectionable to the majority, and many will be grieved, when, the Canal being finished and only a select few remaining for its service, they shall be obliged to return home again. Some, no doubt, being now weaned from excessive affection for one particular spot, will go on to other parts of Spanish America. There, intelligent men of the right spirit, who have saved a portion of their earnings, will find agreeable opportunities for work and for investments of various kinds.
Beyond Pedro Miguel is the Miraflores Lake and the two Miraflores locks by which the ships reach sea level again. After passing through a concrete lined tunnel 736 feet long, Ancon Hill, overlooking the Pacific entrance to the Canal, is straight ahead. One more station, Corozal, headquarters of the Pacific Division, and the city of Panama is reached.