The West Indies and the Spanish Main

by Anthony Trollope

From this it may be imagined that the line is maintained at a great cost. But, nevertheless, it already pays a dividend of twelve and a half per cent. So much at least is acknowledged; but those who pretend to understand the matter declare that the real profit accruing to the shareholders is hardly less than five-and-twenty per cent. The sum charged for the passage is extremely high, being twenty-five dollars, or five pounds for a single ticket. The distance is under fifty miles. And there is no class but the one. Everybody passing over the isthmus, if he pay his fare, must pay twenty-five dollars. Steerage passengers from New York to San Francisco are at present booked through for fifty dollars. This includes their food on the two sea voyages, which are on an average of about eleven days each. And yet out of this fifty dollars twenty-five are paid to the railway for this conveyance over fifty miles! The charge for luggage, too, is commensurately high. The ordinary kit of a travelling Englishman—a portmanteau, bag, desk, and hat-box—would cost two pounds ten shillings over and above his own fare.

But at the same time, nothing can be more liberal than the general management of the line. On passengers journeying from New York to California, or from Southampton to Chili and Peru, their demand no doubt is very high. But to men of all classes, merely travelling from Aspinwall to Panamá for pleasure—or, apparently, on business, if travelling only between those two places,—free tickets are given almost without restriction. One train goes each way daily, and as a rule most of the passengers are carried free, except on those days when packets have arrived at either terminus. On my first passage over I paid my fare, for I went across with other passengers out of the mail packet. But on my return the superintendent not only gave me a ticket, but asked me whether I wanted others for any friends. The line is a single line throughout.

Panamá has doubtless become a place of importance to Englishmen and Americans, and its name is very familiar to our ears. But nevertheless it is a place whose glory has passed away. It was a large Spanish town, strongly fortified, with some thirty thousand inhabitants. Now its fortifications are mostly gone, its churches are tumbling to the ground, its old houses have so tumbled, and its old Spanish population has vanished. It is still the chief city of a State, and a congress sits there. There is a governor and a judge, and there are elections; but were it not for the passengers of the isthmus there would soon be but little left of the city of Panamá.

Here the negro race abounds, and among the common people the negro traits are stronger and more marked than those either of the Indians or Spaniards. Of Spanish blood among the natives of the surrounding country there seems to be but little. The negroes here are of course free, free to vote for their own governors, and make their own laws; and consequently they are often very troublesome, the country people attacking those in the town, and so on. "And is justice ultimately done on the offenders?" I asked. "Well, sir; perhaps not justice. But some notice is taken; and the matter is smoothed over." Such was the answer.

There is a Spanish cathedral here also, in which I heard a very sweet-toned organ, and one magnificent tenor voice. The old church buildings still standing here are not without pretence, and are interesting from the dark tawny colour of the stone, if from no other cause. I should guess them to be some two centuries old. Their style in many respects resembles that which is so generally odious to an Englishman's eye and ear, under the title of Renaissance. It is probably an offshoot of that which is called Plateresque in the south of Spain.

During the whole time that I was at Panamá the thermometer stood at something above ninety. In Calcutta I believe it is often as high as one hundred and ten, so that I have no right to speak of the extreme heat. But, nevertheless, Panamá is supposed to be one of the hottest places in the western world; and I was assured, while there, that weather so continuously hot for the twenty-four hours had not been known during the last nine years. The rainy season should have commenced by this time—the early part of May. But it had not done so; and it appeared that when the rain is late, that is the hottest period of the whole year.

The heat made me uncomfortable, but never made me ill. I lost all pleasure in eating, and indeed in everything else. I used to feel a craving for my food, but no appetite when it came. I was lethargic, as though from repletion, when I did eat, and was always glad when my watch would allow me to go to bed. But yet I was never ill.

The country round the town is pretty, and very well adapted for riding. There are large open savanahs which stretch away for miles and miles, and which are kept as grazing-farms for cattle. These are not flat and plain, but are broken into undulations, and covered here and there with forest bushes. The horses here are taught to pace, that is, move with the two off legs together and then with the two near legs. The motion is exceedingly gentle, and well fitted for this hot climate, in which the rougher work of trotting would be almost too much for the energies of debilitated mankind. The same pace is common in Cuba, Costa Rica, and other Spanish countries in the west.

Off from Panamá, a few miles distant in the western ocean, there are various picturesque islands. On two of these are the depôts of two great steam-packet companies, that belonging to the Americans which carries on the trade to California, and an English company whose vessels run down the Pacific to Peru and Chili. I visited Toboga, in which are the head-quarters of the latter. Here I found a small English maritime colony, with a little town of their own, composed of captains, doctors, engineers, officers, artificers, and sailors, living together on the company's wages, and as regards the upper classes, at tables provided by the company. But I saw there no women of any description. I beg therefore to suggest to the company that their servants would probably be much more comfortable if the institution partook less of the monastic order.

If, as is probable, this becomes one of the high-roads to Australia, then another large ship company will have to fix its quarters here.