But my researches have not been confined to books. Aside from the important facts obtained directly from the lips of intelligent natives and other persons conversant with Central American and Panamanian affairs, I have had before me presidential messages, reports of ministers and other officials of the several states, U. S. govt reports, official journals, statements of explorers and surveyors, cyclopædias, magazines, reviews, and a host of newspapers of different countries and in various languages, among which special credit should be given to the Star and Herald of Panamá for an ever well-informed and reliable gatherer and transmitter of news to and from the countries on both oceans over this bridge of the nations. Important data, wheresoever found, have been brought into requisition.
[XXXIV-48] 'Mr. Hopkins,' says Capt Fitzroy, p. 23, 'was lately prevented by the Indians from ascending the Chepo River toward Mandinga or San Blas Bay; Mr Wheelwright was also stopped there in 1837; and Dr Cullen was likewise stopped by the aborigines while endeavoring to ascend the Paya River, that runs from near the mouths of the Atrato to the Tuyra, which falls into the gulf of San Miguel.'
I learned in Darien that Mr Hopkins and Don Pepe Hurtado, a Granadian engineer, made a present of a scarlet military coat to an Indian on the Chepo, and that as soon as the Indian chief of the district learned it, he flogged the Indian who accepted the present, and summoned his people to arms, and Mr H. and Don Pepe had to fly for their lives. Most probably the chief looked upon the acceptance of gaudy trappings as an acknowledgment of submission to foreigners. I have mentioned elsewhere my having learned subsequently that the reason of the Indians having stopped me was the fear of small-pox being introduced amongst them rather than any dislike to foreigners.
[XXXIV-49] This I attribute to the jealousy of the Spaniards, who were careful to withhold any information that might lead the English to the discovery of an easy communication between the two seas. Alcedo, in his Diccionario Histórico de las Indias Occidentales, says that it was interdicted, on pain of death, even to propose opening the navigation between the two seas. 'En tiempo de Felipe II. se proyectó cortarlo, y comunicar los dos mares por medio de un canal, y á este efecto se enviaron para reconocerlo dos Ingenieros Flamencos, pero encontraron dificultades insuperables, y el consejo de Indias representò los perjuicios que de ello se seguirían á la monarquia, por cuya razon mandò aquel Monarca que nadie propusièse ó tratase de ello en adelante, pena de la vida.' The navigation of the Atrato also was interdicted, on pain of death.
[XXXIV-50] In its upper course, as it is navigable for large vessels nearly to Príncipe.
[XXXIV-51] 'It is ascertained,' says Captain Fitzroy, 'that there is only a trifling difference between the levels of the ocean at this Isthmus. A rise of tide not exceeding two feet is found on the Atlantic side, while in Panama Bay the tide rises more than eighteen feet; the mean level of the Pacific in this particular place being two or three feet above that of the Atlantic. It is high water at the same hour in each ocean.'
Colonel Lloyd says that the Pacific at high water is thirteen feet higher than the Atlantic, while the Atlantic is highest at low water by six feet. Baron Humboldt said, in 1809: 'The difference of level between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean does not, probably, exceed nine feet; and at different hours in the day, sometimes one sea, sometimes the other, is the more elevated.' But this difference would be no hindrance, but, on the contrary, a most important advantage in a ship-canal, since it would create a current from the Atlantic to the Pacific during the ebb, and one from the Pacific to the Atlantic during the flood-tide of the Pacific, and these alternate currents would enable each of the fleets to pass through at different times, those bound from the Atlantic to the Pacific during the ebb-tide of the latter, and those from the Pacific to the Atlantic during the flood-tide of the former. This arrangement in the periods of transit would afford many advantages, such as obviating the meeting of the vessels, and the necessity of their passing one another, and preventing their accumulation or crowding together in the canal, as each fleet could be carried right through in one tide, if not by the current alone, at least with the aid of tug steamers. The alternation of the currents would have the further beneficial effect of washing out the bed of the canal, and keeping it free from the deposition of sand or mud, so that dredging would never become necessary; and would also render the degree of width necessary for the canal less; though I do not reckon this to be a point of moment, as the wider and deeper it is cut the better, and the work once finished will last to the end of the world, since the natural effect of the alternate currents will be a gradual process of deepening and widening, which will convert the canal into a strait.
[XXXIV-52] And subsequent months, in a controversy with Evan Hopkins, Esq., C. E. & M. E.
[XXXIV-53] Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala, by G. A. Thompson. London, 1829, p. 512.
[XXXIV-54] March 13, 1788.