But it is not to be assumed that all the trade, much less all the travel, treasure, and mails to the points which I have indicated, will, under any circumstances, pass through a canal. The passengers between New York and San Francisco, amounting annually to nearly 100,000, would never consent to make a voyage of from 1,000 to 2,000 miles out of their way, to Nicaragua, Panamá, Darien, or Atrato, for the sake of passing through a canal, however grand, when by a simple transshipment at Honduras, for instance, and a transit of 209 miles by railway, they would be able to avoid this long detour, and effect a saving of from 5 to 8 days of time; for even if steamers were to run to any canal which might be opened, and supposing no detention on account of locks or other causes (calculated by Colonel Childs at 2 days), even then it would be necessary for them to stop, for coals and other supplies, more than quadruple the time that would be occupied by the passengers over the railway in effecting their reëmbarkation. And what is true of passengers is equally true of treasure, the mails, and light freight of small bulk and large value.
I do not wish to be understood as arguing against a canal; what I mean to illustrate is this: that, open a canal wherever we may, it will always stand in the same relation to a railway as does the baggage-train to the express. A canal would be chiefly, if not wholly, used by ships and vessels carrying heavy and bulky freights; but as most articles of this kind are kept in stock in all the principal ports of the world, it is not of so much consequence to have rapidity as constancy of supply, and hence, unless the canal shall be constructed so economically as to admit of a moderate tonnage rate, it is not improbable that ships of this kind would find it more economical to follow the routes now open. Squier's States of Cent. America.
In tracing, or attempting to trace, the routes of recent travellers in Darien, there is extraordinary difficulty, although the locality in question does not exceed a space of 40 miles by 30. Strange to say, the routes of the old buccaneers, of Dampier, Ringrose, Sharp, Wafer, and Davis, the inland journey of that remarkable man Paterson, and of the Spanish officer Don Manuel Milla de Santa Ella,[XXXIV-54] can be followed on the old Spanish maps, but not in our modern ones, even the best; while there are no data hitherto published that afford more than a guess at the tracks of modern explorers after leaving the sea-coast. Mr Gisborne has compiled, or rather copied, the principal part of the map, on which he has shown, in red, those portions which he himself saw and was enabled to lay down. No surveyor who reads his Journal and Report can doubt that he has given eye-sketches, aided by compass bearings and estimated distances; but the estimation of a practised eye is not to be undervalued. Dr Cullen can be traced up the Tuyra to Yavisa, and up the Paya; also up the Savana, but no farther inland.
The state of our geographical knowledge of that exceedingly interesting region is the following:
All examinations, all surveys, of the Great Isthmus were made by Spain alone, while she held the country (till the years 1821-31). Very good maps of much of the Spanish territory existed at that time; but they have been copied and recopied by all manner of hands; scales and bearings have been altered, not intentionally, but by mistake; names omitted or misspelled; and absolute longitudes applied erroneously. Thus good original work came to be so deteriorated by its transmutations as to be almost useless.
No surveys need be better than some of the Spanish works undertaken toward the end of the last and during the beginning of this century. Methods and instruments were used by Tofiño, Malaspina, Espinosa, Bauza, Córdova, and others, that were not adopted, if known, by French or English surveyors until afterward. Triangulation without the compass, bases obtained by angular measurements of known objects,[XXXIV-55] and the most perfect style of plan-drawing on true principles, were practised by Spaniards before this century commenced.
The south coast of the Great Isthmus and the interior of Darien were not explored and mapped sufficiently, because of the hostile Indians, and political reasons connected with the gold mines in that district. There was also another source of error in that particular vicinity which has only recently been eliminated; namely, the great difference of longitudes, according to the maps, between places on opposite sides of the Isthmus which are really in the same meridian. This amounted to more than 30 miles along all the coast from Chiriquí to Darien with respect to the corresponding southern coast-line.
Thanks to the far-seeing and indefatigable hydrographer to the admiralty, Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort, the British surveys have included much of the coasts of Central America, and they are now placed in relatively correct positions on our latest maps. Having therefore exact coast-lines, or boundaries, we can avail ourselves more readily of much Spanish interior detail; but it is exceedingly difficult to get at the original works.
A very neatly engraved and apparently complete map of the Isthmus has been lately published at New Orleans by Dr Autenreith, but in reality it is only a copy of Spanish documents and recent surveys made by England; it is not an original work. There are in this country at present more materials for a map of Darien than exist elsewhere. Bauza brought copies of all the Spanish-American documents to this country, with many original maps; but there is still a great extent, nearly all the interior of the Isthmus of Darien, unexamined by the eye of a surveyor.
In the last century (1780), a Spanish party of five engineers and surveyors, under Donoso, escorted by a large body of troops,[XXXIV-56] was stopped by the Indians in the Chucunaque River, and obliged to return without executing their orders to survey the region near Caledonian harbor; and this was the last attempt by Spain, or by any one, to make a regular survey of the interior of that part of the Isthmus.