History of Central America, Volume 3, 1801-1887 / The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume 8

by Hubert Howe Bancroft

Costa Rica, thus far, has three lines, or rather divisions or sections; namely, the Central, running between San Jose and the interior provinces, via Cartago, Heredia, Alajuela, Tres Rios, and San Joaquin; the Atlantic, from Limon to the interior, which is the route through which most of the country's foreign trade is carried on; and the Pacific which runs from Puntarenas to Esparta.[XXXIV-45]

TELEGRAPH LINES.

The five Central American republics are intersected by telegraph lines belonging to their respective governments, and communicating their chief towns with one another within themselves, and with the sister republics.[XXXIV-46] The isthmus of Panamá has a communication by submarine cable with Central America and Mexico at the port of La Libertad and Acapulco. The cities of Panamá and Colon are in direct communication by wire. The Isthmus is further connected by cable, on the Pacific, with Peru, via Buenaventura, which also places it in telegraphic communication with Bogotá and the rest of Colombia. A cable to Jamaica affords another connection, via Cuba, with the United States and Europe.[XXXIV-47]

The question of interoceanic communication by ship-canal across the isthmuses of Central America occupying, as it does, general attention, I have concluded to append hereto information on the subject by several competent authorities; namely, the British explorer, Dr Edward Cullen, and E. George Squier.

Ignorance respecting Darien.—It is a very singular circumstance that the coast of Darien, the first settled in America (Santa Maria having been founded in 1509, and Acla in Caledonia Bay in 1514), within eighteen days' steaming from England, close also to such frequented ports as Chagres, Carthagena, and Kingston, Jamaica, should be at the present day as unknown as the coasts of Patagonia or of New Guinea, and that the vast advantages of this tract of country, for a canal, should have escaped the penetration of the great Humboldt, who, after having examined all the maps in the Depósito Hidrográfico of Madrid, appears to suggest the Chuquanaqua. He says: 'On the Pacific coast, also, the deep Golfo de San Miguel, into which falls the Tuyra with its tributary, the Chuchunque, runs far into the Isthmus; the river Chuchunque, too, in the upper part of its course, runs within sixteen geographical miles of the Antillean shore of the Isthmus, westward of Cape Tiburon.' Views of Nature, Potsdam, June 1849, p. 432 of Bohn's translation.

The Atrato route labors under the disadvantage of a bad harbor, on the Pacific side, Cupica being of very small extent, and open to the s. w.; and the Atrato has a bar with only five feet of water on it, while the rise of tide in the Gulf of Darien is only two feet.

The Chagres, or Limon Bay and Panama route, surveyed in 1829 by Col Lloyd and M. Falmarc, under a commission from the Liberator, Simon Bolívar, and subsequently by M. Garella, has such bad harbors that the idea of a canal by that line has been totally abandoned.

The route from Chepo mouth to Mandinga Bay, proposed by Mr Evan Hopkins,[XXXIV-48] who attempted to survey it in 1847, for the New Granada government, although the narrowest line across the Isthmus, being only twenty-seven miles across from Chepo to Carti, has the disadvantages of bad coasts, a very high cordillera, of from 2,000 to 6,000 feet elevation, and a large population of Indians.

The bar at the mouth of Chepo River is quite dry at low water, as is also a sand bank which extends several miles out into the bay of Panamá; the part of the Atlantic coast on the other side is beset with reefs, shoals, and kays, and is dangerous of approach.

Capt Fitzroy, R. N., in his Considerations upon the Great Isthmus of Central America, suggests a line from the upper course of the Tuyra to the Atrato, or the coast of Darien above its mouth, as an improvement of the route proposed by me; but this would be nearly twice the distance of the Port Escocés, and gulf of San Miguel route; there would be the mountain of Chacargun or the Sierra de Maly to cross, and should the canal open into the Atrato, there would be the very formidable obstacle of the bar to remove, while of the coast above the Atrato mouth, the Columbian Navigator says: 'All this coast from Tarena Kays to Cape Tiburon is high and precipitous, with deep water off it; and it is very wild in the season of the breezes. It is very advisable, therefore, at these seasons, to shun it.' Any route, however, in this direction, would be included in the privilege granted, on the 1st of June, 1852, by the New Granada government, to Edward Cullen, Charles Fox, John Henderson, and Thomas Brassey, for cutting a canal from Port Escocés to the gulf of San Miguel, which gives power to select any place from the west mouth of the Atrato to Punta Mosquitos, for the Atlantic entrance of the canal.