The West Indies and the Spanish Main

by Anthony Trollope

There is a cathedral here also, and I presume a bishop. The former is built after the Spanish fashion, and boasts a so-called handsome, large, marble pulpit. That it is large and marble, I confess; but I venture to question its claims to the other epithet. There are pictures also in the cathedral; of spirits in a state of torture certainly; and if I rightly remember of beatified spirits also. But in such pictures the agonies of the damned always excite more attention and a keener remembrance than the ecstasies of the blest. I cannot say that the artist had come up either to the spirit of Fra Angelico, or to the strength of Orcagna.

At Cartagena I encountered a family of native ladies and gentlemen, who were journeying from Bogotá to Peru. Looking at the map, one would say that the route from Bogotá to Buena-ventura on the Pacific was both easy and short. The distance as the crow flies—the condor I should perhaps more properly say—would not be much over two hundred miles. And yet this family, of whom one was an old woman, had come down to Cartagena, having been twenty days on the road, having from thence a long sea journey to the isthmus, thence the passage over it to Panamá, and then the journey down the Pacific! The fact of course is that there are no means of transit in the country except on certain tracks, very few in number; and that even on these all motion is very difficult. Bogotá is about three hundred and seventy miles from Cartagena, and the journey can hardly be made in less than fourteen days.

From Cartagena I went on to the isthmus; the Isthmus of Panamá, as it is called by all the world, though the American town of Aspinwall will gradually become the name best known in connexion with the passage between the two oceans.

This passage is now made by a railway which has been opened by an American company between the town of Aspinwall, or Colon, as it is called in England, and the city of Panamá. Colon is the local name for this place, which also bears the denomination of Navy Bay in the language of sailors. But our friends from Yankee-land like to carry things with a high hand, and to have a nomenclature of their own. Here, as their energy and their money and their habits are undoubtedly in the ascendant, they will probably be successful; and the place will be called Aspinwall in spite of the disgust of the New Granadians, and the propriety of the English, who choose to adhere to the names of the existing government of the country.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, and Colon or Aspinwall will be equally vile however you may call it. It is a wretched, unhealthy, miserably situated but thriving little American town, created by and for the railway and the passenger traffic which comes here both from Southampton and New York. That from New York is of course immensely the greatest, for this is at present the main route to San Francisco and California.

I visited the place three times, for I passed over the isthmus on my way to Costa Rica, and on my return from that country I went again to Panamá, and of course back to Colon. I can say nothing in its favour. My only dealing there was with a washerwoman, and I wish I could place before my readers a picture of my linen in the condition in which it came back from that artist's hands. I confess that I sat down and shed bitter tears. In these localities there are but two luxuries of life, iced soda-water and clean shirts. And now I was debarred from any true enjoyment of the latter for more than a fortnight.

The Panamá railway is certainly a great fact, as men now-a-days say when anything of importance is accomplished. The necessity of some means of passing the isthmus, and the question as to the best means, has been debated since, I may say, the days of Cortes. Men have foreseen that it would become a necessity to the world that there should be some such transit, and every conceivable point of the isthmus has, at some period or by some nation, been selected as the best for the purpose. This railway is certainly the first that can be regarded as a properly organized means of travelling; and it may be doubted whether it will not remain as the best, if not the only permanent mode of transit.

Very great difficulty was experienced in erecting this line. In the first place, it was necessary that terms should be made with the government of the country through which the line should pass, and to effect this it was expedient to hold out great inducements. Among the chief of these is an understanding that the whole line shall become the absolute property of the New Granadian government when it shall have been opened for forty-nine years. But who can tell what government will prevail in New Granada in forty-nine years? It is not impossible that the whole district may then be an outlying territory belonging to the United States. At any rate, I should imagine that it is very far from the intention of the American company to adhere with rigid strictness to this part of the bargain. Who knows what may occur between this and the end of the century?

And when these terms were made there was great difficulty in obtaining labour. The road had to be cut through one continuous forest, and for the greater part of the way along the course of the Chagres river. Nothing could be more unhealthy than such work, and in consequence the men died very rapidly. The high rate of wages enticed many Irishmen here, but most of them found their graves amidst the works. Chinese were tried, but they were quite inefficacious for such labour, and when distressed had a habit of hanging themselves. The most useful men were to be got from the coast round Cartagena, but they were enticed thither only by very high pay.

The whole road lies through trees and bushes of thick tropical growth, and is in this way pretty and interesting. But there is nothing wonderful in the scenery, unless to one who has never before witnessed tropical forest scenery. The growth here is so quick that the strip of ground closely adjacent to the line, some twenty yards perhaps on each side, has to be cleared of timber and foliage every six months. If left for twelve months the whole would be covered with thick bushes, twelve feet high. At intervals of four and a half miles there are large wooden houses—pretty-looking houses they are, built with much taste,—in each of which a superintendent with a certain number of labourers resides. These men are supplied with provisions and all necessaries by the company. For there are no villages here in which workmen can live, no shops from which they can supply themselves, no labour which can be hired as it may be wanted.