The West Indies and the Spanish Main

by Anthony Trollope

The name of canals projected across the isthmus has been legion, and the merits of them all have in their time been hotly pressed by their special advocates. That most to the north, which was the passage selected by Cortes, and pressed by him on the Spanish government, would pass through Mexico. The line would be from the Gulf of Campechay, up the river Coatzacoalcoz, to Tehuantepec, on the Pacific. This was advocated as lately as 1845, but has now, I believe, been abandoned as impracticable. Going south down the map, the next proposition of which I can find mention is for a canal from the head of the Lake of Dulce through the state of Guatemala; the Lake or Gulf of Dulce being at the head of the Gulf of Honduras. This also seems to have been abandoned. Then we come to the proposed Honduras railway, of which mention has been made.

Next below this we reach a cluster of canals, all going through the great inland lake of Nicaragua. This scheme, or one of these schemes, has also been in existence since the times of the early Spaniards; and has been adhered to with more or less pertinacity ever since. This Lake of Nicaragua was to be reached either direct by the river San Juan, or by entering the river San Juan from the ocean by the river Colorado, which is in effect a branch of the San Juan; the projected canal would thus ascend to the lake. From thence to the Pacific various passages for egress have been suggested; at first it was intended, naturally, to get out at the nearest practicable point, that being probably at San Juan del Sur. They have San Juans and San Josés quite at pleasure about these countries.

Then came the grand plan of the present French emperor, bearing at least his name, and first published, I think, in 1846; this was a very grand plan, of course. The route of "transit" was to be right up the Lake of Nicaragua to its northern point; there the canal was to enter the River Tipitapa, and come out again in the northern Lake of Managua; from thence it was to be taken out to the Pacific at the port of Realejo. This project included the building of an enormous city, which was to contain the wealth of the new world, and to be, as it were, a new Constantinople between the two lakes; but the scheme has been abandoned as being too costly, too imperial.

And now we have M. Belly's scheme; his scheme and pamphlet of which I will say a few words just now, and therefore I pass on to the others.

The line of the River Chargres, and from thence to the town of Panama—being very nearly the line of the present railway—was long contemplated with favour, but has now been abandoned as impracticable; as has also the line over the Isthmus of Darien, which was for a while thought to be the most feasible, as being the shortest. The lie of the land, however, and the nature of the obstacles to be overcome, have put this scheme altogether out of the question.

Next and last is the course of the River Atrato, which runs into the Gulf of Darien, but which is, in fact, the first of the great rivers of South America; first, that is, counting them as commencing from the isthmus. It runs down from the Andes parallel to the coast of the Pacific, and is navigable for many miles. The necessary surveys, however, for connecting this river with the Pacific have never yet been made; and even if this plan were practicable, the extremely low latitude at which the Pacific ocean would be reached would make such a line bad for our trade, and quite out of the question for the chief portion of the American "transit."

It appears, therefore, that there are insuperable objections to all these canal routes, unless it be to some route passing through the Lake of Nicaragua. By reference to a map of Central America it will be seen that the waters of this lake, joined to those of the San Juan river, comprise the breadth of nearly the whole isthmus, leaving a distance not exceeding twenty miles to be conquered by a canal. At first sight this appears to be very enticing, and M. Belly has been enticed. He has been enticed, or at any rate writes as though this were the case; anything worded more eloquently, energetically, and grandiloquently, than his pamphlet in favour of this route I have not met, even among French pamphlets.

M. Felix Belly describes himself as a "publiciste," and chevalier of the order of Saint Maurice and Lazarus, and of the order of Medjidie. As such he has made a convention with Don Thomas Martinez, President of the republic of Nicaragua, and with Don Juan Rafael Mora, President of the republic of Costa Rica, in accordance with which he, Chevalier Belly, is to cut a canal or water-route for ships through the territories of those potentates, obtaining thereby certain vast privileges, including the possession of no small portion of those territories, and the right of levying all manner of tolls on the world's commerce which is to pass through his canal. And the potentates above named are in return to receive from M. Belly very considerable subsidies out of these tolls. They bind themselves, moreover, to permit no other traffic or transit through their country, securing to M. Belly for ninety-nine years the monopoly of the job; and granting to him the great diplomatic privilege of constituting his canal, let it be here or there, the boundary of the realms of these two potentates.

What strikes me with the greatest wonder on reading—not the pamphlet, for that is perhaps more wonderful in other respects—but the articles of the convention, is, that these three persons, the potentates aforesaid and the chevalier, should have among them the power of doing all this; or that they should even have had the power of agreeing to do all this; for really up to this period one seems hardly to have heard in England much about any one of them.

That there should be presidents of these two republics is supposed, as there are also, doubtless, of San Salvador and Venezuela, and all the other western republics; but it is to be presumed that as presidents of republics they can have themselves no more power to give away a ninety-nine years' possession of their lands and waters than can any other citizen. Mr. Buchanan could hardly sell to any Englishman, however enterprising, the right of making a railway from New York to San Francisco. The convention does certainly bear two other signatures, which purport to be those of the ministers of foreign affairs attached to those two republics; but even this hardly seems to give us a sufficient guarantee of power. What if we should put our money into the canal, and future presidents should refuse to be bound by the agreement?